While the vast majority of schools have school libraries, classroom libraries play an essential role. There are many ways to build up your classroom library including shopping at garage sales, library sales, and second-hand stores. Additionally, you can also score some free books by asking friends to donate to your classroom. If you are looking for ways to build your library, you can read my post here. Also, I recently wrote a post about how I organize my library.
Here are five reasons to have a classroom library in your classroom.
1. Accessible Books
Having a library in your classroom gives students another opportunity to access books. Depending on your classroom book check-out policy, your classroom library might also allow students who have late fines in the library to read a book. This is also especially helpful before school breaks. I have many students who stop by before the end of the day to check out a book before a break.
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2. Constantly in Sight
With a library in your classroom, books are always in students’ sights. Students will see the books when they enter the classroom and throughout the period. With books constantly in view, more students might be interested to read.
3. Easy to Implement Dedicated Independent Reading Time
Having a variety of books in your classroom at all times gives you more flexibility for dedicating independent reading time in the classroom. If you have a library large enough to make sure that every student has a book, you can devote independent reading time whenever you like because you can make sure every student has a book.
4. Options for Early-Finishers
With a classroom library, students who finish their work early can read a book as they wait for other students to complete the assignment. This is especially helpful for students who have finished work in other classes as well.
5. Introduce New Titles
A final reason to have a classroom library is that you can continuously introduce your students to new titles as you populate and add to your library. At the start of each month, you can showcase some of the titles in your library to help entice students.
