#freebookmarks for your #schoollibrary Reading Bookmarks

We knocked out some new bookmarks for the end of term.

Lots of borrowing happening and the cactus bookmarks were very popular, so I threw these together with some stock Canva images. Students seem to like the bold colours and images.

[source]

I normally print about 10 pages worth of bookmarks each time.

[source]

Download the bookmarks here. If you enjoy my free bookmarks then let me know in a comment.

#freebookmarks for your #schoollibrary Cactus Reading Bookmarks

These cactus reading bookmarks have been very popular in the school library. 

We make them in house using Canva and then print them off on the thickest card we can feed through the copier.

[source]

Click here to download the file and print for your library

Year 8 English: Genre Tasting activity

The Library Team had a request for "something different" from the Year 8 English teachers. 

Normally we would talk to them at the start of a wider reading session and talk about the new books on offer, some of these would be picked up for the session, but often most students would go to the area or genre that they like every week. 

The idea was to expose students to more books than they would normally look at. After some discussion we came up with the idea of tasting and then came the placemats and bookmarks.

The tables looked lovely with the placemats and bookmarks!

At each table we had a sign with the name of the genre, a QR code to the catalogue for that genre and a selection of 4-6 books. We opted not to list the books on the sign, as each class might be presented with different books. We had six Year 8 classes to cater for!

[source]

Each student got a bookmark and then they had about 5-10 minutes at each table to read the blurbs and then decide which book they would want to read in that genre. Students were encouraged to write down the name of the book and then they could follow up at a later date.

[source]

At the end of the lesson, students could borrow one of the books from the tables to take home and read.

Some of the English teachers collected the bookmarks to have a look at what the kids had chosen. You could always do this activity with a form to collect which books interested the kids as well. However we did get some great feedback from students in regards to the physical bookmark that they could fill out and take with them.

If you want a copy of my genre tasting files (canva), just shoot me a message konstantkaos via gmail.

Wider Reading Online during Covid

In addition to the usual tasks of working in a School Library, one of my jobs as a Teacher Librarian is to facilitate the wider reading program.

So each session starts with a spiel about new books or the programs that we are supporting at the moment and then we settle into doing half an hour of reading. During this time, I scoot around the room asking each students what they are reading; encouraging them to engage in recreational reading or recommending books to them.

And then Covid19 hit .... What to do with what is normally a very interpersonal task?

In consultation with the English teachers we came up with a model to do Wider Reading Online.

[source]

Normally wider reading takes half a period, 35-40 minutes. But online things take a lot longer.

I address the class at the start of the period with a pre-prepared presentation for the fortnight on topics that would interest the students (10-15 minutes), we then break up into mini groups for a "book chat" discussion were I ask each student to talk about what they are reading at the moment. I ask them where they got their books from, do they have recommendations for other students and if they have read a book that someone else is reading. The larger the group sessions the more likelihood there is that someone else will be reading (or will have read) the book that the student is reading. I did a session with 9 students in a group and it worked well.

I take notes throughout this session, marking down what they are reading and what page they are up to and I take note of which students to follow up on. Students that might not be reading anything or they might have expressed that they are having difficulty finding a book to read. I can follow these kids up and make up a Borrow Bag for them to make sure that they have something to read.

I transcribe my notes into my google spreadsheet where I keep the wider reading data and take note of which kids are actually reading and which ones are "nursing" books. Sitting on the same book for months on end.

Sometimes students will remember what I was reading last time and comment on whether I have finished my book, sometimes they are enthusiastic to talk, other times not so.

This is what we have been doing for our lockdowns. It is lovely to talk in small groups and to share the "I've also read Anne of Green Gables" discussions that might not normally happen when I speak to the students 1:1.

What do you do for your wider reading while in lockdown?

Covid-19 Borrow Bags in the School Library

We packed another seven Borrow Bags this week for students who wanted to still borrow physical books from our collection, but who were not learning on campus. We decided not to use the term "Click and Collect" as many retailers are using this term and we wanted to emphasis "Borrowing".

There has been a great deal of discussion about Borrow Bags on the various mailing lists and Facebook groups so I thought I would document our process. I am sure that there are so many ways of doing this, but this is what worked for my team.

