Although I am no longer working directly with students, I wanted to weigh in
on the recent lexile discussion. I have had two recent experiences that
make this discussion quite interesting to me.
I travel to libraries all over our state, including some fairly remote
places. Last week I was in a fairly large village (3,000) by our standards,
and I helped the school librarian there weed the reference, fiction, and
picturebook collections. As we weeded worn duplicate copies of classic
titles in the fiction section, I noticed that all of the these books carried
a multiplicity of labels, colored stickers, stamps, and symbols. All of
these were remnants of an older "new" reading plan and were now joined by
fairly recent stamps or markings that stood for AR or lexile or phase
levels. My mind was boggled at all the librarian- or teacher-hours that had
gone into labeling and re-labeling those books. Because many of the titles
were quite worn, I was pleased to note that no matter what the plan of the
moment, students HAD been reading the books, whether because of or despite
the reading fad of the moment.
In early December, I helping set up a brand new school library in a tiny
village on Alaska's Bering Sea Coast. This brand, new sparkly library
featured a first-day collection of books for K through twelve of paperback
rebounds all labeled by the vendor with appropriate AR level (and apparently
chosen for the availability of AR tests). As we looked along the shelved
fiction section, we noticed that all we or a student could see were spines
with rows of AR codes above FIC and the first three letters of the authors
last names. Because these were all rebound paperbacks, the huge AR spine
label covered half to three-quarters of each spine. For most books one
could not see more than a few letters of a title or author's name and in
many cases not even that. The idea seemed to be that the only selection
criteria for students or teachers would be AR level.
Talk about the need to display books face out! We left the library aide
with instructions to make sure that there were always books facing student
browsers, but the message that will be left to students was unfortunately
very obvious... that those numbers were the only key to finding reading
materials. Whatever the merits or demerits of this particular reading
regimen, the students and teachers are getting (and will get for years to
come) the message loud and clear.
Sue Sherif
School Library/Youth Services Coordinator
Alaska State Library
344 West Third Avenue Suite 125
Anchorage, AK 99501
907-269-6569 1-800-776-6566
FAX: 907-269-6580
Sue_Sherif@eed.state.ak.us
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