Transcript

The classroom library is another important part of the classroom reading program, and it is a place where students can find books about a variety of different topics, not levelled books, but books that are sorted according to students' interests and things that they really want to be reading about. At the start of the year I talk to the students through reading conferences and a lot of the time through informal conversations about the things that they like to read about and I try to organize the classroom library with them to reflect their interests. So, as you can see, I have a number of bins in the classroom library that are organized around either different fiction or non-fiction topics, I have I-Spy books that a lot of the students are very interested in. Many of the students like to learn about animals, so I have the bin for that. 

We have Magic School Bus books, Robert Munch books, and throughout the year those bins change to reflect what's very interesting to students at the moment. I often take students to the library, and during our library period I will give certain students permission to choose a number of books related to a particular topic. For example, some of my students are very interested in hockey and other winter sports, so I would give those students permission to choose 10 books all about those ideas that they're able to read independently and they bring them to me, I sign them out under my name and they become an ongoing part of our library. The next month we might move on to another topic, fairytales that students are interested in, or it could really be anything. And, as part of our weekly library visit, we update the books in the classroom library to reflect what students are interested in.

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