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Archive for the ‘Library Promotion’ Category

As I gear up to make a presentation tomorrow at the annual VATE (Victorian Association of Teachers of English) State Conference 2013, my mind is easily turned by headlines that highlight illiteracy levels.

Stumbling on a post in the GoodReadingMagazine blog  I found myself trawling around for the stats that were highlighted in a September 2013 Huffington Post article: The US illiteracy rate hasn’t changed in 10 years.  As it turned out, the stats were based on a study conducted by the US Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy which I found published online on Statistic Brain.

US Illiteracy Stats on Statistic Brain.com32 million or 14% of US adults being illiterate and a staggering 21% reading below 5th grade level is frightening.   And with the article headline underlining that there has been no shift in literacy levels in the last ten years, educators like myself can’t help but gasp.

With the publication just a few days ago of the latest PISA 2012 results, the picture for Australia is also not great.    Highlighting the three key areas measured – maths, science and reading – an article on news.com.au: PISA report finds Australian teenagers education worse than 10 years ago clearly illustrates the slide in the perfomance of our 15 year olds.

With a world ranking of 13 for reading, the slide is apparent when looking at this graph:

Source: news.com.au

Source: news.com.au

So what’s going on?  Why has there been a backward slide in reading achievement?   Why aren’t levels shooting up?

Without a doubt, educator’s will be scratching their heads ….. arguments and debates will be rife.  While I don’t have any answers, I guess I have lots of thoughts on the issue, one of which is that:

We need to get students excited about reading!”

It was this thought which powered me a few years ago to create an innovative and different focus on reading in a school in which I worked.  It was with an immense sense of satisfaction that I was able to re-invent the well worn ‘Book Week’ activities regularly promoted by Teacher Librarians across the country into a Literary Festival – an event which was more sophisticated and appealing to senior school students. Being able to inspire the entire senior school staff to join with me in celebrating literature across the curriculum, with 18 presenters and nearly 50 sessions in its first year and 26 presenters and more than 80 sessions in its second year, the two Literary Festivals held in 2007 and 2008 were as enjoyable and satisfying to me as they were to all students and staff.

I am passionate about sharing these thoughts and ideas with others.   Reading to me is the backbone to all we do in education.   It is my firm conviction that if we can’t excite our students to read, our efforts to educate will fail.  Opening the minds of our students by reading is akin to opening a gateway to the world.  Reading is a key tool to exploring, discovering and lifelong learning.

I look forward to sharing my thoughts on how to Stage a Literary Festival: It’s not as hard as you think! at the VATE State Conference 2013.

With the current luxury of working part time, I am available as a consultant to those wishing to take the plunge and stage a Literary Festival.   I will easily convince you that it’s not as hard as you think!

I will be sharing the following notes with those attending my presentation.

Participant Notes

This post has also been published on my other blog, NovaNews.

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The Hunt Library at North Carolina State University, opened in January of this year, is a state of the art library incorporating design and ideas that challenge current thinking about the purpose of libraries in the 21st Century.

Aiming to encourage creativity and collaboration the library incorporates a mind blowing range of incredible spaces including a gaming lab, a creative studio with floor-to-ceiling projector screen and makerspaces fitted out with 3D printers. The library is replete with glass surfaces – walls and tables – on which students are free to write, to discuss to exchange and explore ideas. White boards abound allowing students to teach and learn from each other. The incredible range and variety of spaces which include 80 different kinds of chairs are intended to inspire and engage students.

Not forgotten though are the books that normally sustain the main purpose of a library. Instead of traditional shelving though, books at The Hunt Library are stored 6 metres below the first floor where two million volumes are packed into a fraction of the space that conventional shelving would occupy. Browsing the collection on the digital catalogue students’ book selections are delivered within five minutes by BookBot, a robotic system.

Describing the design and nature of Hunt Library in an article, The University library of the future, Erin Millar summarises the words of Martha Whitehead, Head Librarian at Queens University, saying:

The primary function of libraries continues to be finding information; what has changed is the nature of the questions being asked. Students used to come to libraries to find what Whitehead calls “quick facts” (easily looked up now online) but now they come with complex inquiries. They want to know what type of information exists on a topic and how their own work fits into the scholarly literature landscape. This shift reflects how universities have changed teaching to better prepare students for the 21st century, Whitehead says.

“It’s less about the instructor imparting information to the student than about the skill set to be a lifelong learner — how to think, how to inquire and how to learn.”

This video describing the design and features of Hunt Library certainly poses much food for thought, not only on the direction of libraries of the future, but on how our current libraries can be re-thought to be more appealing to our student population.

Anyone reading care to give it a go?

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While I know readers of this blog are already converts, we need to spread the message far and wide to those who may not yet be convinced!

Reading is important!

So when empirical evidence comes along stating the value of reading and its impact on increasing adult literacy levels, we need to take note and share the knowledge.

An article submitted by Natalie Gross “Reading out loud to kids is important” (Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, October 4th, 2013) makes the case well when she quotes Kathy Stoddard, program director for Lubbock Independent School District’s Texas Literacy Intiative:

“Reading aloud to them (children) models what reading sounds like, embeds vocabulary and gives you the opportunity to talk with your child and interact with them over a book,” Stoddard said. “So it is just the most important thing.”

Let’s not lose sight of the role Teacher Librarians play in promoting reading to children of all ages – especially pre-schoolers.

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Sometimes a gem just falls in my lap!

Reading about the Sam Campbell’s difficult life is heart-breaking and moving.   Yet for those of us promoting literature to students in schools, Campbell’s words are pearls of wisdom to be shared repeatedly – far and wide:

“Reading is a gateway to the world,” he said. “When you walk into a library, every country that you’ve never visited is there. Every person that you’ve never met is there. Every celebrity that you’ve ever heard about is there.

“It’s pure escapism, to different places, different cultures, different times,” Campbell continued. “You immerse yourself in whatever you’re reading, and everything else goes away.”

Straight from the heart Sam Campbell’s words are indeed inspirational.

Sam Campbell

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Boy who stole a book!There’s nothing like a ‘feel good’ story!

So when I came across this one about Olly Neal who ‘borrowed’ books from his school library in Arkansas in the late 50′s, I knew it was the stuff that makes us smile, nod our heads and collectively state – yes – that’s another thing that librarians do.

Have a read and be inspired:  Boy lifts book; Librarian changes boy’s life

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The essence of the value of print is so beautifully captured in this video:

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Created by Ryan Ireland for the Greene County Public Library, I just love this montage about libraries, librarians and library patrons!

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Short of ideas on how to promote reading?

Try adopting this idea of Roger Billing of Abbots Langley School Association, who wanted to ‘set the tone’ in his new position as Head Teacher.

Purchasing an unused bus, Billing set about inspiring students, staff and the school community to come up with a design, paint the bus and fit it out.   The resulting bus library set in the school grounds is now a hive of activity as students vie to read and borrow books from the burgeoning collection!

LIBRARY BUS(PD)36K0711

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I love the Get Reading website!   It always has an action packed look about it and makes reading something that you just can’t live without!

Come to think of it – it is pretty hard to live without reading – isn’t it?!

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