How the ES library supports reading and writing at CAC

The CAC elementary school does a fantastic job of teaching reading and writing using a workshop model. Teachers guide students in acquiring literacy skills and strategies, and students have lots of opportunities to develop those skills.

The ES library supports the literacy workshop model in many ways. Here are a few of those ways.

The Library Catalog's Visual Tab

I use our Destiny catalog's Visual Tab as the central access point for library print and digital resources.

The Visual Tab is visible from all the pages of the library catalog. Students learn to go to the Visual Tab from grade 1. 

Each grade level has a page on the Visual Tab. 

Take your time to visit the library catalog and explore all of the different pages. Literature integration such as book lists or specific websites are in the "CAC Units of Study" page, which is broken down by grade level. In each grade level, there are links to the all the science and social studies units, and for some grades, links to literature integration resources. 

On this grade 4 page, there are links to the 6 science and social studies units, and links to language arts and literature integration resources.

Each unit page includes at least one book list and has many links to teacher-selected webpages.  

Library lessons for preK to grade 2

All ES classes are scheduled for a weekly checkout session. For preK to grade 2 classes, that includes a library lesson. Usually, those library lessons include a read-aloud and basic library skills, like how to use shelf markers to return books to shelves in the picture book section and how to care for books. We try to tie the read-alouds to topics that are being studied at each grade level or that illustrate the CAC core values. 

In second grade, as students become more proficient readers, we start introducing more advanced library skills, like using the call number to locate books on shelves and using the catalog for research. For example, grade 2 right now is embarked in a informational reading unit so I gave them an overview of how our non-fiction collection is organized by Dewey Decimal system and how to browse the shelves noticing the titles and call number stickers on the spine. 

Genre stickers, displays and book talks

Our fiction collection is organized alphabetically by author's last name. To help students locate books in different genres, we have label stickers that we place on the spine. We also place small selections of books in each genre on top of the chapter book shelves, with an accompanying poster. When students are engaged in genre studies, I give them a brief talk about how to find titles in those specific genres and we often designate our display table at the front of the library to selections that will support grade level units of reading or writing. I also give book talks where I promote the best examples of each genre at the request of the teacher. 

Research skills

Grades 3 to 5 come to the library for a scheduled weekly checkout. Instruction in research skills happens at different times as needed by the requirements of each unit. I go to classrooms to help introduce and review those skills. We have an information literacy skills continuum that helps guide the progression of skills to ensure that we are preparing our students for middle school and beyond. We use the Big Six research model at CAC, and I am usually working with students on Steps 2 and 3: "develop research strategies," and "locate and access information."

Starting in second grade, I encourage students to use online databases for class and homework. The databases that we subscribe to on behalf of CAC are listed on the Home Tab of the library catalog. To access that page, you will need to log in to the library catalog using your CAC single-sign-on or our Quick Login. If you are a CAC parent of a student in grades 2 to 5, you should be able to ask your child/ren to help you. We practice accessing the library catalog a lot!

Collaboration with teachers

Last, but not least, I try to collaborate with teachers as much as possible to integrate information literacy skills to their classroom programs. We have an incredibly talented and dedicated team of teachers in the ES. The work they are doing in the reading and writing workshop is really inspiring and the results from the students are impressive.  It is a privilege to work with them.

Supporting Grade 5's Historical Fiction Unit

Grade 5 students are starting a historical fiction unit in their reading workshop. The essential questions for this unit are:

• How can I read in a way that lets me trace themes in these stories and think about the author’s craft?
• How does talking about books encourage and grow ideas?

To help answer the first question, I collected fiction and non-fiction resources from our print and digital collections on a libguide. Normally, I gather resources for students and post them on the Visual Tab of the library catalog, but this time around I thought that it might be a good unit to introduce our fifth graders to the libguides they'll be using in middle school. Also, libguides allow me to include more information about the different resources than the Visual Tab does. 

The grade 5 historical fiction libguide has tabs for different time periods, corresponding to historical periods reflected in the novel sets the grade 5 students will be reading. On each tab, there is a selection of non-fiction books and links to our databases for each period, and a selection of picture books set in that period. The grade 5 students will be using the non-fiction information to gain an understanding of the historical context for their book club novel. Along with the picture book selections, they will be looking for connecting themes. This is deep reading work, and I'm very pleased to be helping them become even more expert readers. 

Update 14 March, 2016: Just ended a class with one of the grade 5 classes and was delighted to hear students expressing how understanding the historical context of a novel will help them comprehend it better. That's why I love collaborating with teachers - it always leads to enhanced learning. 

Solar System Resources for Grade 2

Grade 2 is currently studying the solar system. Their essential questions for the unit are:

• How do we know about our place in space?
• What is our solar system and where do we fit in it?

