By Mirah Dow, SLIM
If you think that school librarians are non-essential to student learning and achievement in K-12 schools, then think again! This year’s Kansas Summer Institute featured library and literary experts and authors focused on school librarians’ roles in partnering to teach reading with classroom teachers and reading specialists. The complexity of today’s digital, global literacy and learning requires collaborative education to ensure that all students develop tools for success.
Kansas and Colorado educators attended the 13th Annual Kansas Summer Institute for School Librarians on June 17 and 18 at Emporia State University. Eighty educators, including reading specialists, classroom teachers and school librarians, spent two days covering strategies to benefit students through more individual attention, better-designed lessons, access to information at the point of need, access to multiple resources, deeper investigation into concepts and topics, integrated learning, expanded opportunities for creativity, and acquiring reading skills for lifelong learning.
In the national drive to improve student test scores and build a nation of readers, the proven teamwork tools presented by Dr. Judi Moreillon will help educators accomplish these outcomes. Dr. Moreillon is a school librarian, children’s book author, Assistant Professor at the School of Library and Information Studies, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas, and is the author of Collaborative Strategies for Teaching Reading Comprehension: Maximizing Your Impact (American Library Association, 2007).
Dr. Moreillon confers with participants
The International Digital Children’s Library, a collection of 3,932 books from around the world in 54 languages, was demonstrated by Sharon Coatney, retired Kansas school librarian, past president of the American Library Association and current Acquisitions Editor, Libraries Unlimited. Dr. Mirah Dow, Associate Professor and ESU’s Coordinator of the School Library Media Licensure Program, said, “Even before the presentation ended, many participants loaded links on computers and mobile phones, which will expand school resource collections and make multicultural books available to Kansas school children and youth. Today’s school librarians understand that reading is a specific intellectual skill, not a universal capacity. They partner with class teachers to provide literacy instruction. They have expertise in paper and electronic resources to support content areas. In this way, reading truly opens ‘windows’ to the world.”
Nancy Werlin, National Book Award Finalist, Edgar Award Winner, and author of young adult literature including Impossible, Rules of Survival, and Double Helix, shared ways to get young people engaged in reading and writing.
Institute participants visited Emporia’s historical home of William Allen White where Beverley Olson Buller, school librarian, Chisholm Middle School, Newton, KS, and author of From Emporia: The Story of William Allen White, told about the man behind The William Allen White Children’s Book Award.
This annual event is sponsored by the School of Library and Information Management, ESU; Kansas Department of Education; State Library of Kansas; and the Kansas Association of School Librarians.
