Encourage Independent Reading Habits with a Classroom Library

One of the most important aspects to encouraging the lifelong reader in every student is to provide those students with the opportunity to read a diverse selection of high-interest texts at appropriate reading levels. All too often, high school students are never given a chance to truly enjoy reading. Our Freshman Academy program was intended to encourage each lifelong reader in our classroom. Unfortunately, we lack the monetary support to truly support this goal. There is no classroom library for these students; classroom libraries are constantly cited in research reports as being one of the key components to creating a successful reading program. Our Freshman Academy program is essentially a reading class that every freshman here at Mather High School takes. We read a variety of young adult novels that focus on current and high interest issues. We have been lucky enough to scrounge up a number of class sets of books but have been unable to truly create a classroom library for independent reading. Independent reading choices are severely limited—we ask students to bring reading materials from home, but due to the socioeconomic status of our students this request is often too much to ask. These students need to be surrounded by a literacy rich environment at school because they often don't have the opportunity to be in such an environment anywhere else. In order to create a classroom library, we need at least one bookshelf, a variety of young adult novels, and library book cards and book card envelopes. These materials will allow us to get a jumpstart on the creation of a classroom library. Every Friday, students are provided with the opportunity to choose their own reading material for independent reading. Students are also allowed to check out materials for reading outside of school. This activity is an integral part of our reading program;each of our roughly 500 freshman will be able to access these materials on a daily basis. With this asset in our classroom, we will truly be able to provide students with the opportunity to become highly literate people.