Teacher-Librarians, Teachers, And Children As Cobuilders of School Library Collections‪.‬

HELPING CHILDREN BECOME EFFECTIVE READERS AND WRITERS IS DEPENDENT ON MANY FACTORS, INCLUDING CHILDREN'S HAVING EASY ACCESS TO READING MATERIALS. A WELL-STOCKED SCHOOL LIBRARY IS A MAJOR INGREDIENT FOR PROVIDING SUCH ACCESS. TO ENSURE THAT THE SCHOOL LIBRARY COLLECTION REFLECTS CHILDREN'S INTERESTS AND PREFERENCES, THE CHILDREN SHOULD BE INVOLVED IN BUILDING THE COLLECTION. FOR THIS TO HAPPEN, CLASSROOM TEACHERS AND TEACHER-LIBRARIANS NEED TO COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT READERS' INTERESTS AND PREFERENCES DURING THE NATURAL FLOW OF LITERACY LEARNING ACTIVITIES. THIS INFORMATION SHOULD THEN BE USED TO SECURE MATERIALS FOR THE LIBRARY COLLECTION. PERTINENT INFORMATION CAN BE COLLECTED IN THE CLASSROOM AND THE SCHOOL LIBRARY THROUGH OBSERVATIONS, CONFERENCES, PEER SHARING, CHECKLISTS, CREATIVE APPROACHES, REVIEWS OF PRINT AND NONPRINT MATERIALS, HOME-SCHOOL CONNECTIONS, AND PORTFOLIOS. THESE AND OTHER INFORMATION-GATHERING ACTIVITIES HELP TO OBJECTIFY THE PROCESS OF BUILDING A LIBRARY COLLECTION THAT IS WELL MATCHED WITH CHILDREN'S INTERESTS AND PREFERENCES. An important part of becoming an effective reader is to be able to select reading materials with relative ease and facility. Regrettably, what children prefer to read is often not available in schools. Worthy, Moorman, and Turner (1999) found that the most popular materials of middle school students were limited in classroom and school libraries and that some students seemed to be negatively affected by this limited availability. For example, boys, children with low attitudes toward reading, and learners with low reading achievement preferred resources that were in limited supply. Not surprisingly, children from low-income families were unlikely to buy materials and were therefore inclined to borrow them, especially from school libraries. Problems of this type in low-income communities are exacerbated by funding inadequacies, which influence a number of factors, including school library materials. Lazar's research findings (2004) suggest that the urban schools that she visited "did not have fully functioning school libraries, thereby limiting children's access to books and to teacher-librarians-professionals who play a key school role in motivating children to read" (p. 17). Although not a panacea, one way that teacher-librarians and classroom teachers can connect children with materials that interest them is to seriously consider children's preferences when securing materials for school library collections.