Literacy, Libraries and Learning

The school library has changed dramatically. Today, it’s a portal to a world of learning that includes traditional books, digital resources and online environments. As the importance of information and communication technologies grows, teachers and teacher librarians hold the key to creating powerful learning opportunities that will help students function more effectively in our modern world.

This thought-provoking book discusses the literacy needs of students and the changing responsibilities of classroom teachers and teacher librarians in helping students become better readers, writers and researchers. It offers suggestions for reinventing the school library by offering a better and more current selection of resources and instilling students with the reading habit.

A comprehensive guide for educators, this practical book encourages collaboration between teachers and teacher librarians. It uses the extensive experience of a group of educators to suggest solutions to the challenges of the information age for classroom teachers, including:

• promoting reading for learning and pleasure
• improving critical literacy skills when using information from many sources
• encouraging research methods that respect copyright and lead to original work
• designing information tasks to help students work effectively with data
• developing better informational text structures that increase comprehension
• encouraging the integration of emerging technologies and traditional resources.

Literacy, Libraries and Learning argues that using diverse learning resources can improve literacy achievement. It shows teachers and teacher librarians how to turn their schools into first-rate learning environments and their students into lifelong learners.