Hi everyone, as this week we have been all preparing and designing our “Class Libraries”, I would like to share with you my experiences with the libraries and children’s literature in Primary classrooms during my Practicum 1 and Practicum 2.
During my first year of Practicum in CEIP Cristobal Colón the students had a small library in each classroom, it was a surprise for me taking into account that in the school there is a library already but when I asked my tutor about it she told me that the “big” library was mainly used by teachers so they decided to make a small place with books for children in each classroom. That space was mainly used when someone finished an activity really quickly or there are only few minutes until the class will finish, then they could take a book they want and read it. In my class the students also had a reading hour on Fridays but on those hours instead using the library they had in class, all the pupils were reading the same book and after that they were doing different activities about the pages they read.
During my second year of Practicum in Gredos San Diego the way of using the books was a real surprise for me, they didn’t had a classroom library but instead of that, each one of the students had to bring everyday a book he/she likes to the school, the curious thing was that they used to read every day after the break for ten minutes, in order to calm down and get the perfect mood to start with the class, this technique got so popular in the class that my teacher used it also when she considered that the students are not focused enough, or if the class before was Physical Education and the pupils were nervous. In Gredos San Diego there was also a reading class and it was on Fridays. But it was a little bit different, because as in Cristobal Colón that reading class was just reading and doing activities, in Gredos it was more than that, after reading we were discussing, and asking open questions to the children, also making competitions in groups with questions in order to make it more active and cooperative.
In my personal opinion I have to say that in the first school (CEIP Cristobal Colón) the activities were not developed to motivate the student but only to check if they comprehend the stories, but a good point is that they had a small library with appropriate books in each class. In fact in the second school (Gredos San Diego) they hadn’t the library but the activities of the reading classes were done to motivate the students to keep reading.
Hello Krys!
When I have read your post, I have felt the necessity of commenting on it.
First of all, I would like to say that unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to see two different schools during my Practicums because I stayed at the same school twice.
The school where I was, is the Gredos, the same than yours. As you can imagine, I could observe and reflect on how they carry the activities out, and I disagree with you in that point.
It is true that in that school, students have to read after classes, during the breaks, but as a compulsory task. Based on my experience, the students pretended to read and in most of the times, they were talking with their partners and playing the fool. It is obvious what they needed after a class: stand up, talk, move their bodies and relax themselves.
In my opinion, what teachers wanted with that was keeping them in silence and that activity had a severe lack of any didactic purpose.
But, what should teachers do if they do not have any classroom library?
If they can, of course, carry it out. In the case we are talking about, maybe they can do something special. We know that routines are really good for students but if a routine becomes a duty or a tedious task, we have to think that our activity is not working well.
Finally, I would like to congratulate my partners because I think most of us have done great classroom library projects. I am sure that if we could apply our proposals into a real school, education could be improved little by little.
Interesting posts over here! It’d be great to read more about somebody else’s experiences during the Practicum periods. I guess that it all depends on your aims, but more often than not schools promote reading more than reading better. Also, remember that literacy deals with all skills (critical thinking included) and physical exercise may be involved in a reading task, why not?