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4 - Creating a Reading Rich Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

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Summary

Introduction

As a school librarian, you will have a passion for reading; a passion that you will want to share with your school community. You will want them to be passionate about reading and to talk about and promote books and reading. You will want that passion to emanate from the library, permeate the school and demonstrate in different ways that the school has a strong reading culture and creates a reading rich environment for all. This chapter aims to support you in this and covers the following topics:

  • ■ the role of the school librarian in creating a reading rich environment in school

  • ■ finding out about activities and promotions that could be run in your library

  • ■ national book initiatives

  • ■ national and local book awards

  • ■ practical ideas for creating a reading rich environment

  • ■ author events

  • ■ the rights of the reader

  • ■ funding sources

  • ■ working with other school staff

  • ■ Schools Library Services

  • ■ follow up activities

  • ■ references and further information.

The school librarian and the reading environment in school

Ask anybody who works with children or who cares about the future of young people and they will agree one thing: reading is the most basic of basics. The child who reads is a successful child: more likely to succeed academically; more likely to succeed socially; and more likely to be inquisitive about the world around them, maybe even to feel empowered to try to change it for the better. This is not just my opinion. It is a judgement supported by a body as influential as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

When you read often, when it is as effortless and integral to your being as eating, drinking, sleeping, and breathing, you are able to empathise. To access and order information, to interpret and explore the world around you.

(Gibbons, 2011)

Without the sunlight of literature children cannot grow as they should. We know that from books come knowledge and understanding, that they are a source of infinite joy and fun, that they stimulate imagination and creativity, that they open eyes and minds and hearts.

Type
Chapter
Information
Creating a School Library with Impact
A Beginner's Guide
, pp. 43 - 66
Publisher: Facet
Print publication year: 2022

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