Roche Chapt 4.docx

4 Creating a Reading Rich Environment Annie Everall Introduction As a school librarian, you will have a passion for reading; a passion that you will want to share with your school community. You will want them to be passionate about reading and to talk about and promote books and reading. You w...

4 Creating a Reading Rich Environment Annie Everall Introduction As a school librarian, you will have a passion for reading; a passion that you will want to share with your school community. You will want them to be passionate about reading and to talk about and promote books and reading. You will want that passion to emanate from the library, permeate the school and demonstrate in different ways that the school has a strong reading culture and creates a reading rich environment for all. This chapter aims to support you in this and covers the following topics: the role of the school librarian in creating a reading rich environment in school finding out about activities and promotions that could be run in your library national book initiatives national and local book awards practical ideas for creating a reading rich environment author events the rights of the reader funding sources working with other school staff Schools Library Services follow up activities references and further information. 44 CREATING A SCHOOL LIBRARY WITH IMPACT The school librarian and the reading environment in school Ask anybody who works with children or who cares about the future of young people and they will agree one thing: reading is the most basic of basics. The child who reads is a successful child: more likely to succeed academically; more likely to succeed socially; and more likely to be inquisitive about the world around them, maybe even to feel empowered to try to change it for the better. This is not just my opinion. It is a judgement supported by a body as influential as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). When you read often, when it is as effortless and integral to your being as eating, drinking, sleeping, and breathing, you are able to empathise. To access · and order information, to interpret and explore the world around you. (Gibbons, 2011) Without the sunlight of literature children cannot grow as they should. We know that from books come knowledge and understanding, that they are a source of infinite joy and fun, that they stimulate imagination and creativity, that they open eyes and minds and hearts. It is through the power and music and magic of stories and poems that children can expand their own intellectual curiosity, develop the empathy and awareness that they will need to tackle the complexities of their own emotions, of the human condition in which they find themselves. And it's through books that we can learn the mastery of words, the essential skill that will enable us to express ourselves well enough to achieve our potential in the classroom and beyond. (Morpurgo, 2009) These two quotes by Alan Gibbons and Michael Morpurgo demonstrate what we all know: that books can inspire children and foster their love of reading, can help stimulate their curiosity to learn new facts, explore or come to terms with situations they are dealing with in their lives, as well as supporting their growth and development. Librarians are the heart of a school's reading environment. They can lead by example, creating a ripple effect that travels out of the library via the students and staff and permeates across the school. The library is in a unique position and by working with the English department to identify struggling or reluctant readers, the school library can have a measurable impact on enthusiasm and reading attainment. Reporting on this to senior leadership can help demonstrate the work of the school library and hopefully ensure adequate funding to continue to inspire lifelong readers. So where should a new school librarian start? As Alex Williams says in Get Everyone Reading - A Primer on Reading for Pleasure: CREATING A READING RICH ENVIRONMENT 45 You can't create a reading culture. Not by yourself. But you can and should help to make it happen. The short and longer answer to how to create a reading culture is: 'all the other sections of this guide' (a thriving library, great books, reading aloud, teacher role models, reading events, following children's own choices, and so on). (Williams, 2021, 12) Your starting point should be your library environment - this is explored in more detail in Chapter 2: The Library Environment. Your library needs to be fantastic; it should be exciting, attractive, welcoming and a place that students want to go. Keep it up to date with a diverse range of resources that are well presented. You need to find ways to promote and market the library to students and staff and to get them to do that on your behalf too. Your aim is to make every student want to read and promote the library. You can do this by giving them a stake in it - buy books they request (within reason), talk with them and listen to their suggestions for activities, events and clubs or promotional displays. As the school librarian, what should you do personally? One of the best pieces of advice we can give a new school librarian is READ, READ, READ, DISCUSS AND PROMOTE! Librarians need to read what the children and young people are reading so that they can recommend books that suit the needs of each student, but also to give depth to discussions with students about books. A good starting point is to find out what reading scheme is being used in