The student promotes reading for learning, personal growth, and enjoyment.
Although all librarians deal with reading in some aspect of their profession, it is of particular importance to school librarians, because we are the ones responsible for shaping children into readers.
Reading has been and will always be at the core of everything we do as school librarians. The ability to read is one of the key indicators of whether a student will achieve success in school and later in life, as outlined in the Common Beliefs of AASL’s Standards for the 21st Century Learner (AASL, 2009).
School librarians are tasked with a number of roles when it comes to supporting students’ as they become readers and help them build their skills and enjoyment of reading throughout their time in school. The American Association of School Librarians published a Position Statement on the School Librarian’s Role in Reading that outlines some of the We serve as not just promoters of books, but as partners in literacy instruction with classroom teachers, working to build literacy through both classroom and library instruction and across all content subject areas(AASL, 2016). It is our job to provide access to reading material for all students, specifically to a variety of high quality materials in multiple formats that support curriculum needs and students’ personal interests (AASL, 2016). We work with classroom teachers to improve and enhance reading instruction throughout all subject areas, integrating reading skills into the curriculum in numerous ways. We organize, promote, and lead literacy events and projects to inspire a love of reading and lifelong learning; regardless of a student’s situation outside of school, we believe that all students can be readers and succeed as 21st century learners.
Being so involved in the process of creating readers, it is absolutely imperative that school librarians stay up-to-date and knowledge about current research on reading. Identifying the best research-supported methods for teaching reading helps improve our instruction and in turn makes our students better readers. For many years it was believed that direct instruction in phonics and reading comprehension was the best way to improve students’ reading ability, but research has shown that a mixture of direct instruction and free voluntary reading actually has better results(Krashen, 2004). Students show more interest and motivation to read when they are allowed a choice in what they reading, without teacher-enforced limits on genre, reading level, or format.
It is thus the role of librarian not just to advocate for student choice in reading, but to provide a school library collection that is diverse and meets a wide variety of student interests. Nonfiction collections should be thorough and relevant to both curriculum needs and student interests, while fiction collections should feature books with diverse characters that students can relate to. Providing access to multiple formats of reading material, including ebooks, audiobooks, graphic novels, and magazines, will also help bring the enjoyment of reading to more students.
There are a number of reasons to include materials in multiple formats in a school library collection. In some cases, it is an issue of accessibility; ebooks can be a good resource in a school where students have frequent access to technology and can read on a device when they have free time in class. For students with visual impairment, most ebooks can now be read on devices that allow the reader to enlarge text or follow along with audio narration. Traditional audiobooks can serve a similar purpose, and also help English-language-learners who tend to pick up the ability to listen to English before their ability to read it catches up.
Although many adults consider graphic novels and comics to be inferior to books, as a school librarian I recognize the value in these materials. Students who read graphic novels are still building critical thinking skills and improving their literacy. Graphic novels can be particularly effective for struggling readers and English-language-learners, because they are able to follow a familiar story structure and interpret illustrations while learning new vocabulary words. Beyond the technical skill-building aspect, many students just enjoy reading graphic novels, and there is no reason I can think of for denying students the chance to read something that they enjoy.
Throughout my time in the MLIS program and my work in schools, there are a number of ways I have tried to promote reading to students. Some methods are informal: letting students see you reading, talking with them briefly about the books they are checking out or looking for, and providing comfortable spaces for them to read. Other strategies have come through in the assignments completed for the courses I have taken.
In both materials classes, LIS 617: Materials for Children and LIS 618: Materials for Adolescents, we were introduced to book talks: short comments about a book intended to spark the listener’s interest and convince them to try the book. A key element of book talks is understanding your audience, knowing what appeals to them. For 617, this meant knowing what children like to read, the genres and writing styles that are most enjoyable to them. I chose to create a book talk for middle grades(ages 10-13), and knowing that many children at that age enjoy somewhat scary, spooky books, I selected 3 books that I discussed in the video below.
Creating book talks for teens can be a bit more difficult. Teenagers read for enjoyment but they also have a tendency to read for self-discovery, to tackle difficult and controversial subjects through the protective shield of fiction. Knowing this, I decided to talk about three books that deal with the topic of mental illness for LIS 618, knowing that it is a subject that many teens are interested in but may be uncomfortable asking the librarian about. That book talk video is also provided below.
In addition to booktalks and other strategies for promoting reading, during my first practicum I taught a lesson to a 2nd grade class to introduce them to graphic novels. It seems counterintuitive considering the way adults deem them to be “easy reading,” but students who are unfamiliar with graphic novels may not understand their structure in comparison to picture books and easy readers. Introducing graphic novels to this class gave a new option to students who liked to read but were still intimidated by larger chapter books.
Even if I had never decided to become a librarian, I believe I would have found ways to promote reading and express my own love of books. As it is, I look forward to the many opportunities I will have as a school librarians to encourage my students to believe that reading is their path to success. I will teach them that reading is not just an essential skill to make one a 21st-century learner, but also their window to other worlds and perspectives.
AASL, A. (2016, March 11). Position Statement on the School Librarian's Role in Reading. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/resources/statements/reading-role
AASL. (2009). Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards/learning
Krashen, S. D. (2004). The power of reading: insights from the research. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.