Leveling Books

Leveling books (writing a reading level on a book) has fallen out of fashion.  Research increasingly indicates that students need to learn how to choose books on their own reading level without the aid of a leveling system.  I dislike leveling because it limits kids (they often feel 'stuck' on their level, afraid to move up) or become stigmatized by continually having to read books that are clearly marked for younger students.  Also, leveling an entire classroom library takes a long time for the teacher to complete, so I don't recommend it unless your district requires you to do so.  (There are researchers, including Patricia Cunningham, who believe leveling is an appropriate tool for helping kids choose books: here's a free leveling resource if you're interested).

You can, however, give kids a heads-up on the difficulty of a book through a simpler form of 'leveling'.  When I first began teaching, I used sticky dots to indicate the genre of books so students would know where to return them ('CF' for Contemporary Fiction, 'Sci-Fi' for Science Fiction, etc.).  I used green dots for the easiest books in my collection, yellow for the medium, and red for the hardest books I had.  In my experience, students did not restrict themselves to one color, especially when reading conferences were held to monitor book choices and progress (see the Independent Reading page).  Last year I did not explain the color-coding system at all to the class, leaving them to rely soley on strategies such as the 5 Finger Test to determine if a book was right for them, and they managed fine.  Overall, I have found the sticky dot system easy to maintain, and helpful for students without being a crutch that they depend on.

Book Bins and Baskets

Teachers often want to store books on the shelves of their class libraries with the spines facing out, instead of using book bins.  The two most common reasons for this are wanting to save space, and wanting to save money, since teachers generally have to buy their own containers.  Is it really neccesary to have book bins or containers?  My personal answer is, yes, for several reasons.  First of all, containers help children keep the library looking neat and organized.  Secondly, they help kids select books because they can see the covers (this is especially critical for emerging readers, who can't quickly peruse titles on the spines). Third, consumer report studies have proven that books displayed with the covers facing out in bookstores outsell by a huge margin books that are shelved with only their spines visible.  This is an important marketing strategy that we should make use of in the classroom to encourage students to read important and challenging texts: if we want kids to read books, we need to make them look appealing and easily accessible.  Think about what is inviting to you in a bookstore, and try to recreate that in your classroom library, placing emphasis on the books you most want your students to choose.

Here are free, colorful, illustrated labels for your book baskets from various sites:

Our School Family (Kindergarten, thematic)

Kelly's Kindergarten (organized by theme)

Teaching Heart (these are what I used in the photo above- I just typed in the genres I wanted and replaced the pics)

Book Check-Out for Classroom Use

A lot of teachers glue library pockets in the back of their books and have kids check books out that way.  I have hundreds of books and that sounds too daunting of a project for me!  I used a check-out system my first year teaching third grade: the kids filled out a class log indicating which book they had, the date they checked it out, and the date they returned it.  This system was incredibly simple and worked well.  However, I didn't see the need for it in later years.  I figured the advantages of not having to keep track of my books outweighed the possibility of having a few books lost or stolen, so I stopped having any system at all.  I don't allow kids to put my books in their desks because they get ripped or lost (they have book pockets/boxes or a special shelf to keep them on).  I have 'lost' only a handful of books over the years, even when I was teaching in the toughest of neighborhoods.  So my advice to you is: concentrate more on teaching kids to properly handle books and don't worry about a check-out system, unless you can do it in a way that is simple and requires little management.  It's far more likely that your books will get torn up or stained because of improper care than lost altogether. If you have any easy system for book check-outs, please email me!  I did find an interesting idea for check-out from Share2learn.

The photo on the left shows the books that my students are allowed to take home (from the spinning racks).  They are seperate from the books in bins so students clearly understand which books are for home.  Also, my personal books that I paid for have my name on the inside, and the other books are stamped with the school stamp.  The photo on the right shows the home book check-out system.  There are two binders (one for the first ten kids in the class, one for the second half) because many of the children write slowly and this keeps others from having to wait as long for their chance to sign in.  The binders have numbered tabs so that each child has their own section.  The form they fill out is simple: book title and date checked out.  Every other week, I look through the binders and follow up with kids who haven't checked out books recently- I ask if they are still reading it (and if it's not a chapter book, why), and if they have lost it, I send home a note to remind the parents to look for it.  

Teaching Kids How To Properly Handle Books

If you don't model your expectations, your classroom library will soon look like a tornado hit.  You can brainstorm a list of guidelines together as a class, writing them on chart paper.  Review the list daily in August and throughout the year as needed.  If students continually misuse your library, shut it down for a week or so, review procedures, and try again.  If you have problems repeatedly with the whole class, consider changing your organizational system: if it's not child-friendly, the kids won't be able to keep it neat.

Here is an adorable, free printable book from Cherry Carl called Madame Libearian's Guide to the Care and Handling of Books (scroll halfway down the page: it's a PDF file and takes awhile to download, but be patient because it's worth it).

You can also click here for a cute illustrated list of book care guidelines and contract.

Finally, you can look here for some creative click-through online stories for kids on caring for books from an ETL graduate project.

Creative Ways to Give Kids Ownership Over the Classroom Library

-Favorite Authors: Have a ‘Favorite Author’ display with books, book reviews (from newspapers, the internet, and students), the author’s website, etc.  Change the display every few weeks as students’ interests change.  This can be a student-led project with older students.

-Book Talks: A guaranteed way to get children interested in specific books is to do weekly Book Talks, also called ‘Blessing of the Book’.  Choose a book you want kids to get excited about, perhaps from a genre you’ve been studying, or a non-fiction text related to your social studies or science unit.  Read an excerpt, and keep multiple copies of the book available if possible for students to read.

-Student-Led Book Reviews: Kids can also do the book talks or book reviews.  They can be compiled into a class notebook that is saved from year to year for students to reference.  They can see which books were popular years ago, and if you have siblings, they can see what their older sister/brother enjoyed reading when s/he was in your class!

-Book Picks: Another way to get students interested is to have an area displaying student’s favorite book picks.  You can have the class vote on their favorite titles and display the class’ ‘top ten’ or ‘best-seller’.  You can also have students take turns creating a display of their favorite titles, the way librarians and sometimes video rental stores do “__’s Picks”.  Click here for great photos and ideas for Peer Book Recommendations.

-Book Awards: Students can also give awards to books.  Decide on several categories as a class, such as Best Illustrations, Best Series, Best Historical Fiction, Most Humorous, etc.  You can vote on which books get the awards or form committees to select the winners.  Students can design awards (such as the Newberry Medal or Caldecott icons) and place them on the cover of the books.  This gets kids to think critically about what they read and encourages them to read a wider variety of books, both to select title for an award and to see what’s so great about a book that was already awarded.  This strategy is also fantastic for getting kids to distinguish between genre and analyze what makes quality literature/ what makes books appealing when they determine the criteria for winning an award.  You can incorporate persuasive writing, have kids make commercials or ads for the books they want to win, discuss point of view/ perspective… the list is endless.  Give the idea to the kids and see where they take it!  Mrs. Newington's class creates "Newi"berry Book Awards- so creative!

-Student-Authored Books:  Books that students have made and class-created books are always popular and motivating for students to read.