Marie Duncan Blog #9 for Feb/March/April: Chapter 5: Routman/Organize an Outstanding Library

I hear you, Regie Routman, speaking to me from Chapter 5 of Reading Essentials.  Let the students help organize our classroom library.  There is so much to do as a teacher and one of the best tips I have allowed to soak into my brain this month is “let your students do most of the work.”  This includes responsibility for classroom clean up, sharing what they read, asking questions like a teacher, keeping other students on tasks, and now….I am ready to let them help with our library.  Last year, I have a fabulous third grader who could organize better than me!  I had her looking up book titles in AR and pencil in the level on the back cover.  Then, I only had to make a quick label. Next, she trained two other girls to help her.  I was able to get all my books, as a new teacher to the classroom after a decade, in less than a month.  This was great delegating which I often overlook feeling like there isn’t time to train my students.  I had forgotten about this until I read Routman’s chapter; thank you for the brain flick. From page 69, I agree a classroom library works best when students’ interests are the focus.  I have tried to stop worrying as much about levels of AR but promoting/highlighting high interest literature.  This has meant simply asking students what books they want to read.  Off to the public library I go, and then I watch which books my children actually grab first.  This is giving me great ideas of where to spend my resources for future purchases.  The survey on page 76 is an excellent idea to also gather student favorite reads.  Using rain gutters from pages 78-79 is intriguing to get the books out in front of the students instead of crammed in baskets; will our administration let us do this, I wonder?  Having a personal book bin basket is a great idea especially for my handful of students that spend more time going to the bathroom, "browsing" the library, and piddling in their desks instead of having their head in a book like the majority of their peers during independent reading.  Thank you, Regie Routman, Your suggestions are making me think as I move in a straighter arrow toward developing stronger readers who love reading.