Placing students in a daily book flood zone produces much more reading than occasionally taking them to the library. There is something powerful about surrounding kids with interesting books. I have 2,000 books in my room, and because of this, my students do a lot more reading. Establishing a book flood is probably the single most important thing I have done in my teaching career. Students in classrooms with well-designed classroom libraries: • Interact more with books. • Spend more time reading. • Demonstrate more positive attitudes toward reading. • Exhibit higher levels of reading achievement. (National Assessment of Educational Progress Report, 2005). Closing Thoughts Surrounding students with books in the classroom helps them develop a sense of themselves as readers (Miller, 2013) by:
• Allowing students to value their decision-making ability. • Fostering their capacity to choose appropriate literature. • Giving them confidence and a feeling of ownership. • Improving reading achievement. • Encouraging them to become lifelong readers.
Books open a world of possible. As author Marva Allen writes (2014),
“Books open the door to worlds before unimagined.”
109
CLASSROOM LIBRARIES
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs