Classroom Library

It is very important to have a large classroom library full of books of different genres at different reading levels. When students see the wide range of books, they know that you value reading and want them to find books that they will enjoy. I use the Scholastic bonus points to order books for my classroom. The Scholastic Book Club website can be found at: http://teacher.scholastic.com/clubs/. When I started teaching fifth grade, I had many books at level M or higher in my classroom. Sadly, I had students reading lower than that. I then made it my mission to continue to collect books at the lower levels so that all my students could read good books at their reading level. Besides using Scholastic book clubs, I also spent time looking at thrift shops. Often if you tell the cashier at the thrift shop that you are a teacher, they will give you a discount. I would go to my local thrift shop every other Saturday and leave with two boxes worth of books only having spent two or three dollars.

The hard part about getting books at the thrift shop is then it takes time to level all of them. With using Scholastic, most of the books are already leveled. With used books you have to look up the level unless you already have the book in your class and are familiar with the level. Scholastic does have a leveling site that may have some of the books' levels on it. This site can be found at: http://bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/homePage.do?ESP=TBW/ib//acq/tbw_slimnav_Teachers///nav/txtl////. I am also fortunate that my school has a few copies of the Fountas and Pinnell leveled books guide. You may check to see if your school or local library has a copy of this useful book. You may also pay the $15.00 to use the Fountas and Pinnell online leveling account found at: http://www.fountasandpinnellleveledbooks.com/default.aspx. I have not personally use the website, but I have had colleagues who used it and suggest it. If you have a classroom that has no leveled books, this may be a worthwhile investment to leveling your classroom's books.

Another way, but a very time consuming way, is to do a google search on each book title and author. I have done that with older books that I pick up at the thrift shop. Sometimes I am successful at finding a level, other times I am not. I would also suggest having some of your brighter, helpful students be in charge of leveling the books. They enjoy looking up the books and writing the level on them. If you teach in the primary grades, then maybe you can get one of your students' older siblings or a previous student to come and help with the leveling process. Having books at each reading level is very important for motivating and helping your students find books that interest them that they are able to read.