‘There is a direct correlation between the amount students read and their reading achievement and higher achieving schools have more books in classrooms.” Allington 2001

The last 4 weeks of Term 2 saw the remainder of our teaching staff implement Classroom Libraries with their students and revisiting “Just Right” books (encouraging teachers to develop selection criteria with their children when selecting books, talking about what makes a book Just Right, Choice/Challenge or Too Hard using professional readings from Regie Routman).

We also held a whole staff PD workshop on Independent Reading. It was evident through looking at the Lotus Diagram – our plan to develop lifelong readers – that implementing Independent Reading throughout the school was vital as the more reading students do, the better readers they will become!

Through using Langford tools, staff came up with an operational definition of what we thought Independent Reading should be at our site:

Independent Reading is when students read texts of their own choice. They have time to reflect, use strategies, understand and share thinking about their reading of texts of choice including those that are ‘just right’ and appropriate.

We also had time to do some professional readings (Diane Snowball, Regie Routman) about clarifying Independent Reading and looking at the role of the teacher in supporting students.

Our Literacy Committee, consisting of our Literacy Leadership team plus 4 class teachers, met and discussed whether or not the questions about Class Libraries from mid Term 1 had been answered. All the questions had been answered except two which we classified as “works in progress”. Borrowing systems hadn’t been implemented across all classes and we needed to do more regarding communication to parents about our broadbanded boxes of leveled texts as we had a levelled reading system prior to starting Classroom Libraries and some parents appeared to be confused with this change. We had put information in the school newsletters and held one parent session which was poorly attended – clearly this needed to be a priority for the rest of the year!

In Week 4 of Term 2, we asked teachers to complete a Reading Audit. They needed to record strategies they were currently using when reading to children, with children and by children. Also documented was when and how often they spent using these approaches with their students. Teachers were also asked to video themselves interviewing a student in their class about their attitudes towards reading, how they select books, strategies they use when they come to an unknown word or when they don’t understand what they have read, etc.These audits and interviews provided us with a “snapshot” of reading across the school and helped us to identify where the “gaps” in our learning were. This data will also be used to document the journey travelled with whole school change in reading and, hopefully, show us the deeper learning that will take place over the next 2-3 years.

At one of our staff meetings mid Term 2, we walked around to different classes that had started Classroom Libraries and the teachers of those classes talked about getting set up, choosing and sorting books into different genres, what was going well, issues arising, etc. This was a positive, motivating time as it helped those who had started their libraries to communicate their reflections of their journey and gain ideas from other teachers on ways of overcoming problems or  improving classroom practice. For example, two of our Year 4/5 teachers were talking about classifying genres and how, from this process, they noticed that the majority of students did not necessarily understand differences between science fiction and fantasy as well as mystery and adventure. This opened up discussion about how to explicitly teach and reinforce features of particular genres through questioning.

This sharing session also inspired those teachers who hadn’t started their Classroom Libraries to begin as soon as possible!

“Helping children to develop a strategic approach to book selection requires that teachers and librarians think, aloud, demonstrate, and reveal how they go about the process.” (Reutzel and Fawson, 2002)

Once Class Libraries were set up and students started borrowing from it, teachers then worked on explicitly teaching and modeling how to select books that were “Just Right”, that is books which suited the student’s level of ability, interests and needs. Fountas and Pinnell (1999) indicate that “Just Right” books should contain a proportion of approximately 90% known words to about 10% unknown words. Teachers directed younger students to where appropriately leveled materials were stored, in our school’s case, our coloured broadbanded boxes.

Techniques and strategies were explained and demonstrated for evaluating whether a book was too easy, too difficult or just right. Modelling thinking aloud when choosing a book, determining purpose for choosing a book, looking at the cover/blurb, reading the first page or two, discovering how many unknown words to known words on a page, etc were skills that were explained to staff in PD sessions to use with their students. Students in the Junior Primary chose a mixture of books from their particular coloured, broadbanded box as well as books that interested them from the broader Class Library. Older, more independent readers evaluated and chose books that were “Just Right” for them and have started to develop strategies for sampling books and making appropriate selections.

Over a few weeks, it became obvious to teachers that they needed to constantly revisit how to choose a Just Right book and they began to see the need of reinforcing the use of different book selection strategies with the class as well as observing students informally on a regular basis to assist them with this skill. Anchor charts were developed in a few classes and were referred to often.

“When students help create the library, they use it more” (Routman, 2003)

Shelving was ordered from IKEA as well as tubs from Cheap as Chips after teacher discussions in staff meeting on what would be the best options for storing books in libraries. Older students were involved in the building of these units with a Temporary Relieving Teacher.

Broadbanded boxes containing levelled texts were borrowed by the class teacher. 

In addition to the broadbanded coloured boxes, classes did a “bulk borrow” from the school library for their class library with the support of Jonathon, our librarian. To help students select a wide range of reading material that was of high interest, popular, age appropriate, related to topics being covered in class, etc., they:

• Completed reading inventories
• Brainstormed what sorts of books they wanted in their Class Library
• Discussed and clarified choices with peers, teachers and Jonathon

Students were involved in the sorting, labelling and shelving of books according to genre, interest, series, authors, etc. Obviously, this looked different according to the year levels of the classes. Class teachers did explicit teaching on text genres and anchor charts were developed and used.

Classes also discussed and suggested ways they could make their Class Library a pleasant and inviting place to be. Some Junior Primary classes purchased Pillow Pets and cushions out of their class budgets. Old lounges, armchairs, round tables, beanbags, etc started to appear in libraries.

Each class worked out a manageable borrowing system that could be monitored by students with minimal assistance from the teacher. Some examples included borrowing cards/bookmarks, check in/out system on computers/iPads and exploring QR codes in Primary grades. Junior Primary classes generally swapped their 5-6 books on a given day, for example, the day they did their show and tell or the day they had their Guided Reading session.

Every teacher organised for each student in their class to have a box, basket or container to put their book selections in. This also varied according to the ages and needs of the students.