To start with, safety is our first priority. Not just physical safety, but mentally as well. Students and parents both wanted to know that we had taken appropriate precautions when dealing with the books.

How did we do it?

Students would reserve their books via the catalogue and also email us to say they wanted a Borrow Bag packed for them. In the email to us, students could request a mystery pack in a particular genre and also ask for books to support the Victorian Premiers Reading Challenge.

In our first lockdown in Victoria, Australia, we had one student who read through a selection of Novellas and Graphics Novels and she completed the Victorian Premiers Reading Challenge before the end of Term 2. Bravo!

We looked at using a Google Form for this, but often we would have to email back and forth with the student letting them know what was or wasn't available. A google form offered no advantage (for us) over email.

During our first lockdown, Term 2, 2020 we had lots of students interested in collecting a Borrow Bag. The interest petered off towards the end of lockdown, however the girls that were borrowing were grabbing 4-6 books each. We had two staff members come into the library on the Monday and Thursday to create and then distribute the Borrow Bags.

Each bag had a little lolly pack with a Chupa-Chump and some fruit chews in a little cute plastic bag with an "Enjoy your reading" label on them. A few students were very excited by this surprise. We also included bookmarks and some feedback/book review sheets as well.

A few button badges found their way in as well. These were received well! I have uploaded one of the button badge printables to my blog for your downloading pleasure.

Managing the Information

After creating a "group" spreadsheet of all the Borrow Bag recipients and their books while we were working from home, we printed off "receipts" that we could use to mark off whether a book was available or not.

When we came onsite, we printed off the receipts, collected the books and then folded it strategically. This was then used to label the bags. We managed to initially grab the bags from the Marketing office. They were left over from an event. But as we did more and more Borrow Bags, we finally just bought some from Officeworks, a business stationary retailer in Australia.

We constructed the bags on the Monday and then they were collected on the Thursday. Allowing three days between us handling them and the kids collecting them. The guidelines given to us by the school was to clean and then quarantine books for three days before shelving.

When students were collecting their Borrow Bags they were encouraged to return any overdue books. We suspended overdue notices during lockdown, but encouraged them to return books. 

So throughout Lockdown 1.0 this is what we did. During Lockdown 2.0 it might be a bit different as Year 11/12 students are onsite. Students will be able to pick their Borrow Bags up from the Library if they have been temperature checked a the front office. But we will still have to follow our quarantine procedure.

Please comment ...

This was the way that we did it, how did you do it?

Reflections on Library Lovers Day 2020

Library Lovers Day comes around so quickly at the start of a school year. You start the term and BAM you need to have something organized.

We did "Blind Date with a book". We wrapped the books in brown paper bags and wrote the barcode and some key terms on the front of the book.

[source]

Each student that borrowed a "Blind Date" book also got a little love heart chocolate. We had over 80 borrowings, although we haven't measured if they actually read the book in full!

[source]

An affirming exercise was the "Library Lovehearts". Throughout the day the students could write us a love heart. These hearts were then turned into a wall display.

For the staff room we also did a Word Search, some quote cards and a Clickview bookmark.

[source]

The day seemed to be successful with lots of students picking up books to read and weeks afterwards students were still reading their Blind Date books during Wider Reading.

Why is reading important for your brain?

We know that reading is important and it is a good habit for our students engage in.

[source]

Readers Digest put out a short sharp article on this topic with links to articles to let you dive deeply into the cognitive benefits of reading regularly.

This report into the "shadow activity' following regular reading founded the basis of our "Drop Everything and Read" campaign. 10-15 minutes a day of reading a novel with a storyline, characters and conundrums provides the cognitive load needed to generate this "Shadow activity".

So where as a fortnightly wider reading time might be good at providing feedback to the teacher librarians and gathering student voice data on where students are with their reading, 10 minutes reading at the start of every English class (or every day) will provide a greater cognitive benefit.

For English teachers and Teacher Librarians it is about striking that balance in the classroom and putting together a program that meet the needs of the reading group.


Reference

Peyser, M. (2019). This Is Why Reading Is So Important for Your Brain. [online] Reader’s Digest. Available at: https://www.rd.com/health/wellness/why-reading-is-important/ [Accessed 18 Jul. 2019].

Melbourne Writers Festival 2019 [Schools Edition]

It has been a few years since I have attended the Melbourne Writers Festival. This year we took a group of girls from both the Write Club and the Book Club into city.

