This article shares a classroom application to support literacy development through a teacher-guided library selection program. Twenty students participated in the program which demonstrated the importance of the relationship between the school librarian and classroom teacher. These professionals worked together to guide students to choose library…

In the spring of 2005, the author created a short, online questionnaire to capture data about middle schoolers and book covers, and after several pilot studies she posted it to SurveyMonkey.com. The study includes the fiction books for middle school from the 2005 Quick Picks list. Over the course of a week, participants reported to the school…

Sixteen students, randomly selected from a pool of 91 fourth-graders in a midsize elementary school, were interviewed about their reading choices. The interviews revealed that children had different degrees of motivation, following several patterns. Children chose narrative literature for these reasons: (1) The books related to their personal…

Noting that teacher education students are unfamiliar with the censorship issue, this paper discusses three kinds of censorship the pre-service English teacher can be expected to face, and suggests ways to prepare them to recognize and remedy anticipated problems. The essay identifies the first kind of censorship as that imposed by English…

Effective use of library time involves the teacher planning with the librarian to make the library period relevant to classroom studies.

Discusses strategies that school librarians can use to help encourage reluctant readers, particularly in secondary schools. Highlights include book sharing, a more informal version of a book talk; helping students select appropriate titles that interest them; and an annotated bibliography of 35 sources of young adult titles. (LRW)

Investigates reading preferences of an ethnically and economically diverse group of sixth-grade students from three middle schools. Shows that light materials (scary series books, comics, and magazines) top the list for every sub-group of students. Finds very limited availability of preferred materials in school; and shows that most students…

A survey examined the reading interests and availability of relevant reading materials for 25 bilingual fifth-grade students in a rural southwestern school. Area residents were primarily descendants of early Hispanic settlers. Discusses the importance of targeting student reading interests and making materials of interest available in classrooms…

To help children and adolescents learn to read, school librarians and teachers must learn to read with confidence for pleasure and satisfaction and to draw on their experience of the world and their experience with other texts. Having personal enthusiasm, the skills to analyze how a literary work functions, and an understanding of what…