Response to Jana Brubaker's Blog

Classmate Jana explores reading aloud to older children in her blog. I work at a high school and two of my own boys are high schoolers, so I found the piece intriguing and I can attest to read-alouds being an effective way to disassociate an assignment with the printed word, a concept referred to as the “sweat mentality” in the Scholastic article. My older boys used to love to read when they were in elementary school. What happened? They’ve come to believe that there’s a lot more to experience in life than a good book. We try to squeeze it in when we can. We’ve spent many hours listening to audio books on road trips. Our absolute favorite is Harry Potter, as read by Jim Dale. One of my boys was a better auditory than visual learner, and a lot of the concepts and themes were reinforced as he read the text at home and listened to the book when we were in the car.

This can even be connected with the spoken word movement, and the idea that stories have different ways of being shared. The same phrase can sound different and mean something different when spoken by two different individuals.

In this article, Jim Brozina writes about reading aloud to his daughter for 3,218 straight days, up until she left for college. If you’re up to reading it, grab some tissue. I do admit, this situation is exceptional in illustrating the bond that can occur when reading together.

I tend to waffle when it comes to celebrating some things in my high school library. Will the students find it too immature? I wanted to do something for Dr. Seuss’ birthday, but my older boys told me it would probably be a waste of time. Why?! He inspired so many kids to read and took us past the boring Dick-and-Jane books. So I decided to bake cookies for the teachers and hoped it would somehow encourage them and help them remember why we do what we do.

Response to Generra Singleton - Flexible Schedule or Not?

Classmate Generra poses a recurring dilemma in primary school libraries in her blog – flexible schedule or not? I’m at a secondary school library, where it’s not as much of an issue. At secondary schools, regularly scheduled library times are not practiced. As explained by McGregor (2006), students in secondary schools tend to visit the library on a “point-of-need basis,” and the library is seen as “an extension of the classroom.” But all teacher-librarians must recognize the shift from just providing access to information in pre-determined, structured lesson times, to allowing for inquiry and investigation as students are inspired on their own.

McGregor (2006) reviews a study of six elementary school libraries and how flexible scheduling was implemented. At the very heart of flexible scheduling, is the issue of how learning occurs. Proponents argue that we must support the constructivist model of learning, and open the library up as a source for information, which can’t occur when it’s bound by a strict schedule. What rigid scheduling does offer, is planning time for teachers. I sympathize with primary school teachers who need time to create, plan, and collaborate with other teachers. The review of the literature concerning the study concluded with eleven assertions, several of which focused on the attitudes of teachers, librarians, and support and administrative staff. It really needs to be an adoption by the entire school, and everyone will have to make adjustments for the sake of the children’s opportunities of learning to increase.

The stakes are even higher to make this young generation information literate and prepare them for research at the college level. My fifth grader is fortunate to have a cart of iPads in his classroom, and the teacher provides guided time in to investigate and conduct research. Depending on the resources available at different schools, flexible scheduling seems like a feasible option, to incorporate more time practicing effective information-seeking skills.

References

McGregor, J. (2006). Flexible scheduling: Implementing an innovation. School Library Media Research. 9. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol9/SLMR_FlexibleScheduling_V9.pdf