Getting our bookshop fix on at Readings at the State Library.

[source]

Do Something About It

The Year 9-12 girls joined me for this panel session talking about how to be an advocate and how to write about advocacy. On our panel was three wonderful women; writer Laniyuk, poet Elena Gomez and writer and critic Sonia Nair.

The group explored their individual motivations on writing, how to be an accessibility advocate (or an accomplice) and how to use social media to "do something about it". Our girls were taken with the idea of an "accomplice" and how they might be able to advocate for causes that are important to them. There was talk about the importance of solidarity and that it involves a lot of listening and learning before taking action. In a culture with information and compassion fatigue; how do we cut through all of that to make our voices heard?

Goodbye, World

Our second session required some travel between Treasury Place and the State Library and we were overjoyed to find out that the speaker of this session Lynette Noni had taken out the 2019 Gold Inky Award last night for her book 'Whisper'.

Meeting back up with the rest of the group, this talk was all about Young Adult novels; the writing process, where to find inspiration and how to weave the story. Lynette spoke passionately about the world that she had created in the 'Medoran Chronicles' and how her characters were her best friends. From how to work out character names to techniques in plotting she kept the group engaged for the 45 minutes and we kept on talking about ideas that she generated for the rest of the afternoon.

Next Year?

Even though the Melbourne Writers Festival School's Program runs all day, we found that just the two sessions worked well with our students. Enough to get ideas from but not too much to exhaust us. The debrief in the Learning Commons when we got back to school was enlightening and hopefully a few of them have some ideas about where to take their writing.

Book Week Morning Tea

We had a morning tea to celebrate Book Week. What started off as a small morning tea, ended up being bigger than Ben Hur!

Our English Domain leader suggested that we all bring a dish that had some literary connection. She circulated the following web site from The Little Library Cafe and encouraged us to choose a dish that we could bring.

Library staff helped out with signage to make it a bit more formal looking using Canva.

[source]

Simple dishes such as "Picnic at Hanging Rock".

[source]

Turkish Delight from the local Middle Eastern Deli (much better than the commercial brands).

[source]

And some amazingly creative Mandrake Cup Cakes by one of our English Language teachers.

[source]

She bought the baby's and the folage from one of our local $2 shops and hot glue gunned them together. Chocolate packet mix for the cupcakes and icing and chocolate sprinkles complete the illusions of soil.

[source]

These are some of the other delectable offerings at morning tea. Staff were encouraged to bring along the book that inspired the piece as well. See more images here.

Coffee and Walnut cake The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Lemon Cakes The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Circular cut Sandwiches The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Lady Bracknell’s Cucumber Sandwiches  The importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

The Queen of Hearts Jam Tarts Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Mandelines Madeleines by Marcel Proust

Mandrake Cupcakes Harry Potter by JK Rowling

Hummas H is for Hummas Joel Rickett

Turkish Delight The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis

Cheese, Crackers, Fruit Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

Pumkin Pasties Harry Potter by JK Rowling

Quiche Lorraine The Quiche of Death: Agatha Raisin mystery by Marion Chesney (MC Beaton)



Resources:

Dugdale, J. (2019). Books’ best bakes: cakes in fiction from Dickens to George RR Martin. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/oct/08/baking-in-books-cakes-in-literature

Canva. Web based desktop publishing.
https://www.canva.com/

The Little Library Cafe
http://thelittlelibrarycafe.com/

‌

Encouraging a regular reading habit

The data from our reading observations has shown that there is a large chunk of our Year 7 students that are not reading regularly.

Reflecting on the Wider Reading data, we can see that there is a group of girls who are just not reading outside the wider reading sessions every fortnight. Their reading is disjointed and often they pick up a different book each week. The only book that they have finished all semester is their class set text. We know that reading competency, vocabulary range and imagination will develop if students read novels regularly.

They have sports practice, they have homework, they have production rehearsals. The excuses are endless and sometimes quite creative. Students don't understand the benefits of reading regularly and they are not willing to make the changes or sacrifices to steal 10 minutes here or 10 minutes there for their reading.

So what are we doing about it?

