Kaylee Foster- February Blog: Routman (2003) Chapter 5: Organize an Understanding Classroom Library

A well-organized classroom library is essential in having an effective reading program within the classroom. The question is where does a teacher begin in establishing a “well-organized” library that fits the needs of the students’ and the teacher? The first step if to understand our students as readers and what their interests are. If we expect our students to go beyond just reading to having a passion to read, then we need to provide books that will have them highly engaged. This goes back to the importance of getting to know our students as readers from day 1!

Routman pointed out that teachers need to take the stress off of what type of book the student is reading and put more emphasis on “Light Reading”. At the end of the day is it more important that our students are reading a certain genre or is it more important that our students are becoming competent readers who ENJOY to read? Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there is a time and a place for everything, that exposing students to different genres is important. However, providing students with the time to read what they choose, is equally important as well.

When evaluating your classroom library Routman has provided us with a well written checklist to ask ourselves. Questions that go from; is your classroom library/reading area inviting or invisible, does your classroom library have updated books that portray other cultures or is it outdated and homogeneous, and has your students been involved in the selection and organization or have you made all of the decisions on how books are grouped? These questions really make you sit back and think about all of the things that you could have and should have done differently when establishing the classroom library. I am going to be honest my first thought was time. How am I going to organize all of these books…? I guess in all of my “free time” because we have so much of that right? What if there’s another solution to this? What if there was a way to take more work off of the teacher and let the students take ownership and have a say in the classroom library which will in the end be a more meaningful classroom library to the students? What I am realizing is that the students can contribute to organizing the classroom library and this would a significant amount of time for the teachers. It’s a win-win!  It goes back to letting go of the reins and not having all of the control. Will the books be color coded and perfectly organized- most likely not BUT will the books be organized based on the students’ needs and understanding YES…and you have to ask yourself, which one is more important? I also want to note that this wouldn’t just be a project where the teacher just lets go of all of the reigns and allows the students to do whatever…he or she would need to facilitate the students and talk about ways to organize the books. This could be a great mini lesson before allowing small groups dig into the books. I feel confident that this would also open up the doors to several other many lessons too.

Routman makes it a point to tell us that an adequate classroom library will have at least two hundred books but a phenomenal one will have well over a thousand. I’m not sure the exact number of my classroom library but I know that I have somewhere over two hundred. However, I don’t have anywhere near a thousand books. A lot of money has been invested into our classroom library.  I know that this is a work in progress and isn’t something that is just going to magically appear overnight. My theory is- you have to start somewhere and I think organizing what you already have to work with is a great start. Over time books will build on themselves. Something that I just thought of is maybe I could make a goal to get twenty three new books (the number of students I have in my class) each school year based on that class’s interest and needs. Over time this would develop a rich literacy environment based on student choices.

Another important key aspect to having a well-organized classroom library is attaining it. Students need to be taught how to take care of the books. How they shouldn’t be on the floor or under the desk when they aren’t reading them. They need to know that putting the books back where they came from is important and not just throwing them in a random basket. I honestly believe if the teacher makes having a well-organized and attained classroom library a priority the students will too.