We should do all we can to encourage children to enjoy and be skilled at using the school library. When children are at work in the library it is an excellent opportunity for the teacher to observe children’s reading behaviour. How are they getting on with finding books through the Dewey system? Do they know how to browse and how to swiftly sample a book by checking the cover and reading a page or two? These observations will inform how the teacher builds in helpful activities and teaching. So that we ensure that children progress in their ability to use the library the English/Literacy Co-ordi-nator with input from other staff usually draws up a broad plan of what should be achieved by most children in each year group and how teaching will support this. This then feeds into the school’s English policy and long- and short-term planning.
Specific skills like selecting books and multimedia resources and browsing through resources can be modelled by teachers and older pupils. With encouragement, some children will be prepared to make themselves experts in library skills and general care of the library. This kind of involvement can be reinforced by inviting children to contribute an assembly item about what they have been doing.
Children enjoy making charts and labels to help others find their way round the books and resources. Charts can set out advice about using the numbers on the shelves to locate the books, and then going on to use the retrieval devices in the books to find exactly the aspect of the topic you need. And of course booklets on how to use CD-ROMs, software and the Internet are necessary as well. This kind of writing task has a very clear purpose and audience. Waters and Martin describe a most interesting case study in which older primary school children were systematically trained by teachers and classroom assistants in using library procedures consistent with an agreed approach. Adults took small groups for short teaching periods and trained them in putting books into alphabetic order according to author surname, dividing books into fiction and non-fiction and in social aspects of using the library. The social aspects included discussing what a pupil would do if they entered the library and found a plant knocked over, a book thrown on the floor or a group of children behaving in a silly way. Children often respond well to being asked to reflect in a mature manner. Short tests were built into the lessons and children who passed these were awarded a library licence which set out their competencies, which included: being able to use the Dewey system; following the library code; knowing what to do if you have a problem. Possession of the licence led to certain privileges like being allowed to enter the library alone and to supervise another pupil who has not yet achieved the licence (Waters and Martin, 1999, Chapter 8).
If children feel confident and comfortable using their school library it is much more likely that they will make use of all their local lending library offers, including the many holiday schemes and projects.
Waters, Mick and Martin, Tony (1999) Co-ordinating English at Key Stage 2 London: Routledge/Falmer.
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