We have put together a 'Drop everything and read' campaign. I purposefully called it a campaign because it has a start and an end date. We are doing this in Term 3 because we now know a fair bit about our Year 7 readers, we have 6 months of reading observations about them. Now it is time to change some habits.

[source]

So we have started off with bookmarks to launch the campaign and classroom posters encouraging them to find the 10 minutes a day to read. To steal it from the time before dinner or when waiting for a bus.

Students will use the bookmarks (hopefully) to record how many minutes they read per week and enter the data online so that we can tally up which class has read the most. Yes there is competition between the English classes, however, we are not targeting individual students even though we will have that data so that we can verify and encourage their efforts when we talk to them during the wider reading sessions in the Learning Commons.

The plan is to see how they go and encourage them along with some lolly packs and perhaps button badges if I have the time to make some.

After I presented to two of the classes this afternoon, there was a buzz and lots of questions:

1. Do I have to read?
2. Will there be chocolate?
3. What if I forget to read?
4. Can we each get chocolate?
5. Can I listen to an audio book?
6. Is there chocolate?

When exiting the classroom after presenting the ideas, a student who is a big fan of Tui Sutherland leant into me and said "I am going to knock it out of the park".

I am going to try and blog as much as I can about this project.

#growthmindset and Independent Reading

One of the cornerstones of a school library is actively supporting the independent reading or wider reading programs. Every school has their blend of strategies in this area, ranging from structured lessons, assessment tasks, challenges to wider reading afternoons.

Recently, I was listening to the TER Podcast and interview with Carol Dweck about Growth Mindset and the role of schools. Having a growth mindset means that it is "ok" to give up on something.

I wondered at how this related to our wider reading strategies in our schools.

Over the years I have heard many school librarians pressure students to finish a book. "You can't give up", they say and then students just "pretend read" or slowly read rather than get engaged with the book. Strategies of three chapters or 100 pages might work for some students, but most will give up if the topic of the book isn't speaking to them.

They don't define themselves as readers ... yet.

Carol Dweck "The Power of Yet"

The growth comes from the realisation that it is ok to say "this book isn't really working for me" and students should be able to change course.  The student should be encouraged to confidently articulate why the book isn't working for them. It is then that a Teacher Librarian with an in depth knowledge of both the collection and the curriculum can assist them in finding a book that will work for them.

Students come into the school library or Learning Commons with distinct views about reading. They either define themselves as "a reader" or not. Those students that sit on the fence normally justify their answer with a "it depends on the book" and the reality is that this is true for most of us.

The strength of a teacher librarian is being able to guide the student to a book that they might be interested in reading. Using careful questioning to ensure that reading is a positive experience even though they don't see themselves as a reader  ... yet.

4 ways you can build your school reading culture

Every year Scholastic Books release a report on the state of reading; Australian Kids and Family Reading Report. Pairing this up with the Professional Learning event that I went to earlier this term, I am currently reflecting on how to build a strong school reading culture.

We know that our kids do more reading than children 50 year ago, but most of that reading is fragmented and tends not to directly benefit them from a cognitive point of view. Reading a novel introduces students to concepts, expressions, words and challenges that they might not get in real life. The idea of a plot and story works their brain when they are not reading, playing through scenarios.

[source]

Students who are regular recreational readers are much stronger when it comes to comprehension and writing tasks.

If you are a teacher, consider the following changes through your practice:

• Encouraging students to pick up a book if they finish their academic work.
  As a classroom teacher we are all guilty of rewarding students with more work or finishing homework if they finish early. But what if we encouraged students to pick up a book? Perhaps continuing to read their English Novel or perhaps something that interests them. Imagine a class test where all students had something to read if they finished early.
• Teachers actively talking about what they are reading.
  Students need to see that all teachers read, not just English teachers. Opportunities to share what you are reading might present itself during pastoral care sessions. Recommending books to students (I think you would like this book because …). One of the most powerful things that a teacher or parent can do is recommend a book to a student. “I recommend this because I think you could identify with the main character”. Make your recommendation genuine. It could be a fiction or non-fiction book. Making links between the curriculum that you teach and fiction that might inspire students. We don’t often think of Science or Maths when we think of recreational reading. But there are lots of genre’s that stretch across the curriculum.
• Adding a fiction reading list to your subject synopsis can add an extra level of engagement in the classroom.
  Teacher Librarian’s are happy to assist with resource gathering and can even create small “chapter samples” to be used as part of your tool kit. They are experts in engaging with students about what they read. Every teacher in your school can get their hands on the Year level booklists, and should be encouraged to read some of the novels that their students are studying. Asking students about the novels that they are studying in English places an emphasis on the importance of studying texts and encourages students to vocalise their opinion about these books to someone other than their English Teacher. If you don’t have time to read these novels your Teacher Librarians will gladly point you in the direction of the spark notes for them!
• Making reading visible throughout the school.
  When was the last time a student saw you reading? If you are too busy to read, perhaps that is the reason why they often see themselves as “too busy to read”. Share with students the books that excite you, “hey, have your read this book?” or relate it back to a movie that you have seen. Have you read the book version of the movie? 

