Family Welcome Letter

Richland Elementary School Library

“Developing Information Literate Students, Inspiring Life-Long Learning & Supporting Teachers and Curriculum at RES!”

Dear Richland Elementary School Students and Families,

My name is Denise Latoche and I am the librarian at Richland Elementary School.  I will be seeing every student in Kindergarten thru Grade 6 during a scheduled library class each week.  Students come to the library with their class and check out books following Richland Elementary School’s A-B-C-D-E schedule.  Your student will receive a calendar each month listing their “specials” schedule.  It can be helpful to post the calendar in an area that is readily visible.  This helps families in knowing when students are scheduled to visit the library and also helps students develop responsibility and independence in returning library books in a timely manner. The daily "letter day" schedule can also be found on the Richland School District website (Richland Elementary School Calendar ).  Please help your student find a safe place to keep library books away from younger siblings, pets and food.  A helpful strategy for returning library books on time, particularly for students  coming to school from multiple households, can be to keep library books in their bookbag or backpack.  After reading or sharing a library book, placing it in the backpack can help keep the books clean, dry and undamaged.  Students will then always have their book for independent reading time during the school day and books will be readily available to return during library class.

Richland Elementary School’s library program serves to instill a love of reading, inspire life-long learning, and foster independent library use in each student.  Students in Grades K-2 are exposed to a wide variety of reading materials through a weekly story read aloud with related literacy activities.  Students in grades 3-6 receive instruction in using the library, grade appropriate and safe web tools for learning, how to access and use information, research and testing skills. 

Many students in grades 4-6 have an Accelerated Reader (AR) requirement as part of their Reading class.  AR is a program that helps teachers manage and monitor students’ independent reading practice. Students choose books at their own level, read it at their own pace and take a short quiz on a device.  Please see the  Accelerated Reader & myON Family Information page of this website for more information about this program.  Each classroom teacher sets their students’ AR requirements.  I can help students find appropriate books which will help them meet those AR requirements.  In addition, students in grades 4-5 may take AR quizzes on the  library computers during “book browsing” time in the library.  There are thousands of books for which AR quizzes are available.  There is a link to the "AR Bookfinder" on the RES Library webpage at www.richlandsd.com.  Students can check if a book they have from somewhere other than the RES Library is an AR book.  Each book’s reading level and point value is also listed.  Students may read books from somewhere other than the RES Library.  I only ask that students bring those books to school with them on library day so they have something to read while other students are exchanging books.  Students may NOT take AR quizzes at home. 

Finally, the RES Library is completely automated.  The electronic catalog, called Destiny , is accessible at home via a link on the Richland Elementary School Library website.  Parents can use Destiny to help their children develop a “wish list” of books they would like to check out of the library.  Destiny gives a short summary of each book as well as Accelerated Reader information for each book. 

I look forward to another productive  year in the library at Richland Elementary School.  Please do not hesitate to call if you have any questions or concerns.   

Ms. Denise Latoche                                                                                          

RES Librarian