The library has lots of resources, both print and digital, to help answer these questions. They are, as usual, gathered together on the library catalog's Visual Tab.

Print - We refreshed our astronomy print collection last year. The average year of publication for that particular section of the library was 1994. By weeding books that were older than 10 years, and purchasing lots of recent publications, we brought up that average to 2007. 

Grade 2 students learned how to browse the shelves, using the information on book spines to locate titles of interest. They also reviewed how to use the shelf markers to return books to the correct place. 

Click here for a list of solar system books that are good for grade 2 students. Most of the titles can be found in the 520s bookshelves in the non-fiction section of the library. The list itself is posted on the Visual Tab page for this unit.

Digital - We have many digital resources for grade 2, all accessible from the library catalog.

Visit the Visual Tab to see the collection of resources.

To get to the Visual Tab, visit the library catalog, http://library.cacegypt.org. Choose the elementary school library link, and click on the tab marked Visual above the main search field. 

PebbleGo is a particularly good resource. The content has been developed specifically for young researchers, and includes topics in science and social studies, including the solar system. The link from the Visual Tab takes you directly to the solar system section, but you'll have to first log in. Grade 2 students can refer to their catalog login credential cards in their take home folders. All other CAC patrons can log in to the library catalog using the Quick Login to see the full list of databases we subscribe to, as well as the usernames and passwords for each.

Another excellent resource is BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. BrainPop has engaging animated video clips featuring a robot called Toby. In BP Jr., a little girl called Annie accompanies him. One of the buttons on the Visual Tab, called "Space", is a shortcut to various movies about bodies of the solar system. The other button is a movie on gravity. Interested, and advanced students, could also go to BrainPop, the older version and do a search for solar system. Both BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. will require username and password. As above, refer to the login credential card or log in to the library catalog using the Quick Login.

Other sites on the Visual Tab page for the solar system include links to several NASA (the US space agency) sites and ESA (the European Union space agency.) Also useful should be the link to the National Geographic Kids videos. These do not require logging in.

Last, but not least, the Blendspace button has a collection of links to videos that the students have used in class.

This Week in the ES Library

We will have several collaboration classes this week and our library assistants will have training from Dr. Purcell, who will be demonstrating "interactive read-alouds," a technique that is used by our ES teachers to help students deepen their understanding of texts. Here's a summary of the week by grade level.

PreK. Ms. Wafaa read Construction, by Sally Sutton, a New Zealand award winning author. Construction takes readers through the process of building a library. It features many different types of machines and lots of fun construction sounds.

Kg. Ms. Wafaa read Silly Billy, by Anthony Browne. This is the story of Billy, who always worried about lots and lots of things. He was such a worrier that he could never sleep well. One day he went to spend the night at his grandmother's house and she gave him some worry dolls to tell his worries too. He slept great that night and the next, but then he started to feel worried again. Our library lesson focused on noticing the picture clues the author illustrator gives about Billy's feelings, and empathizing with his worries. Don't be surprised if your kindergartener wants to make worry dolls this week! Here's a link to a page for making worry dolls out of pipe cleaners. 

Grade 1. Dr. Purcell will be reading Love and Roast Chicken, by Barbara Knudson. This will be a training opportunity for our library assistants, who this year are taking on the responsibility of teaching one grade level's lessons. Dr. Purcell and the assistants met last week to plan the read-aloud and she will be leading the first session with grade 1 to demonstrate for the assistants, after which Ms. Enas will be repeating with the second class of first graders. Dr. Purcell and the assistants will meet again to debrief the lesson.

Grade 2. As grade 2 is currently studying the solar system, Mrs. Fitzgerald will be reading Comets, Stars, the Moon and Mars, by Douglas Florian. This is a collection of poems on celestial bodies. We will be having a poet visit CAC the first week of December, and this is a good time to hook students onto poetry. We will be having an open mic poetry reading at the parent picnic on November 11, and I'm hoping some of our second grade students will be inspired to read poems from this book then.

Grade 4. We will be reviewing the Big6 research process this week with grade 4 and creating a map that will be the base for their unit on Native Americans. (Grades 3 to 6 use the Big6 to help them go through the process of research.) As with other social studies and science units, grade 4 has a page on the Visual Tab full of links and book lists for this unit.

Grade 5. We will be having a very short tour of the library resources on poetry for grade 5's writing unit. The tour will include the resources on the Visual Tab's poetry page as well as our print collection. Grade 5 students will be helping us to select the best poetry books to keep as we prepare to weed our poetry book collection, as it is quite large but is aging. They are also invited to look at the links we have for Brod Bagert, the poet who will be visiting CAC in December, thanks to a generous grant by the PTO.

(Did you notice that we have not listed grade 3? That's because we are not currently collaborating with them for a particular project, but stay tuned, as we soon will be.)