your school and talk to staff about ways in which the library can support reading development. Work with staff and families to encourage everyone to read more. Involve the whole school in developing the reading culture and creating a reading rich environment. Be visible in your own reading and encourage other staff to do the same. Read about books too - social media can be very useful here, but also sign up for relevant newsgroups and publishers' and library suppliers' newsletters. Work at keeping your own reading knowledge up to date. Websites such as Booktrust (www.booktrust.org.uk) and LoveReading4Kids (www.1overeading4kids. co.uk) can provide useful information, as well as opening extracts for newly released titles. Finding out about activities and promotions that could be run in your library Find out what events and activities will be happening during the forthcoming year that your school could get involved with. Look for ways that you can link activities and initiatives into the curriculum. As well as keeping a watch 46 CREATING A SCHOOL LIBRARY WITH IMPACT on social media, announcements in the press and through websites mentioned in this book, there are key resources that can help you find out about other activities and promotions, as well as help support your own professional knowledge and development. More information on these can be found in Chapter 10: Moving on: CPD and Qualifications. The following websites highlight some of the major events that take place during the year: The School Reading List: https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/competitions­ for-children/childrens-book-festivals-events-and-competitions Booktrust: www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/events LIPSSEE: https://preplibs.wordpress.com/?s=events Work with other staff to create your own school calendar of events that you can celebrate, involving the whole school. Ask your pupil library assistants to promote your events to classes and design posters to promote them. The school timetable is packed full, so think of activities that don't interfere with this too much or that can be done for 10 minutes a day or as homework. The Great School Libraries website has a wealth of information and support for school librarians. These include a range of case studies on different themes such as reading for pleasure (www.greatschoollibraries.org.uk/case-studies). National book initiatives Throughout the year, there are key national book-related activities and celebrations that take place. These offer opportunities for a school librarian to celebrate them and use them as a focal point for bringing the whole school together to promote literacy and reading, through displays, a programme of activities, author events or a specific project. These can be a good starting point for a new school librarian to engage with. By incorporating national events such as World Book Day and National Poetry Day into the school calendar, the school librarian can provide opportunities for the entire school community to engage with books and reading. It is often events such as these that spark the beginning of a reading community. In particular, World Book Day provides opportunities for author visits, distribution of World Book Day National Book Tokens and book-related activities and competitions. Some of the major initiatives are listed in Appendix 2, but there are others that you should explore. CREATING A READING RICH ENVIRONMENT 47 National and local book awards There are a growing number of children's book awards, both national and local. For a new school librarian, familiarising yourself with these can have several benefits. They are a great way to discover new books that you may wish to purchase for the school library. Aim to create partnerships with your local public library services, as well as other school librarians, to help you gain knowledge of local book awards and literary festivals and build your networks. In addition, some of the awards provide opportunities for schools to participate, such as shadowing the Yoto Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals. This can provide a rich and rewarding experience for students, offering an effective way for them to engage in reading for pleasure and develop the habit of talking about the books they read. It can also provide purpose and focus for school reading groups. Toppsta (https://toppsta.com) outlines most of the major national children's book awards and their parameters, as well as details of the shortlists and winners. Some of the key national awards are included in Appendix 3. Practical Ideas for creating a reading rich environment One of the best ways of getting ideas for strategies and initiatives to try in your school library is to build your own knowledge by undertaking wider CPD through reading, seeking out articles and exploring relevant websites. The Open University Reading for Pleasure website (https://ourfp.org) has lots of useful activities that have been tried and tested in the library and classroom. Although mainly aimed at primary level, they could easily be used for secon­ dary schools. The Great School Libraries website (www.greatschoollibraries. org.uk) has information and case studies and is a valuable resource for new school librarians. It can also be useful to talk to other colleagues in your school library networks and 'magpie' their ideas. Share ideas that work for you too, so that others can benefit from your knowledge, experiences and successes. Consider working with other schools in