Research Resources

This week 4^th and 5^th grade students have been learning about all of the wonderful research resources we have available.  Our Library Research Tools can be accessed via http://k12.pisd.edu/home. Under Quick Links click on Library Resources à Search Prek-5^th grade Library Catalog à Christie à Research Tools.  There you will find all sorts of resources.  This week we concentrated on the online encyclopedias such as World Book and Britannica. These can all be accessed at home using the username planoisd and password discover.

We also discussed using their textbooks as a resource as well as other search engines besides Google. Some kid friendly search engines that work well are infotopia, kidsclick, kidrex and wolframalpha. We talked about how these search engines would give them more accurate, relevant, and age appropriate results than Google.

Unsung Heroes

Volunteers are the unsung heroes of our schools and particularly of my library.  That has never been more apparent to me than this year.  This is my 13^th year as librarian and for the majority of those years; I’ve had a few, but reliable volunteers.

As circumstances would have it, some of my regular volunteers have not been able to come and help out like they normally do.  They plan to come and help, but just not right now. I currently have one very dedicated volunteer that has shouldered this burden for the past few weeks and I honestly do not know how anything would get done without her.

Without her, the mountain of returned books sitting on the counter would just continue to grow until it completely overran the library. I wouldn’t be able to teach classes or assist students in finding books if I had to reshelve every book that was returned.

Shelving books can seem like an easy, menial task, but don’t tell that to the volunteers!  They will tell you that it can be hard, tiresome work. Especially if students aren’t careful and leave the shelves a bit of a mess.  So thank you to all of the volunteers that help make my job easier. And, if you aren’t a volunteer – sign up!  We’ll be glad to have you!

The Book Whisperer

This week I read the book, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller.  Ms. Miller’s background is of a sixth grade Language Arts and Social Studies teacher in Texas.

She discusses her struggles her first couple of years of teaching in not being able to get students engaged in reading in order to become life- long readers.  She finally realized that in order for students to enjoy reading they needed to have time to read.  She therefore devoted a portion of her class time to where the students just read their books. 

 Now these books weren’t books that were assigned to be read, they were actually books that each individual student got to choose for themself.  There were some stipulations as to the different genres they had to read as well as the total amount of books read during the year.  Her goal for them was 40 books for the year.  Most of her students found that number outrageous, but in the end, they came to love reading and some of them read even more than 40 books that year.

The freedom to choose their own books versus being assigned the same book for the entire class seemed to be the strongest influence in them becoming life-long readers. “Providing students with the opportunity to choose their own books to read empowers and encourages them. It strengthens their self-confidence, rewards their interests, and promotes a positive attitude toward reading by valuing the reader and giving him or her a level of control.  Readers without power to make their own choices are unmotivated.”

 Unmotivated. That seems to be the word that best describes a good portion of my students that I see as a librarian.  I keep asking myself: What can I do to try and get these students interested in reading?  I would love it if we had time where they could just come in and read a book.  I would love to be able to know all of my students well enough to be able to give individual recommendations.  Unfortunately, I have over 700 students that I see on a weekly basis.

I must admit that when she started talking about student surveys, I got very excited. I kept trying to think of a way that I could do that with my students.  I have some ideas and I’m still working on it, but if I can make it happen, I just might be doing that.

Reading this book really energized me and made me remember my passion for reading and how I would love nothing more than to get my students excited about reading.  To me, reading can take you anywhere and sometimes anywhere is better than where you are.

To Self-checkout or Not to Self-checkout

This is a topic that a lot of librarians are on the fence about.  They are so used to being the one at the computer checking students out, that they would be lost if they didn’t have to do that.  If students checked themselves out, what do you really have to be afraid of?

They’re afraid if they let the student’s use the self-checkout mode, that they might not do something right and then the books won’t get checked out.  It would be mass hysteria!  Nothing would be as it should. They would have to give up control.

I must admit that I used to be one of those librarians.  I am at a school with a rather large population, approximately 700 students. I used to think that there was no way my students could handle doing that on their own.  Fortunately, I’m glad to say that I was wrong.

We started using the self-checkout mode last year. Not everyone was using it, but I thought things went rather well considering this was so new for everyone. This year I decided things were going to be different.  I am determined to make sure that every student knows how to check out books on their own.  That’s why this first week in the library I have made a point of showing everyone how it is done and then allowing them to actually do it when they checked out their books.  I thought it went extremely well.

Allowing students to check out on their own is beneficial in many ways.

When a whole class is checking out, some students can use the self-checkout station while I check out others at the second station.  This allows the line to move much faster.  Another benefit is if I happen to be with another class when they come in, they don’t have to sit around and wait until I’m finished to help them.  They can just check out their books and be on their way.  And finally, I think it sends a positive message that I trust them enough to do it on their own and that it allows them to independent learners.

I am positive that this will be a good thing this year.  I’m looking forward to the possibility of it freeing up even a little part of my time.  My time that I can be using to do one of the million other things I have to do.  I’m so thankful that this week was so successful.