Nancy and others following this thread----
(FYI........ I was going to send this to Nancy directly, but since I get
the digest form of LM_NET......... I see she's already posted her hit and
sounds like she's swamped, I'll post my thoughts here.)
Two questions about your "Everybody" section:
Does it include any non-fiction?
Does it include any upper reading level books?
If the answer to either of these questions is "NO" I would beg,
implore, plead
(even tap dance on your library tables if necessary) to rescind this policy.
I realize I live in the ideal world of having a primary only building so
I don't have to worry about some of the appropriateness issues that people
with a wider age range often encounter.
However, for primary children, developmentally and through curriculum,
they are learning all about the world around them and if a teacher hits on a
particular area of child's interest, and the child comes into your library
all enthused about whales, the rain cycle, Zimbabwe, dinosaurs or whatever
piques their interest that week and you tell them they can't have those
books"
You have just lost a valuable teachable moment and quite possibly
dampened that child's enthusiasm for library forever. I did a library reader
survey my second year in this job........ and turned a summary of my findings
over to my teaching staff.
2/3 of all my K-2 patrons checked out Non-fcition books in an average
week
Within those results
nearly 3/4 of all my boys over-all check out NON-FICTION
In K-1, nearly 100% of my boys and well over half of the
girls in the that group prefer NON-FICTION
My teachers were astounded and even though I knew the numbers would be
high. from reshelving my books....I didn't expect it to be that skewed. As
second
graders the numbers leveled out more.........down to around a 50-50 split
non-fiction to fiction over-all and about a 2/3 to 1/3 split (non-fiction to
fiction) among the boys and Grade 2 girls were the mirror image favoring
fiction over non.
Now if you are a non-fiction interested student (boy particularly) and
your teachers mostly read fiction picturebooks to you (which was true in my
building) and you are not allowed library access to the "stuff you really
want to read" you very quickly lose confidence in the relevance of not only
the library, but the whole educational system.
When Jon Scieszka's Guys Read ( www.guysread.com) program came out, I
was pleased to see that his observations mirrored many of my own. I grew up
with a (now) marine biologist brother and one who is a wizard mechanic and
carpenter both of whom love reading (even though the mechanic is severely
reading disabled). They were fortunate to have teachers and librarians who
recognized their passions early and put them in touch with the right books.
And my own three daughters, mirror my own tastes when I was
younger........they are strong readers and love fiction especially sci-fi and
fantasy, but they also have gone through from the time they were small,
spurts of wanting to devour everything about a particular
topic....everything on Australia......or the (American) Civil War, or
mandrills.....
I had a little boy last year (Grade 2) want a book on Nuclear
Fission.....he'd heard about it and wondered what it meant.
Also as mentioned by several people, the reading range is widest at the
lower levels. In my building in the 5 years I have been here, I have had
some non-reading Gr 2 students and some K's who were already independently
reading when they came to school. We need to meet the needs of all our
patrons. The importance of parents and children sharing books can't be
overstressed either. If a child selects a book that I know is beyond them
reading wise, I often ask them if they have someone they can share it with.
There was a father and K daughter 2 years ago that were working their way
through the Magic Tree House series. She gotten interested through hearing
an older brother and sister and wanted them read to her. My schtick with my
guys is that "no matter what you are interested in someone somewhere has
written something about it" and the place to find that something is right
here.
Off my soapbox now 8>) ( and Not surprisingly a certified
reading specialist as well as librarian)
Sandi
Sandra L. Priest-Ploetz
GLP Primary Librarian
Eden Central Schools
Eden, New York 14057
(EPLOETZ195@ aol.com)
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