AASL Standards for Initial Preparation of School Library Media Specialists:
Standard 2: Literacy and Reading: Candidates are effective teachers who demonstrate knowledge of learners and learning and who model and promote collaborative planning, instruction in multiple literacies, and inquiry-based learning, enabling members of the learning community to become effective users and creators of ideas and information. Candidates design and implement instruction that engages students' interests and develops their ability to inquire, think critically, gain and share knowledge.
2.2 Reading promotion Candidates use a variety of strategies to promote leisure reading and model personal enjoyment of reading in order to promote habits of creative expression and lifelong reading.
Artifact Descriptions: EDUC 717 Children's Literature - Far Eastern text set. The text set was built up to support a unit on Asia for second-grade level students in social studies class. It includes weblinks, books, and activities to immerse the student reader into the topic. ISTC 789: Practicum and Portfolio in School Library Media - Sibert Award Lesson and its online extension. The lesson was developed for instruction with second-grade level students. It includes information on the nonfiction award and encourages students to visit the nonfiction section to try a book about a true topic. ISTC 789: Practicum and Portfolio in School Library Media - Library advertisement. Advertising the library encourages leisure reading and reminds students that they can visit the school library before or after school, not just on library day.
Relevance: EDUC 717 Children's Literature - Far Eastern Text Set - The text set is a collection of books and activities that support and extend information to best answer an essential question. Using titles in a variety of genre, it promotes reading when it invites students, who are already studying a particular topic, to explore related material. Activities can document learning and extend knowledge of the topic. This strategy promotes habits of lifelong reading and aligns with AASL standard 2.2 for reading promotion. ISTC 789: Practicum and Portfolio in School Library Media - Sibert Award lesson. This lesson is developed to invite students to checkout the nonfiction section of the library. The lesson, designed for second-grade students, begins with a book read-aloud. The LMS can model personal enjoyment in a read aloud, showing excitement about the content while talking up the text features which help find more information. In addition, the LMS may invite students to think critically about whether a book deserves to be an award-winner. Reading aloud while modeling comprehension strategies supports AASL standard 2.2 for reading promotion. ISTC 789: Practicum and Portfolio in School Library Media - Library advertisement. Print signs throughout the school which invite students promote positive thinking about the school library and invite good habits of reading for personal interest. At the end of one particular day after signs went up, students who saw me in the hall gave me overdue books; one checked with his teacher and then visited the library to get another book. When the LMS creates visuals that market the library, students realize that it is available to provide a book for them even when it is not library class. This develops a lifelong interest in reading and aligns with the AASL standard 2.2 for reading promotion.
Analysis/Reflection: The LMS continually promotes leisure reading, models personal enjoyment, and promotes good reading habits. Three artifacts demonstrate just a few ways that the school librarian meets the AASL standard 2.2.
In EDUC 717 Children's Literature we read a number of books during and between classes to create a text set for a geography topic on Asia. We built the set with fiction and nonfiction titles about Asia and Asian-Americans. The collection was meant to help students to improve understanding of the social studies topic, but also invited students to a biography, learn traditions of a country they didn't know much about, and increase their love of reading for pleasure and information. The fact that students were invited and encouraged, not required, to select additional reading material promoted the selected collection as leisure reading.
Opportunities to model reading enjoyment happen throughout the day during ISTC 789 Practicum and Portfolio in School Library Media. In fact the presence of a LMS in the building is the school's way of promoting a habit of lifelong reading. The Sibert award lesson provided me with an opportunity to share my knowledge of spiders as I read about them from an award-winning book by Nic Bishop. The excitement about the new information and the photographs was contagious. Where the LMS models reading enjoyment, the AASL standard 2.2 for reading promotion is met.
ISTC 789 Practicum and Portfolio in School Library Media provides multitudinous opportunities to encourage reading. I created signs that invited students to come to the library before or after school because books are not just available during library class. Morning announcements that congratulate students who have returned their books and that invite students to visit the library before or after school also support a habit of reading for pleasure. When students return their books, they can get new ones. I have created a "recommended by" bookmark that students can place in a book that they would like friends to read. Future plans to provide book talks and poetry readings will allow students to model reading enjoyment. When the LMS invites student into the library space at times other than library class lifelong reading habits are encouraged.