your area on joint initiatives. Organisations such as CILIP School Libraries Group, the Reading Agency, the National Literacy Trust and the School Library Association provide resources and examples of reading initiatives successfully running in schools. Remember, too, that even if you try something and it doesn't work as successfully as hoped, you can still learn from it and revise it to make it work more successfully next time. By looking at your school's strategic development plan, and surveying staff and students, you can look for areas where the library can enrich and support the school community. For example, if there is a need for increased wellbeing 48 CREATING A SCHOOL LIBRARY WITH IMPACT provision in the school, the library can link to this by purchasing and promoting self-care books and activities. When you are trying to develop a reading culture and create a reading rich environment, whether in primary or secondary schools, look at all aspects of literature, such as events, creative activities and different formats of books and materials. Also, look at all ages and key stages of school, as well as all reading ability levels, to ensure that you are providing something for everyone. Talk to students and find out what they would like the library to organise. Whatever initiatives you engage in, remember to build in some form of evaluation, such as measuring loan increases, so that you can include this in your annual report. The following are all practical ideas and tips that have been developed and used successfully by school librarian Zoe Rowley from Wolverhampton Grammar School, members of the CILIP School Libraries Group national committee, the collaborators on this book, and others whose articles are referenced in this chapter. Book awards Shadowing a book award can give focus and purpose to a school book club or reading group. Many awards will have lots of activity and discussion ideas for shadowing groups on their websites. Whichever award you are shadowing across the school, aim to ensure that each book is championed by at least one member of staff. You can also get those staff to talk to the children and tell them why they are championing that book. Work with other librarians in your area and participate in your local book award if there is one. When shadowing a book award, put a set of the books in the staff room for staff to borrow, to read themselves or to read to their class. Discuss the books with them. Book champions - get children in teams to devise a 'selling' campaign for an allocated title from the book award list and get them to present it to a judge or team of judges. If it is a multi-school award, each school can be allocated a different book. Reading champions and reading buddies Reading buddies - pair less able readers with an older reading mentor (such as Year 7/8 with Year 10/11). Students come to the library at form CREATING A READING RICH ENVIRONMENT 49 time and the older ones can model reading to the younger ones and talk about the book they are sharing. Alternatively, students in Year 10/11 can choose a book for those in Year 8/9, which they can all read as a group and then break into small groups to discuss. Reading Champions - students can promote books to the wider school in various ways. Pupil library assistants can be used very successfully with this. You can find ways of making this happen, such as a 'favourites' display or by students going into different classrooms to 'push' books via a 'booktalking' slot. Book clubs and reading groups By opening the library at break, lunchtimes and after school, you can provide a safe inclusive space for students to come and visit. During this time, the library can be a fantastic location to run book clubs, reading groups, debates, book-related craft activities or story time sessions. Think about what might work best for your different audiences, such as confident readers who want to be stretched or less able readers who want to be supported. Chatterbooks is the Reading Agency's network of children's reading clubs run in public libraries and schools to encourage reading for pleasure (https://readingagency.org.uk/children/quick-guides/chatterbooks). Book review clubs - get students to read new books that you have added to the library and then write a review or make a video of themselves verbally reviewing the book. This can be put up as a display in the library, on the library management system (LMS), if that is possible, or on digital screens across the school. It may also be worth contacting publishers to see if they are able to provide proof copies of books before publication so your students can write a review for the publisher. Ti;y holding a different kind of book club, such as a research club or a newspaper club where students can become reporters and create a termly school newspaper. Book clubs can also be focused on a specific genre or format, for example, manga or anime, graphic novels, fantasy or murder/mystery. Premier League Reading Stars (https://plprimarystars.com/resources/reading-stars-pack), developed by the National Literacy Trust, is an evidence-based and effective recovery reading intervention for students who might not enjoy reading but do enjoy football. It supports students to read a wide range of formats about the subject they love. 50 CREATING A SCHOOL LIBRARY WITH IMPACT School breakfast clubs have been turned into breakfast book clubs via grants from Give a Book (http://giveabook.org.uk). One school made their breakfast club into a very popular family breakfast