The Cult of The Book: Fostering a Reading Culture in Schools (w/ ICT Support?)

I have always been foremost occupied as a Teacher-Librarian with the goal of creating a culture of reading within the school. Volume and variety of reading is the best method for increasing student reading skills, knowledge, empathy, escapism, connection, and--of course--entertainment. Most people have heard of the many studies showing the benefits of reading and access to books as indicators of academic success, but I found a study (link embedded) that was unique in its focus on using voluntary book club-style reading, discussing, and recommendation groups as a beneficial mental health therapy (LivHIR). Instead of having to read self-help books, the participants read books of their choosing and talked about them with others.

The conclusions were as follows:

The study found that Get into Reading helped patients suffering from depression in terms of: their social well-being, by increasing personal confidence, reducing social isolation, fostering a sense of community and encouraging communication skills; their mental well-being, by improving powers of concentration, fostering an interest in new learning or new ways of understanding, and extending their capacity for thought, verbalised and internalised; their emotional and psychological well-being, by increasing selfawareness, enhancing the ability to articulate profound issues of being, and making possible a shift in internal paradigms (or the telling of „a new story‟) in relation to self and identity. The study also established what literature works, why it works and how it works. Our findings thus offer a preliminary evidence-base for the efficacy of an inexpensive and humane psychosocial intervention, which will inform the development and design of the intervention, as well as the choices regarding outcome measures, in the design of a future RCT.  (p. 81)

At any rate, in this hectic era, when self-regulation is a major educational topic, reading for extended periods certainly provides a calm and reflective period for the body to relax and for the mind to be released from worries and stresses. Fostering a reading culture is thus a very important thing for a school Librarian to focus on. But, HOW?

How do we convince more kids to read more books more often? Below are some things I've been trying over multiple years to accomplish that fundamental goal.

Of course, having a very wide variety of items available helps: something to suit every taste. That is a beginning. Making sure they can find the books that interest them is vital: you might have it, but if they don't know it, they might leave with nothing. So, good signage is important, as are occasional Library walk-and-talk tours or orientations. Kids don't always read signs with words, so using picture cue cards to catch their attention works well (as I've found since experimenting last year).

This link should allow me to share the pic cue cards I created using Creative Commons pictures and icons:

Dewey Decimal Picture Cue Cards for the shelves

Students will read so much more if they can find what they want--fast. Creative cataloguing is a technique that improves patrons' abilities to find materials. Almost all Library software will allow you to manipulate fields for Call #, Location, and Subject. This allows you to create a user-friendly OPAC. It may not be an official Dewey subject you use, but if you can anticipate a topic kids want, and then create a subject list for those items, it's just one more way to be sure the books make it into readers' hands (you can teach more effective subject searching another time). I don't want the computer search system sending kids on a wild goose chase. If you keep all the Junie B. Jones (or whatever) in some sort of easy-access bin section, don't catalogue its call number as FIC PAR; instead, input the call number as JunieB/Bin #4 (or something). Be sure as well that the location field also gives a specific spot for the searcher to go to (often, for me, this is a repeat of the special call number--if it says it twice, more chance it gets noticed). For example, since my Graphic Novels are all on two display shelves, giving them call numbers such as 741.5 KIB is useless--they aren't over in non-fiction. So, the call number says "Graphic Novel shelves," as does the location field. The Graphic Novel shelves have large prominent signs on them, and when the student arrives there, the shelf labels clearly show where Amulet (etc) normally lives.

Try this experiment: go to the Sardis Elementary catalogue via the link below and look up Dork Diaries books, and Frog Girl, and Same Same But Different to see examples of how I use the fields just discussed.    

