Keep Advanced Readers Engaged: Put Classic Books On Our Shelves!
My students need a variety of (40) classic books to challenge advanced readers with difficult material and give our students access to timeless and familiar stories!
We are a small, community-oriented school comprising all the grades 3-6 students in our town. Starting at our sister elementary school for the younger grades, our students have been together since pre-Kindergarten and have had the chance to share class time with all of their grade-level peers and experience the different ways that they each learn and grow. Our curriculum supports our students unique experiences, using reading and writing workshops and small-group STEAM initiatives to encourage students to build their literacy skills and creativity collaboratively with discussion and input from peers.
Our students come from varied cultural backgrounds with more than 20 different languages spoken at home, but they are united by their shared learning experiences and love of reading.
My library media students love sharing their books with each other, showing each other what they've created on their computers and chromebooks, and discussing what they've read and learned. They are eager to help each other at the computers or in finding books that they've read and liked, often taking the initiative to offer assistance when they see a classmate struggling. Every week they come into the media center excited to find out what they will be learning!
My Project
Our library is a wonderful resource, but with our students reading an incredible amount of books to satisfy their reading log requirements (and their own love of independent reading!) any holes in the collection become apparent very quickly. Right now, we do not have enough classic books to satisfy student demand - and our students are demanding classic books!
On more than one occasion I've had older students ask for help finding a classic work like Sherlock Holmes or Lord of the Rings, and had to tell them that the library doesn't have it!
Our students look for classic books to satisfy their interest in the TV shows, movies, and other cultural artifacts that are based on them; experience the original version of a story they have read and enjoyed in an abridged format at a younger age; and transition to more "adult" books as they head towards middle school and start to branch out their reading. Without classic books, there is very little fiction that will appropriately challenge advanced level readers in the fifth and sixth grades. Children's classics like the Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan also allow younger advanced readers to read above their grade level without having to reach for young adult novels that may contain material they are not developmentally ready for.
The 40 books on our wish-list represent a comprehensive list of classics that will serve all grades at our 3-6 school. They are all illustrated hardcover editions, making them both attractive and durable enough for library use, and as most of them come from the same publisher's set, students interested in classics will quickly learn to find them on the library shelves by looking for their similar shape and style. Please help us give our enthusiastic readers access to these challenging, familiar stories!
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