Research shows us that

• Higher achieving schools have more books in classroom library collections

• Classrooms with a larger supply of books have kids who read more frequently

• Classrooms with a larger supply of books usually have more kids reading books that they can read successfully (just right)

• Teachers have greater understanding of the needs of individual readers and can more effectively guide kids to appropriate text selection

How then did we at Hackham East go about providing classes with lots of books?

The first stage in our implementation was to organize our levelled texts into broadbanded coloured boxes and buy extra books so there would be enough boxes to cover the needs of each class. We budgeted a large amount of money in our Literacy budget to meet costs.

What is broadbanding?

• Boxes of levelled reading materials grouped in more than one level

Why are we broadbanding our reading materials?

• The criteria for levelling is approximate

• No two publishers level in exactly the same way

• How hard a book is, is not just determined by the level, other factors come into play- prior knowledge, fiction vs non fiction, interest etc (eg. I may know a lot about farm animals so I would have more success at this even if it was a text at a higher level than someone who did not)

• Reading is NOT just about reading a level
  

  How we grouped levels into coloured broad banded boxes

Levelling – degrees of difficulty

• Support of illustrations
• Length of book
• Complexity of concepts, vocabulary and familiarity of subject
• Percentage of unique or repeated words to familiar words
• Appearance and placement of print and visuals

Jonathon and I worked with Sally on how to level texts using guides on text levels and characteristics from different publishers as well as taking into account the degrees of difficulty (see above). It was certainly evident, once we got the hang of it, the discrepancies between publishers! We then invited parents who were interested in this process to volunteer

 their time over 2 mornings to come in and learn how to level and sort. Our class based SSOs (School Support Officers) were also involved in this new learning. Sally presented to the group what broadbanding meant and why we were going this way with our levelled texts. We had 7 dedicated mums come in and volunteer which was such a big help as the task we were undertaking was huge. It involved levelling each book based on the criteria we were using, putting it in the correct coloured broadbanded box and sticking the right coloured dot on the book. Index cards were stuck on the back of each box for teachers to sign in and sign out when they borrowed/returned a box.

To inform parents about the changes we were making with implementing Class Libraries and broadbanding levelled texts, Sally and I held a parent session on the first day back in Term 2. We had 13 parents attend but we will need to run further follow up sessions or look at other creative ways that we can communicate information to our parents and involve them in their children’s reading.

Staff who volunteered to start their class libraries participated in a half day Professional Development (PD) session run by Sally. The morning session was for the Middle/Upper Primary teachers and the afternoon was for the Junior Primary teachers. We started with some professional independent reading from Regie Routman’s book “Reading Essentials”, focusing on Chapter 5 – Organising an Outstanding Classroom Library. From this reading, teachers then brainstormed: What is a Classroom Library? What do we want it to look like/what do we want it to be?

A Classroom Library needs to have:

•  a minimum of 250 books
• lots of different genres
• books that are age appropriate
• baskets of books organised into genres borrowed from the school library
• coloured boxes of broadbanded, levelled texts for independent and take home reading

Using Post It notes, we brainstormed then sorted what sorts of books we would like to borrow from the school library to have in our Classroom Library, discussing age appropriate texts, what stages of reading development were the students in our class, topics/authors that students are interested in, etc.

 

The next part of the session was to walk around to each person’s classroom and talk about where the Classroom Library may go, how were books going to be organized and displayed, how would the Classroom Library be the central hub, how to make it comfortable and inviting, etc.

After the walk, we discussed, listed and prioritized: What do we need to do to prepare our students when we implement Classroom Libraries? Teachers also made a commitment to collect baseline data on their students. Agreement was made to start by interviewing 3 students about their reading behaviours, interests, strategies, support at home, etc. Teachers formulated questions to ask students in this reading interview and some of these are listed in the chart below.

 

To conclude the session, teachers were asked to rate their responses to the following questions using scattergraphs: How prepared/supported do you feel to begin? How excited/motivated are you to implement your Classroom Library?

 

 

Our Federal Labor MP for the seat of Kingston, Amanda Rishworth, does regular street corner meetings to hear from the local community about issues of concern and to talk about what the Labor government are doing to address these issues. A couple of weeks ago, she gave out a pack that contained a bookmark encouraging people to support local libraries. This quote by Charles W. Eliot in 1896 was written on it – “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers”. How true. Thanks for sharing this quote, Amanda! Let’s all get into reading books!!

 

Late in Term 1, we ran a couple of introductory sessions to staff on: “What is a classroom library?” Sally showed us some video/photo footage of different classroom libraries and classes using Independent Reading from schools she had worked with across Western Melbourne. She also discussed the data that showed that this region in Melbourne made the biggest growth in reading results according to NAPLAN testing across all Victorian schools.

Groups of teachers had a go at sorting and categorizing a selection of books – a task that students would undertake after they had borrowed many books from the school library for their class library. In their groups, they discussed how they might go about the process of sorting according to the age levels of their students, genres of texts, series, authors, topics, etc. They also talked about what explicit teaching may need to occur and what questions they may ask to get students to reflect on why they may have grouped books in a certain way or to assist them in book sorting. In groups, teachers brainstormed what benefits they thought a classroom library would have and what were the questions that were coming to mind about this approach to reading.

 

We then asked for volunteers who felt they could start this process of setting up their classroom library early Term 2. The expectation was that everyone would be involved but the Literacy committee thought we would stagger it so the early starters could then mentor those that would begin later. 60% of class teachers wanted to start straight away.