I. love. reading. I have loved books since I was a small child. My fondest childhood memories involve books, my beloved grown ups, and reading.
My mom would take me to the library frequently and in the summer months, we would climb up on my parents’ bed and she would read book after book to me until I fell asleep.
I remember sitting in my grandfather’s lap as he read my favorites over to me again and again, pointing out words and having me sound them out when I was only 3 or 4 years old.
When I was a little bit older, my dad would make a special trip to the store to bring me comic books and Little Golden Books whenever I was sick.
Books were…and are…my love language.
Rather than expound on all the ways books continue to be the greatest loves of my life in adulthood, I want to share with you how I use my love of reading to guide my students down that same road of book related bliss!
Having a great school librarian helps, but not all of us are so blessed, unfortunately. Also campus investment has played a big part in getting kids on board with books from AR competitions and celebrations to school wide reading challenges. These things are wonderful! But in order to really get kids to fall in love with books, it comes down to what they see and hear day in and day out in the classroom.
One – Read Alouds
I promise I will be talking more about this in another post very soon. But, let me just say that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, I have ever done in my classroom that has made kids care more about books than read aloud to them every single day.
My students BEG me to read another chapter. They remind me about our read aloud when things get so hectic that I forget. Kids will look for the book I am reading to them in the school library and come into the classroom waving it at me like they just won the lottery. You’d better believe that if the author of our current read aloud has more titles, my kiddos are asking for them and checking them out at the school library and all but fighting over them in our classroom library.
Read aloud to your students every day! Or at least most days!
Two – Allow them to self-select books
Please let your students choose their own books. Let them pick that book that is way too challenging. Allow them to grab that picture book which is clearly way below their reading ability. Also, maybe steer them to a second choice that is on their level while also letting them explore the books they really want. And allowing them to revisit old favorites.
Three – Build up excitement about new books
As I mentioned in my post a few weeks ago about book shopping, we do a book preview day at least once every week or two. Any new books that have come into our library get shared with the whole class. I tell them what I know about the book. They learn whether or not I have read it and what I thought about it. If I don’t know much, I’ll share the snippet on the book jacket or back cover.
Students can “order” any new books of interest, which really builds up the anticipation for our book preview day. The kids also know that if they don’t get the book they most wanted that week, it stays on their list until it comes their way.
Not only have my students learned about so many more new books this way, but I have too! For the weeks we have no new books to be added to the class library, I will select a stack of books already in our collection to discuss with the class and let them select from those.
Four – Keep a classroom library
Having books easily accessible to students provides them more opportunities to explore and read the written word. It helps to foster an appreciation and joy for reading. In addition to read alouds, this is one of the greatest things you can do to help students grow to love reading.
Five – Have students be invested in taking care of the classroom library
My students know how our classroom library works. They reshelve the books and know exactly where they go and how to put them back in their bins. And they love doing it! They race to be the first in line to reshelve books on reshelving day.
What’s more is that the more students love and appreciate books and reading, the better care they want to take of the classroom library and the books found there. Oh, believe me, we’ve had to have plenty of discussions and lots of practice in how one cares for a book, but I have seen a marked improvement the more invested students are in OUR classroom library.
You can read more about our classroom library in this post.
Six – Talk books with your kids
Even though I know what I am currently reading is not necessarily interesting to (or even appropriate for) a third grader, I share with them what I am reading at home. I give them a brief synopsis and tell them what I think of the book so far. Of course, I make sure to give them the kid friendly version of the synopsis!
Seven – Allow students to request new books for the classroom library
When I place orders through Scholastic or plan a bookstore run to find new titles to add to the classroom library, I check in with my classes. I ask them what kinds of books they’d like to see added – whether it’s a series or topic. And for the most part, I’ve been able to fulfill their requests. Though, if you know of any awesome nonfiction books for third graders who have a Jordans buying addiction, please let me know!
I’ve found several new series this way including Dan Gutman’s The Genius Files series and we also ended up having to create an entirely new bin in our classroom library to house all the books we’ve acquired about the Vietnam War and the military.
Eight – Book talks
Book talks are brief and spontaneous. Students share what they’ve been reading and make verbal recommendations to specific classmates based on what they know about the classmate and their reading interests. These can be something you do daily or weekly or whenever you have a few minutes to fill.
Nine – Have books available for all levels/languages
I have a regular program class, as well as a Gifted & Talented class this year. My students reading levels range from Pre-Kindergarten to eighth grade. Books are not a one size fits all item. Not only in reading tastes, but also reading abilities. It’s imperative that a solid classroom library provides a variety of books at a variety of levels.
If all the books in a classroom library are either too hard or too easy and aren’t at a “just right” level for even one student, that student is not going to find joy in visiting that library or in reading its books.
My school has a large Spanish speaking population. While most of our Spanish speaking students are in dual language classes and learning in both English and Spanish, there are students whose parents have opted them out of the dual language program. This makes it important to me to have Spanish language books on hand. I admit, this is an area of our classroom library that is very small and something I am still working to build.
Ten – Book recommendations between students
We have a board in our classroom library which features a place for students to recommend books to their friends and classmates. Similar to book talks, students use what they know about classmates and their reading interests to recommend titles to others.
When a student recommends a book, they take a sticky note and pencil (which we keep in a small basket near the board), write the name of the student to whom they are recommending a book, in addition to the title and author and where the student can find the book – either in our class library or at the school library.
I hope these suggestions help you to foster a deep love and appreciation of reading with your students!
Don’t forget, you can grab my FREE classroom library labels by filling out the form below.
Thanks for stopping by! I will see you again (virtually) soon!
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