School Librarian Support

We love the fact that librarians all over the world are taking an active role supporting children and teachers in Daily 5 and CAFE. Support such as this takes on many different looks. Here are a few suggestions for librarian support:

• Teach and frequently review the IPICK method for selecting good fit books. We know a librarian who wore the IPICK sign around her neck when helping kids check out their books.
• In the fall of the school year teachers and librarians are trying to support children picking those good fit books as well as learning about the classroom and school libraries. A wonderful collaboration in this effort involves dividing the class in half. One half goes to the library and gets to work with the librarian to learn about book location and finding good fit books in the library. The other half of the class stays in the classroom, focusing on the same learning but with the classroom library. The next day or week the groups switch. Smaller class sizes, more one-on-one support, wonderful!
• If you teach classes or read aloud to students, find out which strategy the class is focusing on right now so the lesson can be heard again from a different teacher. Keeping track of the strategies taught to each class also allows for layering on those strategies during read aloud time.
• Supporting classroom teachers by finding great read alouds to use when teaching each of the strategies on the CAFE menu is such a time-saver for teachers and wonderful use of the librarian's book expertise.