Leveled books

Greetings,

A question that has been asked of me is how to level the books in the library or how should the leveled books be identified.

First, I don’t think that the books in the library should be leveled. I feel that the library is a place for discovery and if a student is limited to those books on his or her level, his or her interests may not be addressed. At our school there is one first grade boy who come to me every week almost without fail to ask for a book about ‘how to make’ something. “I want a book on how to make a cell phone.” “I want a book on how to make a rocket.” I want a book on how to make ___________.” Every week I get this question. He is interested in making things. The fact that I don’t have a book on how to make a cell phone does not deter him. He goes on to another topic. This child will invent something wonderful someday.

I also read about another primary grade child that was very interested in learning about ham radio. He found a book that was quite difficult for him to read, but he actually read the book though with some help with the big words. He learned a lot about ham radio, and his reading and vocabulary improved greatly.

If either of these children were limited to the books he could actually read, he would be bored and discover that the library is not a place to find what he wanted to learn about.

Now, I know that there is a place for leveled books, but I think that should be in the classroom. If your ‘school library’ is also your classroom library, try to find a separate place or shelf for the leveled books. Try to keep them separate from the library books. To make it easy for your students to locate their level, put a white sticker on the spine of the book with the number of the level. It will be easy to put all the 1’s together, the 2’s, and so on. You might think that colored stickers would work fine, but I see two minor problems with that. I can imagine children asking over and over “Which color am I supposed to be reading?” Yes, you could make a small sign to indicate which color goes with each level. But what about the student that is at a lower level from his or her peers? She is reading from the blue level (and everyone can see it) while the others are at the yellow level. A white sticker is less obvious and the written number instantly identifies the level.

One suggestion I have as to placement of the stickers whether you use white or different colors is to have them all in the same general area. If you don’t have spine labels on these books, put the sticker on the spine one inch from the bottom of the spine. The reason for the space of one inch is that books tend to become worn on the bottom of the spine and the stickers will also become tattered much sooner. If they are one inch higher, they will stay nice for a long time.

If you do have spine labels on these books already, then put the leveled stickers just above the spine label. This way they will all be nice and neat on the shelf and very easy to find.

These are just my opinions and suggestions. If you have found a way to accomplish this that works well for you, I would say to just keep doing what works. Don't fix it if it isn't broken.

Have a great week.

Audrey