reading club, where some of the most socially deprived families could have breakfast and read together. Parent and child reading groups, either before or after school, can also encourage further reading at home. Start a staff reading group by getting teachers and support staff to read and discuss children's and young adult books. It's always worth checking out publishers' websites for books that you are going to be reading in your group as they will often have resources to support titles, including discussion questions and activities. Visible reading Be visible in your own reading and encourage staff to do the same. Encourage staff to display their current reading in their teaching rooms, either by having an A4 laminated poster that says 'I am currently reading' with a book cover that can be changed, or by having the book they are currently reading on a display stand on the desk. Put up posters of celebrities reading, around the school as well as in the library. Use notice boards to promote reading, both in the library and around the school. Ask staff to talk about the books they are reading in assemblies - this can be particularly good if male teachers get involved or for subjects lik science or PE. It can be a good way to link in with World Book Day, Science Week or a major sporting event. Display poems chosen by staff around the school to link to National Poetry Day. Video staff reading and talking about the books they are reading and show the videos in assembly or on screens around the school. Get the Head of English, SLT and the Literacy Co-ordinator to encourage all staff to participate. A simple and effective way to encourage visible reading across the school is to timetable 10 minutes of Drop Everything and Read (DEAR) time each week. This not only provides time for students to read independently, but it also allows children to see their participating teachers as positive reading role models. If that is a step too far initially, try it for a specific initiative such as World Book Day, have one tutor time a week devoted to reading or run a DEAR session with a specific year group. CREATING A READING RICH ENVIRONMENT 51 By running such initiatives and seeing a measurable increase in reading for pleasure, the library will become an essential resource. Book events and activities Holding a school Book Week can be a good opportunity to really focus on reading for pleasure and for information. Invite authors to visit virtually or in person, hold poetry workshops or slams, rap writing workshops, bookmaking workshops, information book sessions with authors or reading assemblies. Book quizzes can be fun; either a school quiz with locally devised questions or work with other local librarians to devise a regional quiz. Whole school reading programme - give all tutors a box of books from the library and have students read first thing in the morning during form time. Swap the boxes halfway through the year if more books are needed. Participate in the Bookbuzz programme for Years 7 and 8 - a reading programme from Booktrust that aims to help schools inspire a love of reading in 11 to 13-year-olds (www.booktrust.org.uk/what-we­ do/programmes-and-campaigns/bookbuzz). Create reader profiles for all new Year 7 students and then keep a log of their reading journey to encourage the reading of more challenging texts as they progress through school. Hold a yearly overnight readathon, where students are sponsored to stay overnight in school and the school attempts to have someone reading all night. This can be great fun, raise money for library funds and result in many children finding a new favourite author. Run an in-house summer reading challenge, encouraging students to read one or two books a week over the holidays and then quiz them using Accelerated Reader in the first week back. Give them a small prize if they pass at least six quizzes. You can also use the national Summer Reading Challenge to save re-inventing the wheel. Use digital encouragement as well. Put QR codes inside book covers that lead students to a book trailer or play trailers on a big screen in the library and/or across the school. Make a book. Each class writes stories in the style of a favourite author. Selected ones are collected into a self-published book (which the librarian will need to copy edit). Another option that has worked successfully in primary schools is to get the whole school to write a collective book. Each class from Nursery to Year 6 works on two or three paragraphs together. You supply the first sentence or two. Tell each class 52 CREATING A SCHOOL LIBRARY WITH IMPACT what the story is about and the names of the main characters. Another opportunity to get children writing is to participate in The Write Path initiative. This is an international collaborative writing programme enabling children to add paragraphs to stories started by leading children's authors (www.bevhumphrey.com/the-write-path.html). Fathers Reading Week - a week of celebrations of father/male role models, available as a case study on the Great School Libraries website (www.greatschoollibraries.org.uk/reading-for-pleasure-information). Father's Day event- an after school event for fathers/carers and children with library activities, a reading tent, shared stories, a storyteller from the public library, a stand for the public library to promote itself and sign up parents and children, and a male author visit. This could also be done for Mother's Day. Cinema night - choose a film of a popular book and ask the teacher