As a librarian, building a library that meets the needs of the reading lives of all of my students is a top priority – in fact it is my #1 priority. This weekend, however, I was reminded of the continued struggle students face as they try and navigate the difficult world that lies between their school library and their classroom.
I recently began following Pernille Ripp, a classroom teacher who simply began blogging to create a space for reflection and growth. Her most recent post “Reading Rules We Need to Break in our Reading Classrooms” struck a chord with me and I wanted to share the link to her post as well as focus on just one of the 11 rules she contemplates “breaking” in her classroom.
Rule #5 – You Must Read Books at Your Level
Students come from their classrooms, having completed reading assessments, and are faced with the daunting task of finding “books at their level.” The DBE Library has 10,000+ books and less than 10% of them have a Fountas and Pinnell/Guided Reading Level letter associated with them. In addition, teachers are often too quick to pull a book from a student’s hands or ask them the very frightening question, “is this at your level?” Ripp suggests that, “If our goal is to create students who identify as readers outside of our classrooms then they need to know themselves as readers. They need to know what they prefer, what they can read, and also what type of book they need at that very moment. That changes based on their life, and not just their growth, just like it does for us adults. Having students select books based on a level robs them of the chance to figure this out, and in turn, counteracts everything we are trying to teach them.”
Rm 220, along with Ms. Forselius and I are attempting to find a balance between classroom/assessment constraints and pedagogies that fly in the face of what we know to be true – we need to nurture the reading lives of our students.
Lois Lowry when accepting the Newbery Award for her book, The Giver, said:
“The man that I named the Giver passed along to the boy knowledge, history, memories, color, pain, laughter, love, and truth. Every time you place a book in the hands of a child, you do the same thing. It is very risky. But each time a child opens a book, he pushes open the gate that separates him from Elsewhere. It gives him choices. It gives him freedom. Those are magnificent, wonderfully unsafe things.”
It feels risky to trust our students to make choices that will help them grow but it is a risk I am willing to take – a risk that teaches them to listen to their hearts, challenge themselves and celebrate the freedoms that come with healthy, whole reading lives.