Sardis Elementary Library OPAC

The OPAC, your catalogue search tool, isn't exactly ICT, but having online access to it can likely increase its use as an interactive communication tool. With a switch-over to the Destiny program last January, our Library catalogue is now online 24/7. Thus, students can access it from home, and once I have time to investigate it further, I believe they will have the ability to write reviews and recommendations to post for peers (does anybody out there have knowledge/experience with this?) Those peer-to-peer suggestions will help to foster reading culture. My "old-school" version of this was the use of "Book Review Bookmarks" in my former Library assignment. Kids could take a 3x5" card from the check-out desk and fill in title, author, call number fields, plus write a review on it, then hand it in when returning the book. During assemblies, several reviews were chosen from the pile and read out; the reviewers got to visit the Library afterward to choose a free book. Periodically the review pile was "retired," which meant that those reviews got slipped into book pockets inside the covers of their books for other browsers to discover. I keep meaning to bring this idea to my new Library....

Reading really engaging stories to students in fun and interactive storytimes provides them with connections to new favourites that they will later see and borrow; if they like Book A that you read, then knowing that author has more titles will create a run on that shelf. Reading with voices, occasionally using puppets or props, and other elements of showmanship can also associate reading with fun, which promotes more reading for pleasure. I learned a lot (good and bad; to do, and not to do) from the public library's storytimes in the early years of my boys' lives.

My latest endeavour to build a culture of reading started when I was back teaching in Grade 4 classrooms. A few years ago, I initiated Mr. Hunt's Reading Extravanganza Challenges. These were lists of fabulous books that students could choose to read (or not); if they completed a list, then they got their names entered into an end-of-term draw to win $25 Chapters gift card (I got administrator permission to use my classroom budget to purchase these).  Since taking over my new Library position, I've wanted to expand the Challenges to the entire school: however, at just over 500 kids, it could get insanely expensive to hand out gift card rewards. In my old (inner city) school, I always used the proceeds from the Scholastic Book Fairs exclusively for purchasing year-end books (one for each of our 250 kids) and Book Review Bookmark give-aways; in my new school (not impoverished), the book fair proceeds are significant enough to fund a fully stocked Freebie Cart that I can use as rewards for completed Challenges. 

To see the Challenge lists (that I recently Tweeted about, too) follow the link below: 

http://sardis.sd33.bc.ca/library-news   (see the downloadable files towards the bottom of  page)

Thus, in February, I unveiled the program with a wide variety of book lists: various picture book lists, special collections lists (like ABC, First Nations, etc), graphic novels, various non-fiction, poetry, and various short and long fiction Challenges. There are now 24 different lists organized into three genre binders. The lists are available, viewable and downloadable, on-line on the Library News page of the school website. PAC parents made a display about them in the foyer last spring; I'm now going to get them to add a post and links to their Facebook page to spread the news far and wide (and to catch those who haven't seen my info in school newsletters).  A key element of this program is to try and encourage family members to read with their kids in working through the lists; to at least encourage some discussion of the books, students are to get each item on the list checked of/initialed by an adult, as well as a final signature. In only four months, 76 completed Challenges were handed in, which means 76 free books were chosen! I have been meaning to sift through the pile and do an analysis of what grade levels are doing them, which genre of lists are most used, how many students completed more than one, and so on.

Also, I am now attempting to build a parent Twitter following (as a result of taking this class) in order to share news about the Challenges, to make book recommendations, and share other reading-related news. Hopefully, increasing my use of ICT tools will help to build an ever-stronger culture of reading within my school.

I suppose I shall end things here...this has gotten rather longer than I intended (again);

I'll leave out reminiscences about the Books For Babies  (a borrowed idea from a colleague, plus built on a program by the local hospital) and the adult-and-child Book Club programs I used to do and have been planning to one day start up again....

Works Cited

LivHIR: Liverpool Health Inequalities Research Institute: The Reader Organization, with University of Liverpool, and National Health Service (Liverpool),. An Investigation Into The Therapeutic Benefits Of Reading In Relation To Depression And Well-Being. Liverpool (England): The Reader Organization, 2010. Web. 4 Oct. 2015.

One of the covers of the Reading Extravaganza Challenges binders: