NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009                                   

LIBRARY NEWS:

Thanks to all who made the September/October 2009 Scholastic Book Fair
a great success! Our sales were $4883.07, with $201.89 taken out in books
and $1119.83 in cash profit.
The profits are used for purchasing books, supplies, incentives for
Accelerated Reader and for speakers for various functions. The library
will be paying half of the cost for author Elizabeth Ficocelli to come
during Catholic Schools Week.
My sincere thanks go to the following volunteers who were responsible for
making the Book Fair so successful:
Julie Valentine, Kathy Romano, Theresa Faulkner, Elaine Lewis, Lisa
McCall, Dawn Shonk, Vicki Hakes, Cathy Hoffman, Shelley Gavin, Beth Brady,
Elaine Gundelfinger, Katie Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Diann Mogavera, Jill
Kennedy, Molly Huber and Jennifer Gruber.
Thanks also to all who contributed Box Tops for Education. Our October
shipment was $710.00, which was $140.00 more than last Fall's shipment. We
will have one more shipment in February, so keep those little red coupons
coming!
Anyone with digital
pictures of grandparents' day, please Email as attachment to
jlindsey@cdeducation.org for inclusion in the yearbook.
Well known author Margaret Peterson Haddix will visit our school in March of 2010. Students are preparing for her visit by reading her books and learning about her experience as an author.
Infohio Database – All Ohio students are privileged to have access to a database of excellent resources which can be accessed at home with a username and password. Included in the database are three versions of World Book Encyclopedia for various ages and also a Spanish version. There are magazine and newspaper articles to use for reports, a biographical site and many other information sources. The web address is www.infohio.org. The username and password are available in the library from Mrs. Lindsey.

LIBRARY CLASS PERIODS:
Students in grades K – 5 visit the library twice each week; once for a twenty minute check out period and one 40 minute period to learn library skills and talk about books. Students in grades 6 – 8 visit the library for one 40 minute period each week. Students from the main building are permitted to drop into the library when they need to check out a book or use the workstations.
In the second semester of school, students are working on the following standards and subject areas according to their abilities during their 40 minute library period:
Standard I for Library/Media: Information Literacy
Benchmark A:
Students will understand the function of the school library media center, recognize other types of libraries and use a variety of libraries to meet information and personal needs.
New and returning students will:
    -    Be familiar with library rules, policies and procedures
    -    Understand the use of the library catalog and the basics of the Accelerated Reader program
    -    Prepare for special library events such as the Scholastic Book Fair and the   upcoming visit by Margaret Peterson Haddix.  We will have a celebration party for those students who participated in any library summer reading program.
Benchmark B:
Students will identify and relate information needs, read, select and listen to books and materials, demonstrate responsible use.
New and returning students will locate books on shelves, learn how to check out materials, learn when to return them and how to care for them.
Benchmark C:
Students will select literature by genre based on need and personal enjoyment.
Students will:

1. Learn to locate various types of materials on the library shelves.
2. Listen to stories and select books for enjoyment. They will understand the various genres of fiction books.

