Upper grade library drop-outs

["Penelope S. Cunningham" <pscunnin@MAILBOX.SYR.EDU>]

The sudden decrease in library use when students reach a certain age (6th
grade in our k-8 school) seems to be almost universal. Ironically in our
school the problem is made worse by an excellent upper grade language
arts and literature teacher. He gets students who have hardly read one
chapter book in all their previous years of schooling to become avid
readers. However, the students read books from his classroom bookshelf.
Even if the library has the same title, and the ones from his shelf are
all gone, they rarely come check out a library copy. Besides making the
library more accessible to these students through some schedule changes
and using "Young Adult" labels to mark books of specific interest to more
mature readers, I plan to meet with this teacher in August. I will remind
him that students who think libraries are something one grows out of are
not likely to grow up to be life-long learners. Together, I hope we can
plan some specific ways to make the library an important part of their
personal and academic lives.
 
Sister Penny Cunningham  pscunnin@mailbox.syr.edu
St. Mary-Basha Catholic School
Chandler, Arizona
 
A National Blue Ribbon School
Celebrating 50 Years of Excellence