Speed Dating with Books

Grade 5 is focusing on author studies for their reading workshop unit. Each has to choose one author and read at least 2 books by that author. Ms. Kasal, the grade 5 team leader, asked me for a book talk to help students choose a great author to concentrate on.

Last year, I presented a traditional book talk, where I showed a dozen books and gave rapid-fire highlights for each author. At the end of the 20 minutes, students were to choose a book to start their author study. I was disappointed when many of the students found excuses for not choosing any of the authors or titles I had presented. I was determined to do a better job of hooking them.

With the goal of 100% engagement in mind, I decided this year to structure the book talk in a speed dating format. This way, instead of listening to me speak for 20 minutes, each student previewed books by different authors. At the end of 30 minutes, each had checked out at least one book from an author and had previewed 5 books from 5 different authors.

Authors were set up as stations with a poster (created on Canva) and a selection of chapter books. The authors I presented were: Avi, Sharon Creech, Andrew Clements, Sid Fleischman, Patricia Reilly Giff, Patricia Maclachlan, Gary Paulsen, Linda Sue Park, Louis Sachar and Jerry Spinelli.

A sample of the author posters I created for this speed book dating. I used Canva.com.

These authors were chosen because they have a large and varied collection of books - and we have many of them in our library - and because they are great writers who will challenge students to think deeply about their reading. 

Students had 30 seconds to choose an author and then 2 minutes to preview a book by that author.  They each had a sheet for notes on the book. They wrote down notes to themselves about the book they were previewing and rated the books on the sheet on their desire to read them. Find the sheet here.  (At the bottom of the sheet is a link to a programmable online timer.)

Each student checked out at least one book at the end of the session. The sheet also gave students the chance to indicate they wanted a hold on a particular title. 

All in all, it went very well. Our fifth grade students were very vocal by the mention of dating, but thrilled to be considered grown up enough. Even the reluctant readers were engaged and all left with a book to try. They also have a short list of 4 other books to try if the title they checked out at the end of the speed dating didn't suit. 

The next time I try speed book dating, I'll include time at the end for students to compare notes. That could increase their exposure to authors and titles they might not have had time to look at. I would also like to include more diverse authors and perhaps picture books, as many of the authors above also write picture books. Last but not least, I'll create a resource list so that I can track the circulation of the books included in the book talk. 

Previewing books: Judge a book by its cover and its spine!

Last year, whenever a student would tell me that he or she couldn't find a book they liked, my stock answer was, "We have 25000 books. Surely we can find something you like!" I'd then go off and pull books off the shelves for students to try.

I realized that perhaps for some of those reluctant readers, knowing that there's 25000 books might be overwhelming. How does one choose when there are so many choices?

I also noticed last year that most of our students will look only as far as the books on a front facing display and will ignore lots and lots of great titles that are displayed spine out. We can't display all of our books with their covers facing out. There isn't enough space - remember I said we have 25000 books? So, this year, I'm doing the next best thing: training students to locate those great titles when they can only see the spine. This also supports the work they are doing in their literacy classes on growing as readers.

There's lots of information on the spine of a book. Some of it comes from the publisher: the title of the book, the author. Sometimes, if the book is part of a series, the publisher may add the number of the book in the sequence. At our library, fiction is arranged alphabetically by author's last name, which means that all the books by an author are together. This last has been a novel idea for many of our fourth graders who hadn't realized that looking for books by a favorite author is a good book selection skill in the library. 

Some of the information on the spine of the book is placed there by the library. The call number sticker, for example, lets you know where the book can be found and who wrote it. This year, all new books have a neon green sticker at the top. For books in a particular genre, we have color and picture coded stickers. All that information, and you haven't even pulled the book out! 

Pick a fiction shelf and let your fingers do the walking, as you read book spines one after the other. Once you find a title that grabs you, pull that book out. 

Look at the cover. Read the title and the author. There may be a one-line recommendation like "By the best selling author of That Book That I Really Liked." Look at the cover art and start making predictions about what the book is like. 

Turn the book over. Many times the back cover has a summary of the book or recommendations from famous authors or popular newspapers. Read the back. Notice how the art work on the back matches the front. Adapt your prediction if you need to.

Open the book to the front jacket flap. This is usually where the book has a longer summary. Read the summary. 

Open the book to the back jacket flap. Here you usually find a very short author biography. Sometimes they can be really funny. Read to learn a little bit about the author - and possibly laugh a little too. 