of the classes attending to read the book aloud to students beforehand. Remember to check out licensing agreements before showing the film (https://copyrightandschools.org/film). Early years activities that work well: Visit the Nursery class (or invite them to visit the library every week) and read or tell stories to them. Use props (dolls, animals, artefacts) and costumes to enliven the stories. Story sacks containing a picture book and several story props, artefacts and costumes can be borrowed from some Schools Library Services by subscribing schools. Ask children to make up their own stories. Give them a theme, write down the story they tell you and stick it into a scrapbook. Ask the children to draw pictures related to their stories and stick them in too. When this is finished, add it to their classroom collection. Emma Suffield, School Librarian at St Wilfred's Academy, and a previous School Librarian of the Year, has some innovative ideas to get students reading: Golden Tickets - 'I place six golden tickets in books that haven't been taken out in a while. If a student reads a book containing a ticket, they are asked to write a short summary about it to win a prize.' Get Caught Reading Raffle - 'When students are "caught" reading silently in the library during break and lunchtimes, they are issued with a raffle ticket by one of our student librarians. At the end of every half term, the raffle is drawn and the winner receives a goodie bag of CREATING A READING RICH ENVIRONMENT 53 reading-related materials. Students can be entered as many times as they want, but only once a day. This is a great initiative to encourage students to use the LRC (Learning Resource Centre) for reading during break and lunch.' Twitter Review Raffles - 'Students are issued with a Twitter review sheet for every book they take out of the LRC. They are asked to write a short review about the book, which is then posted to the author on our Twitter page @stwLRC. Students receive a raffle ticket for every review they write and are entered into a prize draw. If the author likes, retweets or even replies, I let the student know.' A 'What Should I Read Next?' Book Jar- 'All our fiction books have genre labels to help students choose their book easily. However, sometimes the students just do not know what they would like to read. I created a book jar that contains coloured paper slips. Each colour relates to a book genre and each slip contains a book recommendation. Students are invited to select a genre, then take out a piece of paper that matches the genre colour. Students excitedly run to find the book on the shelf and start reading. Student librarians update the jar on a regular basis.' (Suffield, 2019.) Displays and stock promotion When starting your planning for displays and stock promotion, think about what the purpose of the display or promotion is, what impact and outcomes do you want it to achieve, and how will you measure these e.g. through student feedback, book loans, enquiries. Promotion of specific genres of stock can be done through displays, for example, romance with all pink book covers displayed or Shakespeare resources on Shakespeare's birthday. Top 10 tissue factor books - put the covers of a range of books on display and.have tear shaped post-it notes available for students to stick next to the book cover with the number of tissues they think the book rates, from one to ten. Christmas advent calendar -put a book behind each window, recommended by a mix of staff and students; that person opens the window each day and talks about their chosen book. Wheel of 60 Carnegie winners - create a big wheel displaying the last 60 Carnegie Medal winners, each book displayed in a box alongside props from the story. When Castle Mead Academy in Leicester bought new Manga and graphic novels, instead of simply adding them to stock like normal, they 54 CREATING A SCHOOL LIBRARY WITH IMPACT decided to make a feature of them and held a 'Manga Extravaganza' to boost the excitement and anticipation of the books. It was a roaring success. Featuring books on the interface of your LMS can be very effective. Other ideas include: drawing students' attention to subject areas via carousels; showcasing lists; or just adding news items. Use display spinners to highlight genres such as horror before Halloween or romance near Valentine's Day or feature diverse authors during Pride Month and Black History Month. Create a reading wall of titles and authors of children's favourite books. For National Poetry Day, create a poet-tree with leaf templates on which children write lines from poems and staff write out their favourite childhood poem. Have them on the walls throughout the school as well as in the library. Promote information books. Often, when people think about a reading culture in school and reading for pleasure, they will predominantly focus on promoting fiction stock and organising fiction-related reading activities. However, as the author of many successful information books, Andy Seed, says: 'So many children love reading factual books. A lot prefer them. I was one of those kids - I became a reader through them. Once I was a reader, I then developed a taste for fiction' (Seed, 2021). He also argues that 'Information books are an excellent way to engage children in reading for pleasure. Children will read what is enjoyable. They'll also read what they are into - so have lots of books which match interests' (Seed, 2020). Participating in the SLA (School Library Association) Information Book Award