The Power of Book Recommendations to Grow Readers

I'm feeling nostalgic as I prepare to transition from the role of an elementary library media specialist to a middle school library media specialist. In all honesty, whenever I am asked what I do, my immediate response is "library teacher." We have many hats we wear in the library but I believe at the heart of everything we do is connecting with our students and the adults that we serve.

When you are an educator it does not matter what you are teaching - research skills, digital citizenship, instilling a love of reading, growth mindset, you could plug in any teaching standard here - at the very core is figuring out a way to bring the lesson to life so that others will connect and care about the subject matter. So, yes, technically our term is library media specialist but if you were to ask me what I was born to do, I will answer first "mother" and then "teacher."

My day to day existence will look much different next year in the new middle school media center. Over the next few weeks I hope to reflect on my "takeaways" serving fourth and fifth graders over the past six years. I want these reflections housed for posterity so I can look back at what matters in order to forge ahead.

I recently surveyed my students and want to share the results in a Growing Readers series. I am focusing on the power of book recommendations in the first part of the series.

One day of holds going out on the "Holds Cart" delivered by a student and teacher assistant. Notice the colorful decorations adorning the cart? It is a celebration to get a book you've been wanting to read delivered to your classroom so I wanted the cart to reflect that excitement.

The single biggest bang for my buck in the library has been dedicating 5 to 10 minutes of class on book recommendations. I do it in the form of a blog so that I can share these recommendations with our community - students, faculty and families. It is structured with 5 recommendations per week with varying genres. If there is a book trailer or super short video to make the book more enticing, I include it. The kids rely on this time. In fact, there are groans if we don't get to our weekly "Book Bites." I also encourage students to create book trailers to recommend titles to peers. It is really empowering when their book trailers get showcased. 

Providing Agency

At the beginning of the year I teach students how to log into their library catalog account and place holds. They take complete ownership over this process within the next month and then the holds start pouring in from school libraries across the state. It mimics the public library process for them so that they get into the habit of advocating for themselves. My goal is that they transfer that skill year round through the public library and then when they head to the middle school. 

What the Data Shows

Earlier in this post I mentioned that I had asked my students to fill out a survey for me. 471 students responded. I asked the students how they find out about books they want to read. 81% of students reported using the weekly Book Bites posts for recommendations.  62% of students reported relying on recommendations from friends. Other ways they reported getting recommendations included family members, looking around at the bookstore and the library, and book tastings (more on that in a later blog post).

I asked the students what kind of an impact the weekly Book Bites posts has had on their reading life. 46% of students report learning about many more books due to this weekly recommendation time. 37% of students report finding new books weekly to check out or place holds on based on the weekly Book Bites posts. 

A majority of the time when ILL (inter library loan) books come in daily from other libraries for our students the green mail pouch is either bursting at the seams or a library bin is sent instead.  We process a LOT of books. I  have had incredible parent volunteers over the past few years (shout out to Mrs. Carolyn Gray and Mrs. Elaine Van Leer ) who graciously come in at least once a week to help me with this. I knew we had volume but I thought what we were bringing in was the standard until I saw the state data from the 2017-2018 school year. The students from our library received 1,255 books from lending libraries last year. That is 1,000 more books than any other school library in the state. 

This data confirms what I have come to realize over the past few years: if you take the time to recommend books, to get excited about titles, and to let students recommend to each other, they will read. They will look forward to the selections and they will look forward to receiving the books once they have placed holds. 

An Unexpected, Joyful Outcome

Above there is a picture of the book holds cart. We have a student who (along with his teacher assistant) brings books to students in their classrooms. It is a win-win situation. The student practices greeting and making eye contact with others. Students know when he knocks on their door, someone in their class is receiving a book. This book delivery student has become an integral part of our school community. On Valentine's Day students from all classrooms surprised him with cards.  He has relationships with children across the building which may not have happened if he wasn't going door to door each day delivering the books.  When asked how it feels to get books delivered to their classroom by this person, students responded "It feels really good," "It is exciting," and "It makes me happy."

My Takeaway 

Students deserve to have adults in their lives who will champion literacy. If we are genuinely excited about titles, our enthusiasm is contagious. If we put systems in place for students to learn of new titles and advocate for themselves, we will watch the magic happen. I have been a witness to this and it truly is miraculous.