An essential literacy skill is asking questions. Because reading comprehension strategies should be taught directly and explicitly, students need to be told that they should ask questions throughout their research and that all questions are valid. While library media specialists are not reading teachers, the work they do with students in the…

Budgetary concerns compel school administrators to decrease staff, resulting in fewer course offerings and causing small, disadvantaged schools to struggle to provide courses. Alternative educational modalities in the distance learning and online arena offer solutions. School media specialists and school counselors can lead in redesigning access…

Motivational processes are the foundation for coordinating cognitive goals and strategies in reading. Becoming an excellent, active reader involves attunement of motivational processes with cognitive and language processes in reading. This article presents K-12 strategies for motivating reading success. It describes 10 instructional elements that…

According to early childhood education scholar and leading expert on this topic, Lilian G. Katz, dispositions are a "pattern of behavior exhibited frequently... in the absence of coercion... constituting a habit of mind under some conscious and voluntary control... intentional and oriented to broad goals" that can be taught and caught through…

The authors' professional standards used to be pretty straightforward and specific. Not exactly works of literary creativity, but they served the purpose of giving them structure and direction, and let their principals know what they actually did all day. Then came along a new buzzword called "dispositions." They heard it for the first time when…

Students are using Web 2.0 tools in school to meet technology and curriculum standards and many parents want to know more about those tools. How can the library media specialist be the "go-to" person for those parents who have Web 2.0 questions? It is important to keep up with Web tools but also important to know the limits. New Web tools are…

Today many library resources are accessible 24/7. Students can be in the classroom, home, or at their favorite fast food place and do what once required a visit to the library. Electronic access to information has become a major part of the culture. No longer are students just watching a 16mm projected film in class; now they can access online…

Of all the buzz words used in the school library media profession, "collaboration" evokes the strongest feelings--and not all of those feelings are positive. Some library media specialists are not convinced that collaboration is an essential part of their programs, yet collaboration seems to be essential in many other professions. In fact, there…

To address the varying needs of media specialists, area Educational Technology Training Centers, Regional Educational Service Agencies (RESA), and larger school systems are forming professional development communities or consortia that cater specifically to the continuing education needs of library media specialists. In addition to academic and…

"LibraryThing" is a great way for library media specialists to keep track of the books they personally read. "LibraryThing" allows them to create a personal library, give their books tags, choose book covers, give star ratings, generate citations, and review books. Library media specialists can also connect to other readers and see their reviews.…

In data-driven collaboration, the teacher and library media specialist (LMS) have a prolonged and interdependent relationship as they do in all collaboration. Units and projects are team-planned, team-taught, and team-assessed. The partners share goals, have carefully defined roles in the process, and plan comprehensively based on the results of…

It is not unusual for library media specialists to experience having their staff cut. The author has experienced this scenario twice. Each time, she and her colleagues redefined and restructured their library media centers to maximize teaching and learning. In this article, the author discusses some of the things she has learned about coping with…

Collaboration empowers everyone in different ways: in the school setting it brings partnerships with colleagues and relevance to the cycle of ongoing instructional improvement; in a regional setting it provides an understanding of the various facets that make up an exemplary library media program along with the challenges of the classroom. The…

School library media specialists, along with other librarians, are often reluctant for students to use Wikipedia in their school work. This chapter argues against this perspective, citing the values of the free online encyclopedia, and suggesting strategies for exploiting its weaknesses to help students develop critical thinking skills. [For the…

The ability to question lies at the heart of human curiosity and is a necessary component of cognition. The author stresses that forming questions is essential to human thought and communication. As such, forming questions is a foundational process that cuts across curricular areas and is embedded in content standards across the nation, including…