can provide an opportunity to reinforce the importance of information books and highlight the excellent range of books available. Jenny Howe, Reading Engagement Co-ordinator at Queensbridge School, feels that 'to create a reading ethos in schools, lessons need to be linked to wider reading and the library. Working alongside a colleague in the English department, I decided it would be invaluable for our students to see more subject specific texts in the library. Subject teachers have volunteered as "Reading Champions" to make the non-fiction section even more relevant to their subjects. They have written bookshop style recommendations and we have placed these on the library shelves so students can see the link to subjects and wider reading. Students learn how important it is to broaden their reading horizons as part of their educational progress' (Howe, 2021). CREATING A READING RICH ENVIRONMENT 55 Author events An effective way of inspiring reading in school is to invite an author, illustrator, poet, or storyteller in to talk about their books and work with the students. This can be a rewarding experience for all involved, but it does need careful thought and planning to ensure everyone gets the best possible experience. The impact of a visiting author can be immense, as Eileen Armstrong, School Librarian at Cramlington Learning Village, highlights following a visit from author Curtis Jobling: This is one of the most successful visits we have ever had the pleasure of hosting. Students are still bringing me money for books every day and I'm having to collect more stock from the bookshop regularly to give out. It's generated such a buzz about books and reading. One of our teaching assistants also came to see me to tell me that one of our most severely autistic Year 7 students came along to Curtis' session. It was a huge thing for him to actually be in the Hub for the whole hour not knowing what would happen during the event. Afterwards his support assistant was amazed that he then spent lunchtime instigating conversations with other students about the trading cards, he never normally speaks much during the day and spends lunchtime on his own with his head in his hands. A day later he came to ask if he could have a copy of the book too. Transformative! Zoe Rowley, Head Librarian at Wolverhampton Grammar School, who organises a regular programme of author visits to her school, says: Meeting an author, poet or illustrator can be inspirational for young people. It is often this experience which introduces children to new genres and starts them off on their journey to becoming an avid reader. When planning an event, use an organisation such as Authors Aloud UK to ensure that the author selected can deliver an appropriately inspiring workshop/presentation in your school. When planning the event, ensure that curriculum time has been allocated by the school and that a suitable location for the event is available. To ensure that the event is meaningful, children should be given time to read and discuss the opening extract of one of the author's books prior to the event. Competitions linked to the author's books can also be a great way to generate excitement linked to the author visit. Following the event, children should be given access to the author's books. By working with other school staff to get them to help with pre­ preparation and follow up work, the school librarian can make the visit more effective. 56 CREATING A SCHOOL LIBRARY WITH IMPACT Planning an author visit - what do you want to achieve? Do you want to: improve literacy and/or visual literacy? put the fun back into reading for your students? widen children's reading horizons? get the school buzzing about reading? encourage children to write their own stories? encourage children to hear different people talking about books and reading? encourage the children to read more poetry and enjoy it? help the children understand more about the oral tradition and try telling stories for themselves? empower children to think of themselves as successful writers? enable the children/young people to meet the author whose books they are studying and be able to ask them questions? have a writing workshop to encourage the children's writing? treat the children to meeting an author whose books they are keen on and who they would love to meet? fit an author visit into a scheme of work? be able to tick the relevant National Curriculum box? gain positive publicity for the school? have this as part of a programme of events (for example, Book Week, PTA event)? An author visit to your school can substantially contribute to all of these. Organising the event - what do you need to think about? Once you know what you are aiming to achieve with your author visit, decide what sort of speaker you want - an author (of fiction or information books), a poet, an illustrator or a storyteller. Then begin to research which might work best for your school and inspire your students. If you are using an agency such as Authors Aloud UK, they will provide you with a list of suggested authors with a brief summary of what those authors do, based on the parameters of what you are looking for. Do you have the budget to cover the speaker's fee and expenses? Fees will vary from author to author. Some authors will offer half day visits, but usually within a geographical area that is local to where they live. It might be worth exploring sharing the cost of the visit with another local school, so that you each have the author for half a day. Also, consider