Benchmark D : Students will evaluate information and data sources
Benchmark E : Students will conduct research and follow research process
K – Students listen to and view classic stories which focus on many topics including the seasons and the holidays, and which emphasize basic pre-reading skills such as the recognition of the alphabet and letter sounds and counting. They complete worksheets based on the stories which match upper case letters to lower case, connect letters of the alphabet and numbers.  We are sharing Mother Goose stories and rhymes.
1 – First grade students are working on matching their individual reading levels with books they check out to take home. It is very important during the first years of school that students get a good start in choosing books just right for them. We emphasize that their books should be fun to read, not so easy that they can be finished without work, and not so difficult that every page is a struggle. Two authors we focus on during second semester are Cynthia Rylant and Tomie DePaola.
2 – Students in second grade are beginning to read different genres in the library of their own choosing. They have many questions about topics in the classroom and interests of their own, so nonfiction is a popular library choice. Students have mastered the Accelerated Reader quiz process and enjoy challenging themselves and others in taking quizzes. Second graders are working on choosing books that will expand their reading skills.
3 – Third graders are working on a project assigned in the classroom regarding endangered animals. They are using print materials and online sites to answer vital questions about them. They are learning to identify series books, chapter books, biographies, nonfiction books and picture books.
4 - Fourth graders are learning to use the library catalog to find call numbers, reviewing the parts of books and locating materials alphabetically on the shelves. They have worked on a travel website assignment for Miss Fox and they are now beginning a unit on research tools. They will begin with almanacs and continue with dictionaries and encyclopedias.
5 – Fifth graders are learning to use the library catalog and to find resources on the shelves. They have recently completed a library scavenger hunt and will be beginning a Lewis and Clark research project.
6 – Grade Six is learning to use the Internet wisely for research. They have looked at subscription databases such as Infohio and Grolier and have learned to evaluate websites. They will begin learning about citing resources.
7 – Students in grade seven are researching a saint. They are also learning about various types of libraries, including the Library of Congress. They have recently finished a unit about censorship and banned books. Several members of the class performed a skit in conjunction with this unit.
8 – Students in grade eight are learning to use the library to locate resources about the many types of career opportunities available. They are learning to focus on a topic, develope a research strategy and organize the information they find so that it is more useful for their purposes.
ACCELERATED READER:
 Accelerated Reader is a program that encourages students to read by directing them to books at appropriate levels and offering encouragement and rewards when students pass short quizzes online.  Please note that the AR lists on the St. Mary Library website (http://www.sainttmarylancaster.org/ ) only list the titles of the books which have quizzes available at school in the classrooms and library. They do not contain the actual quizzes. The list is arranged alphabetically by book title.  These lists will help you and your child select books at the appropriate reading levels. Students can learn their reading levels by asking the school librarian or their teacher. Student reading levels are determined by Star Reading Tests given in the Fall and Spring for students in grades 2 - 8. St. Mary library books and many classroom books which are listed on the AR lists will have a red AR sticker on their cover and two numbers on the page just inside the front cover. The first number is the book level (reading level) and the second number is the number of points that the student will receive if he or she reads the book, takes the quiz and gets all five, ten or twenty questions correct. (The number of questions is determined by the difficulty of the book.)  A student who does not get all questions on the quiz correct will receive a percentage of that number of points. A student missing more than 40% of the questions gets no points and can not retake the test without the teacher’s permission.
A word about reading levels –
Your child’s reading level determined by the Star Reading Test is only a guideline. It can be affected by many factors, including how comfortable your child is when taking online tests.  As we all know, these scores can be misleading. We use these scores only as a guide to help students select books at a level that is appropriate for them. The book level inside the book can be misleading also. This book level is determined by a formula based on how difficult the words in the book are to read. It has nothing to do with the social context or themes of the book. For example, there are many middle school students who love to read mysteries that they can zip through in an hour or so. The themes of these books are appropriate for middle school students and I would not recommend them to an early primary student. However, the reading or book level is 4.0 or so, meaning that an average (national standards) student beginning fourth grade could understand the words. A book or reading level, therefore, is only a suggestion of how easy or difficult it will be for a student to read the words in the book. I never discourage a student from reading a book which has a higher or lower reading level than their level unless:

1. I know the book is way too difficult and the student is going to try reading it on his or her own. (This happens a lot with Harry Potter books. Most of these books have a 6.0 or higher reading level and students in the lower primary grades really want to read them.)
2. I’m sure that the student is just trying to meet a quota of points assigned by the teacher by reading by reading books way under their reading level.
3. The social content is inappropriate for the grade level. I have students in middle elementary grades with very high reading levels. I would not encourage them to check out a book with themes for students in 7th and 8th grade, even though they could read the words without difficulty unless a parent approves. In this vein, I would also ask that parents look at books their students are reading. Some students in middle school and upper elementary grades bring books to school from the library or book store that I believe the parent would not want them to read if they knew the content. If you have questions about a book, bring the title up on Amazon.com and read the reviews, noting recommended age levels. Reviews from School Library Journal and Horn Book are very good. My years of experience have taught me that student behavior is influenced by what is read as well as what is viewed, especially when groups of students are reading and viewing the same thing.

If you have questions about any part of the AR program or about the library, please do not hesitate to call or visit.

Literature Sites
Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site - This is a collection of reviews of great books for kids, ideas of ways to use them in the classroom and collections of books and activities about particular subjects, curriculum areas, themes and professional topics.
Children's Literature Web Guide - The Children's Literature Web Guide is an attempt to gather together and categorize the growing number of Internet resources related to books for Children and Young Adults.