You're almost finished with your preview! Turn to the first page and read it. Use the five finger rule to decide if it is a good fit for you and to see if you are interested in seeing what happens.

Your preview is finished. You can now decide if you're going to keep reading or if you're going to return the book. If not, please return to its place on the shelf. Use the call number to put it back where it belongs so that others can also find it. 

Grade 4 has been practicing this with fiction books, but you would also preview non-fiction books in the same way.

Go ahead, exercise your previewing muscles. Soon you'll be getting a just right reading workout!

The 2 Steves at CAC

We are gearing up for our second author visit of the year, with not one but two authors coming to CAC on February 16 to 18. The 2 Steves, as British authors Steve Barlow and Steve Skidmore are known together, will be presenting to the elementary and middle school. The 2 Steves write high-interest, low readability books in a choose-your-own adventure format that is very popular among our upper elementary school students. I have the good fortune to host them in China, at my previous school, and the visit was a huge success with students, teachers and parents. They are dynamic and fun, and we're in for a great time!

Want to lunch with the authors? Students, keep logging your minutes for the Million Minutes of Reading challenge because the top 12 readers in the MM will be invited to lunch with them. Log your minutes with integrity!

Visit their website, http://the2steves.net 

During the authors visit, Diwan Bookstore will be here selling copies of their books for signing, from 3:15 to 3:45 each day. These books were available at the December book fair, so if anyone already purchased a book, bring it to be autographed!

I made a mistake at the book fair and didn't purchase print copies of the books for the library. We will be getting a full set soon. Luckily, we have 28 ebook titles on Overdrive, and we have spent these last two weeks demonstrating to grade 3 to 5 students how to access them. 

Overdrive is the web service that holds our ebook collection. To access our ebooks, patrons will need their CAC single-sign-on username and password. Each patron can check out 3 books at a time, and read them (or listen to them in the case of audiobooks) on up to 3 devices. 

Here's how I've been teaching the grades 3 to 5 to access our Overdrive titles. 

1. Log in to the library catalog, http://library.cacegypt.org

2. Choose your division's library.

3. Log in to the library catalog with your CAC single-sign-on or the Quick Login. 

4. Scroll down the home page to the Overdrive icon and click. 

5. Enter your CAC single-sign-on again when prompted. 

6. Browse the collection from the main page or search for specific authors. 

To see the 2 Steves books, enter Steve Barlow or Steve Skidmore in the search field. 

Since the 2 Steves books are so popular, you may need to place a hold on the titles you are interested in. As soon as you finish a book, please return it. Overdrive will return books on the expiration date on its own, but since so many of us have holds on the books, please return them "manually." Come see us at the library if you don't know how. 

Here are instructions on using Overdrive from the Overdrive company.   Please note that because of regional restrictions, we cannot purchase books to be read on a Kindle. 

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.)

Respect in the ES library

This month of September, the entire elementary school will be focusing on the CAC Core Value of respect. It is a good value to keep in mind as we start the school year.

At the ES library, we have lots of books that fit the theme of respect. Please visit the Visual Tab of the library catalog, http://library.cacegypt.org, and follow the picture clues to each of the core values.

There is a link to the catalog on the navigation menu of all the ES blogs, and also on the CAC website.

Our preK to grade 2 classes this week will focus on the core value of respect.


PreK and kg classes will be reading the book, I Am (Not) Small, by Anna Kang. In this book, two bear-like cartoon characters disagree about their respective sizes until another creature appears and proves that it's all relative. This humorous tale is a good vehicle to talk about respecting our differences and honoring our similarities. (Prek and kg have also been talking about how to show respect to books in the library: carrying them home and back in their library bags, and turning the pages from the corners.)




Grade 1 classes will be reading the non-fiction book, I Am Respectful, by Sarah Schuette. Through colorful photographs and simple text, this book illustrates many scenarios in which children show respect. It should spark a discussion on what respect looks like in the library.

What does respect look like in the library? Respectful library users:

• carefully handle library materials
• say please and thank you to the library staff
• listen attentively to each other when discussing books
• never make fun of anyone's reading choices
• remember that we share the library with everyone else at the school

Grade 2 classes will be reading Ryan Respects, by Virginia Kroll. In this early reader, Ryan makes fun of a slower classmate until he himself is the butt of his older brother's unkind teasing for having a teddy bear. Discussion will be centered on what students would do in similar situations, building on last year's guidance lessons on preventing bullying.


Do you have any favorite books that would tie well with this core value? Let us know in the comments.