Re: Shelving by book level WAS: Restricting areas of the library

[Katherine Mayberry <kmayberr@BELLSOUTH.NET>]

Wait a minute! With all of the reading levels keep in mind that ALA
guidelines say NOT to shelve or indicate reading levels on the books. It
is to keep from "labeling" the reader at a particular ability.

Now that deals with the visible outside and shelving. Obviously the
online catalogs or possibly the inside of books would not have the same
problems.=20

When I was at elementary level, I did have teachers restrict their
students. One class of transitional 2nd graders were very upset when
their teacher rudely told them that they weren't smart enough for other
areas. She really made them mad and hurt them.

After she breezed out, the class and I discussed the "problem". I had
many of the kids since they were in K-4 and had taught them how to
identify where things were and check to see if they could handle them.
We agreed that perhaps they needed to demonstrate more "mature" behavior
when coming to the media center and show her how responsibly they could
handle the books. I agreed to discuss her "banned" areas with her. After
2 weeks she reluctantly agreed to let them go to other areas. They "had"
to choose one everybody book, the other was up to them.

The students "learned" several things from this incident... They also
choose their books very carefully from the other areas (but most had
been anyway) and felt vindicated.

I did have K's and lst graders checkout from the picture books the first
few times they came (K's longer), until they understood how to use shelf
markers and had some intro about how to choose a book. After that I
totally believe in free choice (esp if we have done our jobs in helping
them to evaluate).

Katherine Mayberry, Media Specialist
Travelers Rest High School Media Center
Travelers Rest SC 29690
kmayberr@greenville.k12.sc.us
=20
Minds are like parachutes -=20
                      they function best when open!
 =20

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