Competency #4: Tagging

alphabet(1) Basil recommends(1) child(1) Children(1) Children's(1) fiction(1) Letter L(1) Non-fiction(1) picture book(2) alphabet(1)

This is the tag cloud (albeit small tag cloud) for a book called, L is for Library by Sonya Terry. The tag cloud is from http://www.librarything.com/.

I chose to highlight this book because it is a great way to introduce the library to young, beginning library users. It is also a good way to review the library at the beginning of the school year for all students.

Competency #3: RSS feeds

I chose two RSS feeds to link to my blog. I found them both on the School Library Journal's website. http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/

The first rss feed is called School Library Journal-Preschool to Grade 4 News. This blog reviews children's books that are especially chosen for the preschool to grade 4 group.

The next rss feed is called Non-fiction Matters. This blog discusses issues surrounding the importance of non-fiction in children's lives. Many children head for the non-fiction section of the library first. Some never make it to the fiction section. It is important to recognize that non-fiction reading is as important to children's lives as fiction reading.

Competency #2: Podcasts

As a classroom teacher, many times I've noticed kids go to the library, walk up to a bookshelf, and chooose a book without even looking at it. They check it out and take it home only to return to school the next day with the complaint that it wasn't interesting or it was too hard.

The podcast I found is from a school library in Grandview, NY. The librarian reads short excerpts from books that might interest kids. She has them categorized by grade level. Her choices do not necessarily follow exact reading levels but she does attempt to reach various levels by previewing several books on the same topic. For parents and teachers reading the accompanying summaries, she addresses several key factors of readability for emergent readers by denoting text size, text placement, and amount of text per page.

I found this podcast using the google search engine and searching for "school library podcasts".

http://www.grandviewlibrary.org/FirstGrade.aspx

Competency #1B: Blog - School Libraryland

While searching for blogs about emergent readers and libraries on http://blogsearch.google.com/, I found a blog titled, "School Libraryland" at http://ashworth.wordpress.com/?s=21+Feb. This blog is by a librarian from central New York.

In this post, he is writing about books he feels every library needs. This book is for introducing research to emergent readers. He says, "Wolves by Emily Gravett - Clever. Very clever. A rabbit that goes to the public library to research its biggest fear: WOLVES!! Very well put together with excellent illustrations. Could be used to introduce research to lower level (K-3) grades."

This makes me want to rush out, find the book and try it out!

Competency #1A: First Posting

The purpose of this blog is to learn to integrate the technology into my life as part of the requirements for my Information Storage and Retrieval course. Using new technology can be difficult and time consuming, as well as exciting and I want to be able to keep up with my students and my own children. This is their future. I will be posting finished assignments here throughout the semester where they will be available for viewing and commenting on by my classmates and my professor.

My area of interest is helping emergent readers use their school library to further their abilities and interests. This would include such ideas as using research strategies to investigate topics of interest, reading different genres, and finding appropriate texts based on the emergent reader's ability level. I'm sure as I get deeper into this topic, more facets of the topic will surface.