We had a staff development a few weeks ago about the amount of books we should have in our rooms. It is suggested that you have at least twenty books per students in your classroom. Since I have twenty-one students that would mean I should have over four hundred books. Ha. I have fifty-four baskets in just my classroom library. That does not include leveled baskets or our partner reading library. How
My classroom library is organized by genre. I have many different colored baskets but they don't have any real significance.
Click the picture above to go to Beth Newingham's website to get a copy of the genre labels for yourself.
I added some of my own baskets in addition to the ones that she features on her website. Click below to get a copy now.
You can see I love books! |
I had a chance to work with a literacy consultant from the state of Georgia earlier in the year specifically about independent reading and the classroom library. She went through my baskets and helped me realize that I had a great variety but I needed to be sure to include a wide variety of lower leveled books. At our school we use the DRA leveling system. What I found was that I had a great amount of lower leveled books in my leveled library but was not including them as much in my classroom library. Well I went through my leveled baskets and now have DRA levels all the way down to Level 6 in my classroom library.
As far as the leveling within the library I don't believe that every book has to be leveled. I want to train the kids on how to gauge if a book is just right for them without being told a color or letter to choose. I do have a summer plan to color code outside spines of books by level but not tell the students what the stickers mean. Then, I can spot check books during reading conferences and in book bins to see if students are near the appropriate range. This will be a HUGE project because I have so many books. Encouragement is appreciated. :)
I'll leave you with a few of my kiddos relaxing in the library.
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