Promoting Summer Time Reading to Students

Summertime reading has always been enjoyable for me. It gives me a chance to catch up on my personal reading list. This summer I am listening to Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption and reading History of Norway by John A. Yilek. I am sure that I will finish several other books before summer is over, including a professional title or two. I enjoy reading and like to read books and enjoy the leisure summer brings that allows me to read things I don’t have time to read during the school year. However, I always am looking for ways to encourage my students to continue reading for pleasure during the summer months to exercise their brains. This year I to promote the local public library’s summer reading program through tweets on my school Twitter account, posted information on the school video announcements and placed flyers at the circulation desk. Other tactics for promoting summer reading that I have used in the past include posting summer reading links on the school library media center’s homepage, sending links to summer reading lists to classroom teachers to share with their students and parents. I have also promoted the public library’s summer reading program with announcements on the website, posters around the school building and flyers in the library media center. This past spring I went a step further and invited the young adult/children’s librarian from the public library to visit school and promote the program. About half of the English Language Arts teachers took advantage of this visit and signed up for a 20 minute time slot on the Google Doc I shared with them. Now that I have invited a children’s librarian to visit and talk to students about the public library’s summer reading program I would definitely do it again.

Another new promotional activity for me was advertising e-books through Overdrive the last month of school. Overdrive has great graphics that can be used for publicity purposes for free on their website. Some of the graphics are designed for use on social media, and even better are the graphics designed to promote summer reading . Needless to say I began to Tweet about Overdrive and how the books are available 24/7 even during summer vacation. I even went as far as to use Hootsuite to schedule a Tweet a week promoting the school library media center’s Overdrive collection. Additionally, I used Hootsuite to schedule one to two Tweets a week  to promote books in the library media center’s Overdrive collection. The Tweets included a picture of the book’s cover as well as the school’s hashtag. Including the school’s hashtag ensured that staff members with Twitter accounts would see the library media center’s tweets and retweet them. Another reason to use the school's hashtag was to ensure that Tweets from the library’s account would appear on the Twitter feed on the school’s homepage.  

Another way I have promoted summer reading at the high school level is to allow students to check up to 10 books out the last week of school. At the time this seemed like a natural progression since staff were allowed to check library materials over the summer for personal and professional reading. Several students took advantage of this program every summer I ran it. I believe that twenty was the all time high for participation. A few students even asked if they could stop in during the summer to return books and check out additional books. This was possible since the library aide worked in the library several days during summer summer school. The enthusiastic readers were told that they could email the library aide to ask which days the school library media center would be open. Two students took advantage of the library aide’s offer, so I qualify it as a success since additional materials were checked out. Students checked out a variety of materials over the summer. One of the more popular items checked out during the summer were book series. Students who checked out series commented “I can finally read the entire series in order” or “I’ve been waiting to read this series but haven’t been able to because the first book is always checked out.” (editorial comment: Students were reminded after the latter comment that they could log into library's circulation system and reserve a book, or ask library staff to reserve a book for them.) Students with reading lists for various classes also checked books out. In addition to checking out print materials, students were also allowed to check out audiobooks. This program was publicized through daily announcements, flyers posted around the school, the library media center’s website and emails to staff. Teachers who taught classes with reading lists promoted the program in their classes. The due date for materials checked out over the summer was the Friday of the first full week of school. Not everything was returned on time, but usually all items were returned. I ran the summer checkout program for 10 years and only lost two books due to a student moving over the summer. After the first year of running the summer checkout program students began asking in mid-May when they could check out books for the summer. A few students even asked if they could reserve certain books for summer checkout. Comments like this were like music to my ears. Now how to get the rest of the student body to read more for pleasure. 

State Reader's Choice Awards to Promote Reading in Schools

Many states have reader's choice awards that are sponsored by a variety of statewide organizations that have an affiliation with education. In Wisconsin this program is called the Golden Archer Award. While working for a former employer I was given the charge of running a high school library and overseeing three of the district's six elementary school libraries. This change in staffing was the result of budget cuts and retirement of the district's last elementary librarian. The remaining library media specialists meet to brainstorm ways to promote reading without an onsite library media specialist. We all agreed that we had wonderful aides who ran the library, but our concern at that time was how to do more to promote reading without overwhelming the library aides. One of the middle school library media specialists had promoted the Golden Archer Award at her school. After hearing her talk about the program we decided that we should try this program.

Our next decision was to promote the Primary (early elementary grades) and Intermediate (upper elementary grades) in the district's K-5 elementary schools. I was fortunate that the district provided the library media specialists a day to work with the library aide at each school prior to the start of the school year. I used this time to introduce the Golden Archer Award program to the library aides. They gave favorable responses to the idea, as well as ideas for how they could do to support the program at their schools. During our discussions, I shared an introductory email I planned to send out to staff, and made changes based on the  library aides' input. They were also shown a bookmark that was developed to promote the program. Each aide agreed to make a permanent display in their school's library media center using the books, as well as solicit nominations from students for the following year's list.

At the beginning of the year the elementary teachers were sent an email explaining the program that also contained an annotated bibliography of the titles. Some teachers read the books on list to their students, particularly at the lower grades. At one school the library aide conducted a story time with the kindergarten through second grade classes during their time in the library media center. She also book talked the titles on the intermediate list to the third through fifth grade classes when they visited the library. In other schools teachers read various books from the list to their classes. Additional reminder emails were sent to staff to remind them of the program and when voting would take place. Flyers were created that featured the book covers and placed in strategic places in the library media center and various classes rooms. Unfortunately, I no longer have these visual aids since I no longer work for that district.

Voting for the Golden Archer takes place in February, with March 1st being the deadline for turning ballots in. Since we were promoting two different lists I was asked the question how many books can students vote for? Many students wanted to vote for one book off of each list. After checking with WEMTA's Golden Archer Committee I was informed that students could vote for a total of ONE book. As a result, a ballot listing all titles was developed and made available to students. There were several reasons the question of how many books students can vote for came around. Advanced readers in the lower grades were reading books from the Intermediate list, which consists of chapter books as well as the Primary list, which is made up of picture books. Some second grade teachers were reading books from the Intermediate lists to their classes. The most intriguing reason behind the question was posed by 4th and 5th grade students at an elementary school that had a reading buddies program. Students in 4th and 5th grade were paired with a student in either kindergarten or 1st grade. The older students were encouraged to check out picture books to read to their reading buddies. Many of the 4th and 5th grade students at this school read books from the Golden Archer Primary list to their reading buddies and want to vote for their favorite picture book from the Golden Archer list. This group of students were disappointed when they learned that they could only vote for one book. However, they were told that they could nominate picture books for the following year's Primary book list.

After all of the ballots were counted an announcement was made at each school to announce the school's winner. We also announced the district's winning title. I attended the WEMTA conference where the state wide winner was announced. After the state winners were announced I emailed the library aides so that they could arrange for announcements to be made at their individual schools. Out of six schools, two school voted for different titles from the Primary category. One of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney won the Intermediate category within the district as well as at the state level.

Nominations for the upcoming year's book lists closes on May 1st. The next step of the program was to solicit nominations from students. The Golden Archer Award is truly award that is given by the children of Wisconsin. Once again emails were sent to the elementary teachers to explain how we, library media center staff, would be collecting title nominations from students. One of the aides developed a form that asked for the following information: title, author, publication (information that is required from the Golden Archer Committee) as well as space for students to elaborate why they were nominating the book. Filling out this part of the form was optional but helpful for narrowing an individual school's list of nominations down to the 5 titles that can be submitted when we were narrowing the list down. Often multiple students nominated the same title. Collusion by students? Probably, but what a great way to get students talking about books that they have enjoyed reading that isn't totally lead by adults.

If I have the opportunity to work with middle school or elementary students again I will definitely implement this program. We ordered 5 copies of each title for each library. Since we started promoting this program in September the library aides felt that we could get away with just 3 copies of each title, except for really popular books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which seems to be one of those titles that you can never have enough copies.

Some things that I would do in the future to promote this program include that I didn't do in the past include:

• article(s) in the school or principal or grade level's newsletter
• information on the library media center's website - including pictures of book covers
• tweets on the library media center's Twitter account or Instagram account and other social media accounts
• reminders on the school calendar - including voting deadlines & possibly a count down
• school wide announcements over the PA
• book club featuring books on the Intermediate and Middle/Junior High lists
• book talks on the Primary books to older students who are reading buddies
• brief explanation of the program to staff at a staff meeting with time for questions
• announce school wide winner via email, newsletters, webpages, and Twitter, as well as other social media venues
• check with WEMTA to see if I can use the Golden Archer Award graphic to promote the program
• promote the information on each title found on Teachingbooks.net website to teachers so that interested teachers and utilize lesson plans, information about the author 
• create and share an annotated bibliography with staff of the Golden Archer Award nominees that includes pictures of the book covers

Things I did beyond emailing staff to promote the program. I heavily relied on email for expedience since I had minimal time in each building since I was assigned to multiple schools.

• contact the local public library's children and young adult librarians to inform them that the school will be participating in the program as well as to share the book list(s) being used.
• posters created on 8x11 paper to promote the various lists that featured pictures of each book's cover
• created a list in our library management system, Destiny, that could be access by all patrons
• shared an annotated bibliography with staff of the Golden Archer Award nominees
• use Google forms for voting and title nominations
• set area to display only Golden Archer nominees from September through February
• display the Golden Archer winners from March through the end of the year in the Golden Archer display area.
• continue to purchase Golden Archer Award seals from WEMTA to place on current and past winners
• create a bookmark promoting the Golden Archer Award nominees
• obtain a poster from a book vendor that shows all of the Golden Archer Award Winning Books
• announce school winner by category
• announce district winner by category
• announce the state winner by category

The Golden Archer Award is sponsored by WEMTA, the Wisconsin Educational Media & Technology Association.  This particular award has three division, Primary, Intermediate and Middle/Junior High. This program allows all students who attend K-8 schools to participate. Each list consists of 5 titles that have been published within the past 5 years. The rules of the program are well written and truly provide a venue for authors to be given an award from their readers within the state of Wisconsin.  Additional information can be found on the WEMTA page - http://www.wemta.org/programs/golden_archer_awards.cfm  Other states have similar award programs in place. The Junior Library Guild maintains a listing of various state book awards at https://www.juniorlibraryguild.com/awards/list.dT/state-awards What surprised me when I looked at this list is that every state has multiple state awards for children and young adult books.

March Madness with Books

I am always looking for new ways to promote reading. One of the aides I work with suggest that we do something with March Madness, so the plan developed to do Book Madness at the high school. While doing some research online I discovered that there already was a March Madness Reading Program - http://marchbookmadness.weebly.com/ with a picture book, middle school and young adult divisions. Since this is something that was being planed in mid February we didn't have time to promote it so that we could use the book list from "March Book Madness" website, especially since the library where I am currently work as an interim does not own all the books. It is differently I program that I would consider using in the future since the "March Book Madness" website lays everything out for you and has a tips tab an all kinds of other helpful information.

Now onto the program that I set up. The library management system used by my employer has the option to list the top 50 books that have been circulated. The top eight books were placed in brackets based on their circulation since September 1st of the school year. The aides that I work with did a fabulous job creating the display below.

It is an interesting mix of books with some titles that have been turned into movies, one classic and a couple of other titles. The complete title lists consists of The Program by Suzanne Young, Boy on the Edge by Fridrik Erlings, Paper Towns by John Green, The Martian by Andy Weir, If I Stay by Gayle Forman, The Fifth Wave by Rick Yaney, The Summoning by Kelley Armstrong, The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

The voting deadlines are posted along with a QR code to for the Google Form that was developed for voting. The QR code will be changed at the end of each round to gain access to the new Google From for voting. Publicity included signs/flyers posted around the school, emails to students and staff (teachers, support staff & administrators), postings on the library's websites with updates and tweets on the library's twitter account and school's twitter feed. The brackets were created with black yarn.

Series Madness

At the middles school a similar activity was planned. The top 10 books that had been circulated to date since the beginning of school year included many series. How can books in a series compete against each other, so the decision was made to have Series Madness. Very appropriate since middle school students love series.

 

The windows are great places to create displays. As you can see the display is double sided, and similar to the on created on a wall in the high school library. The major difference being that each title within the series is prominently displayed. The winner of each round is displayed with a picture of the cover of book and the other books in the series listed below. The URL for the Google Form is displayed in the center window under the date announcing when the winner will be announced. This URL changes after each vote. In addition to emails to students and staff, this program was publicized on the daily video announcements, and on a flat screen in the library. Below is a sample slide from the digital display.

Series Madness

 

Vote for your Favorite series from the top 4 checked out series books in the IMC.

One series has been eliminated.

In future I would begin planning this type of program with more lead time than two weeks. With a month's lead time students could set up their own brackets. Early planning in the fall would allow one to use the March Book Madness program at http://marchbookmadness.weebly.com/ This would allow sufficient time to order the books, promote the program and run it. The best thing, in my opinion is that people, including students like contests/competitions. 

Reading Promotion

In order to promote reading I sent teachers an email that explained that I was setting up a display of books recommended by them, the teachers. If I were to do this particular display again i would include the support staff and administrators. All of the adults in a school have an impact on the lives of the students and should be represented in the type of displays that i created at the middle school and high school. Before I go on I should mention that I have been working as an interim library media specialist in the greater Milwaukee area. My time is split between the district's middle school and high school. Below is an example of how I start the dispaly of teacher recommendations. Just a simple picture of the book cover on one side with the title, author, call number and who recommended the book on the other side. This display was arranged on an empty wall above the tables where the library's printers are located. A good place to catch the eye of students and staff alike as they pick up their printing.

At the start of the school year I created different book displays and moved the portable shelving dispaly unit to various points in the library. So far, displays on this unit have consisted of fall sports, new books, spooky tales and holiday tales.

How ever, the latest display consists of the teacher recommendation signs along with the book. The portable display case has been moved so that one can't help but notice it when entering the library. If you have a sharp eye you will notice that the book signs below don't have a call number. Stephen King's 11/22/63 was a recommendation that the library didn't own, but was still displayed with the others above the printers. When the books that were recommended y staff were purchased for the library the recommendation signs were moved to the new book display. A plus of moving the display case closer to the door is that since it wasn't against a column, as pictured above, more books could be displayed on it.

Recently, a bulletin board was installed above the printers, so the teacher recommendation signs needed to be moved. The most logical place seemed to be the area of the library where the books are kept. Here are a few of the non-fiction books that were recommended by staff. I work with a great staff who are also helpful in promoting reading.

To promote reading and new books I also set books out on display in various locations around the library.

 Students tend to gravitate towards the windows.

 Book standards are great when you have them, but sometimes we run out and have to revert to standing the books up, like on the left.

 Something new this year was to set some of the new issues of magazines out on the circulation desk to try to interest students in picking them up.

The Summonings by Kelly Armstrong was a book club selection. The one page advert for to the left of the books was also shared with teachers in the English department and others who were willing to promote the book club. The great thing about book clubs is it is never to late to join.

Return to Blogging?!?

Why after a several years hiatus have I chosen to return to blogging? This is a question I have often asked myself lately as I have contemplated reestablishing my blog. Should I blog again? I don't have to for a class at this time, but the recurring thought that goes through my head is that it would be good to have a personal record of some of the various tools, techniques and methods I use as a teacher librarian. Also, it may help me avoid disasters like the one this fall where I had access to an awesome display case at the high school I work at and had recorded via photos on my phone two different book displays that had received positive comments. More importantly, the book displays had resulted in students asking if they could check books out that they saw on display, which in my mind is what book displays are all about. Sparking that interest in a book that maybe a potential reader hasn't considered before. Getting readers to spread their reading wings and try new genres, or authors. Now, it is time to go back to the statement about photos on my phone. Shortly after taking the last set of pictures but before I had backed up the photos onto another medium my phone died. Not only did it die it was pronounced dead and sent to cell phone heaven. So, not only was I faced with the inconvenience of having to replace the piece of technology I rely on the most, I faced the lose of one particular type of files that I had not backed up. MY PHOTOS!! How could I be so neglectful. I had purchased a memory card for this phone. I had been so excited with this particular phone because it had a memory card, but low and behold I never followed up and set up the backup system for my photos to be stored on the memory drive thus negating the drive. After a few tears and digging through emails and asking friends to send me pictures that I had shared with them I was able to recapture some of my photos and videos. Needless to say, the first thing I did after I purchased my new phone was to set things up so that my pictures are automatically saved to Google Photos (TM) and the Micro SD memory card. I even check now on a regular basis to make sure that the contents of my phone are backed up. For some reason I still feel a bit sheepish about losing photos and videos through my own laziness of failing to back them up. Perhaps this is from the mantra that I have tried to instill in students since computers first began to be adopted in the field of education . .  Back up your files! Do it Often!

However, there is a somewhat happy ending to this story. Some of the displays that I had developed were still up, so I was able to do a "redo" in terms of photographing them. Unfortunately, another group had taken over the big display case at the high school Perhaps I will have the opportunity at another time to set up a book display again in that case.