In our small and quiet ways, we, meaning those of us resilient and courageous enough to be called school library media specialists, have worked hard over the years in selecting well-balanced, thoughtful and diverse collections of materials for students to read. We read reviews, pre-read, converse with reading specialists. Our goal--student reading.
To be honest, most of us are still book-lovers.
The CCSS could have been written by library media specialists. Truly, it could have been. While there is much more to the Core, here are the parts I like the best:
- Balanced information (i.e. non-fiction) and literary (fiction) texts
- Emphasis on actually reading the documents instead of reading textbook summaries
- Increasing complexity of texts and time allowed to read, analyze, and re-read
- Creation of "evidence" from texts
- Writing based upon reading
- Higher levels of vocabulary
Singing Praises for LMS everywhere (and me by default)!Library media specialists work hard, very hard, to provide high-quality, diverse and challenging materials for students. Perhaps the most important part of our job is building a great library collection with the funds we have available. And I can guarantee, that to the last LMS, we make sure every penny counts.
Look in any nice school library collection and you will find:
- Great biographies
- Wonderful science books
- Poetry
- Children's books galore
- Fiction...The newest, the classics, the unusual
- Graphic novels
- Hi/Lo resources
Ranganathan's Laws of Library Science (1931) still apply today...Every reader has his/her book, every book has its reader.
I would encourage you to invite your library media specialists to Common Core planning meetings. Invite them to team and grade level meetings. Ask them for book requests or reviews. Hit them up to work with your classes.
Chances they already have what you are looking for.
And especially to give them a hug.
Common Core Resources
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