What do you think of these ideas?

Would you be prepared to do one of them to build your school reading culture?

#Freebookmarks for your #schoollibrary Winter Images

We love Canva in our Learning Commons. We use it for most of our advertising and poster needs. It is easy to use and we can share publications amongst the library staff when working on larger projects.

We had run dry in terms of bookmarks, so I whipped up a few designs using free images in Canva. Students grab a bookmark when they are borrowing fiction, or we use them to write things on the back for students. We try and turn the bookmarks over to suit the "season" in the Learning Commons.

You should be able to save these images and print it as an A4 landscape document using thick card (180gsm).

I set up the document using Canva Frames effect, so that I could manipulate each image individually, zooming in on a point of interest.

Each of these pages are spliced on the guillotine, 5 sheets at a time.

Did you use these bookmarks? Let us know!

Thoughts on Self Check out in Learning Commons

Discussions have surfaced yet again about self checkouts in school library or learning commons environments. Being a technology nut, I love the idea of using technology such as this and giving students autonomy in their interactions and learning. However, over the last few years my views have changed.

In our school we do not have self checkout or check in. Students need to approach the circulation desk if they wish to borrow and we have the traditional returns chutes, although many like to hand books back to us and talk about whether they liked or disliked them.

When a student checks a book out of our collection we can:

• Affirm their choices "This is a great book", "Once you finish this one, read that one"
• Converse with them about books they have read "What did you think of this book?"
• If they return their books to the circulation desk we can ask them what they thought of it and if they liked it or would recommend another book.

There is so much perceived anonymity in what our students do online, is it in their best interests to allow them to be anonymous when borrowing from a school collection?

Public Libraries love self check out because at the end of the day, they are not investing in the learning of their clients. But as a Learning Commons, our goal is to encourage recreational reading and make it a positive and fulfilling experience.

I recently read an article which supports my views about encouraging student reading. Willingham (2015) talks about the importance of engagement in the reading process and the role of the teacher in this skill development.

References: 

Willingham, Daniel T. "For the Love of Reading Engaging Students in a Lifelong Pursuit." American Educator 6.2015 (2015): 7. http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/ae_spring2015.pdf

Celebrating Library Lovers Day #morethanalibrary #blinddate

I love the idea of ALIA's Library Lovers Day, but if you are a Learning Commons, ie. #morethanalibrary, what can you do??

[source]

In our Learning Commons his year we did the blind date reading campaign, but this time a bit differently to what we did a few years back.

[source]

We wrapped the books up and copied the barcode number onto the front of them.

[source]

Organisationally, we borrowed all these books out to a "blind date" borrowing account on the system as we were wrapping them up. So that if someone was looking for a novel and it had been borrowed out to blind date, we could easily identify and locate it quite quickly.

At the end of the campaign we could also measure how successful the campaign was by how many of the books remained on the blind date account.

The teachers loved it and the Year 7's thought that it was a great idea!

"It is kinda exciting taking the book home, not knowing what is inside"

If you want to do your own blind date campaign, here are the files that we used to create the display.

Downloads:

• Blind Date White Paper
• Blind Date Pink Paper

Encouraging students to read for the Premier's Reading Challenge

We all know that reading benefits the “whole person”. It makes you confident in your reading, comprehension and also in your writing. It is a trans-disciplinary skill and every curriculum area at St. Michael’s benefits from our students being involved and active readers.

[source]

Here are 10 ideas that you can try to support your students who have signed up for the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge.