Reader's Choice

Today's post comes to us from Katya Schapiro, Senior Children's Librarian at the Bay Ridge Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. She served on the 2016 Geisel Award committee, and is on the Quicklists Consulting Committee.

As the new school year looms and summer assignments take on a final urgency, we public librarians spend a lot of time assisting frantic parents and children waving summer reading booklists and demanding a pile of level N or H books. Every year, as I guide busy and frustrated people through our alphabetical cataloging system, gently pointing out that their (often misspelled, out of print) lists are meant as suggestions, not rigid requirements, I re-examine my stance on beginning reader cataloging. Aren’t we trying to be helpful to schools? Shouldn’t we just make a few piles or baskets that the inevitable latecomers can grab from without more stress? Who am I helping by being a stickler for reader’s choice when people, many of whom are English language learners, are just trying to get by and do things the right way?

 And then I hear it, over and over:
‘I need a book in my level.’
‘Where are the books for kindergartners?’
‘I’m a level B/N/Q…’

I don’t want to confuse young learners and their parents. I don’t want to contradict hard working teachers. But…

I will never stop telling kids that they are a person, not a level. A person with individual interests, talents, and reading needs. My first question when asked for grade level books is invariably ‘who’s the 4th grader?’ I refuse to see reading as a skill that can be attained without reference to content. I used to wonder if this attitude of mine was elitist. Was I devaluing tools that truly help struggling readers and families, just to prioritize my agenda? I still go back and forth with this, and there are times when I just do a search and hand over the books, without commentary, but ultimately, I’ve come to the conclusion that my responsibilities as a public children’s librarian require me to go beyond leveled reading. One of the first things I tell young school groups is that the library exists for them to pursue their interests, not just the school curriculum, and that we offer room for choice. Even the youngest and newest readers deserve the chance to create their own reading environment.

Guided reading, used in moderation, is a helpful teaching shorthand. When understood in context, it helps students to find books that they can grow on and feel confident with. My job, among others, is to help put this tool back into context, as tool, not goal. In the excellent SLJ article shared here last week, Kiera Parrott does a great job breaking down some of the issues with the ways leveled reading is used in the classroom and how those issues interact with the work of librarians. She echoes many professional discussions that I’ve participated in, where it is frequently mentioned that “Fountas and Pinnell advise against making reading levels known to individual students: 'We level books, not children.'” Since that ship has obviously sailed, how do we handle these shelf-level interactions?

First off, I’m working on decreasing the negative. Instead of ‘we don’t organize our books that way,’ I’m trying out ‘I’m sure we have lots of great books that will work for you.’ I share resources like the Scholastic Book Wizard with families so that they can make sure that the books they choose will work for their assignment. Parrott quotes a parent from Darien, CT about the helpfulness of the leveled reading structure, but then that parent follows up with the statement that “[her kids] both read a huge variety of non-leveled books outside of school.”” Good for that parent’s kids, but sometimes the books I’m putting into kids’s hands are the only ones they’ll read, and I want to make sure that they get what they need. With that in mind, I try to offer as much as possible in a single interaction, while using language that helps the child and parent think about their search strategies. After I’ve made readers and their families comfortable, I can use my excitement about literature and my interest in their choices to model a wider notion of reading goals without giving a tedious lecture. On the advice of a very smart colleague, I always offer a few books at level, alongside one or two below and one or two above. Once they get the books home, it’s up to them.

What does this have to do with the Geisel? As I said above, reading habits are established in the beginning, and even the the earliest readers deserve to have a broad and engaging choice in the books they read, and an understanding that their newfound skills are acquired with a larger goal than advancing to the next level. The Geisel criteria, with its focus on quality and an enjoyable reading experience, has given me the language to speak to parents and children about the qualities that they might seek in a book, and the varied and usually hilarious Geisel winners have provided a wide palette of choices to offer readers.

Wanting all children, even struggling readers, to find opportunities for connection, confidence, and giggles in the books they read is the opposite of elitist. It is a gift of trust, and a complimentary way to approach school efforts. After all, we all have the same goal. We want to raise readers who take joy in reading and gain knowledge.

I spoke to Jill Frutkin, a friend and former special education teacher, about this piece, and her response was: “Honestly, I think everyone should be in special education—as in, education should be personalized.” As someone who has often looked at the resources of special education classrooms and wished that they could be available to all students, I couldn’t agree more. We’re never going to get teaching and learning perfectly right. But, as librarians, it’s our job to make it as personal and as exciting as we can for each individual patron.