Teresa Patterson's Blog 1:Chapter 5 Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library

Teresa Patterson’s Blog Post 1: Chapter 5: Organize an Outstanding Classroom Library by Regie Routman

As a teacher of early learners, I focused primarily on the care of books. Our librarian has done an excellent job of talking to our students about taking care of books. Since many of our students have a deprived access to books, they also suffer from the lack of knowledge as to their care.  The first conversations often include those words of facing the cover forward when returning it to its place or gentle hands rather than throwing the books. Sometimes the conversation is as simple as “This is how we turn the pages and hold the book.” I use board books in the earlier weeks while impressing upon our little ones the necessity of caring for our treasures. Routman suggests bringing in books of our own and modeling the respect for the books of our libraries. I like the idea of a “book caring” policy in which the students take a role in establishing the rules.   

“An adequate classroom library will have at least two hundred books, but an excellent classroom library will have more than a thousand.” With my last year’s group, I had to send many books to the hospital for repair or discard. Our school received a grant some years back for books and more recently refreshed our classroom libraries with books the district purchased.  Even so, the classroom library needs careful consideration. In recent years, I reorganized my books into categories and this summer purged the baskets even more. I am still undergoing a renewal and labeling of the baskets. In the past with our young readers, I had too many books out at once and am trying a rotation of fewer books but more frequently. I may again try the personal book baskets as mentioned; I have done that in the past with a different clientele of students. Using rain gutters for a display is a fabulous idea.

“Young students love counting and concept books, predictable books with rhythm and rhyme, nursery rhymes, alphabet books, fairy tales, joke books, familiar stories by favorite authors, and nonfiction animal books….” Our students made a class book of Pete the Cat which is in the library. They often ask Mrs. Anderson for pop up books when she reads to them. We also made a Pete the Cat emergent reader for each student they will have access to. Our Book Buddies program serves our students well as I know many of them are not read to at home. In a former school I taught in, I organized and started a Rocking Readers program in which a local business donated a rocking chair and community citizens came on a weekly basis and read to different students outside the classroom.   Putting books in the hands of children can never be a mistake.