This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
This lovely library is used daily by all the students in our dual immersion program at Flowery Elementary. The children we serve are ethnically, culturally and economically diverse, but over 60% of our students come from low-income households. Many of them do not have home libraries and their only access to books is at school. Despite that, many of our students love books and reading. I can think of one 5th grader in particular who takes his nose out of his book long enough to give me a polite hello and goodbye as he enters an exits the library at recess.
It is my hope to continue to create a library that inspires our students to become lifelong readers.
While, again, many of our kids don't need much encouragement to pick up a book, there are also many students who struggle, many students who are discouraged because they are reading below grade level. Many have trouble finding books that are interesting to them that also challenge them without frustrating them.
I believe that our students need a library that they are excited to visit as well as access to more books that are diverse, current and that spark their interest.
My Project
Our library is in desperate need of an updated collection. Many of our books are worn, dated, irrelevant and simply uninteresting to our students. Despite the fact that I spent last Spring aggressively weeding our library, the average age of our books is still 26 years old, and it's not entirely unusual for me to find to offensive material sitting on the shelves. Most weeding guides recommend removing the majority of nonfiction titles that are between 2-10 years old (depending on the subject). Nearly half of our current titles have not been checked out in the last 10 years. In addition to these facts, we have a large number of titles that are 5th grade level and above, while nearly 60% of our students are reading below grade level. We also have a disproportionate amount of books in English. As a dual language school, we should be providing a larger number of books in Spanish, but currently, our Spanish collection makes up roughly 27% of the books in our library.
I strongly believe that curating a library collection that contains high-interest, diverse, and CURRENT titles will help our students to become better readers.
I personally love old books, but when I hear a student declare that there are only boring books in our library, I can't blame them. Even though I know differently, many of the books on our shelves were printed 60 years ago, and they look boring. Students are only going to become better readers if they have access to a diverse collection of books that peek their interest while being a good fit for them in terms of difficulty.
I am passionate about bringing our library into the 21st century, and I would be extremely grateful for your help!
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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