School Libraries: The Blockbuster of Today?

     To begin, I love libraries and book stores. Well, to be more specific, I love what's in them. When I tell my family that I'm going to stop in at Barnes & Nobles, Borders, or the library in town, they understand that this means several things at once:

• I'll be out of touch for at least two hours. (I don't own a cell phone and even if I did I wouldn't bring it with me.)
• If they want to tag along, they have to decide if they can handle the minimum two hour visit time as well as put up with my many single syllable responses to their queries. 
• I'm going to put a nifty little dent in the family bank account.
• More books will be have to be squeezed into already tightly-packed bookcases.

     The thing of it is, I'm beginning to wonder how much longer the brick and mortar homes of books can remain as they are. I'm wondering if I need to make those trips by car and foot to my mecca. Just consider the Blockbuster versus Netflix business models and you'll understand what I mean. 

     Netflix has mortally wounded Blockbuster with its mailbox DVDs and online streaming. We want what we want quicker, cheaper, and delivered directly to us. Going to a store or the library simply doesn't hit on all three of those needs. Thus is Netflix able to slay a company many thought would replace the theater business, which is actually being handled by today's home entertainment theaters. These dynamic changes have me musing about school libraries. 

     Our school libraries, if they were a business, are far closer to Blockbuster than Netflix, and this is worrisome. In a business like Blockbuster, movies are bought, delivered, repackaged, cataloged, and shelved for customers take home. You could substitute books for movies and students for customers and still be accurate about the school library model. In both instances, there is a of time and expense woven into the goal of having individuals come, peruse, and leave with products in hand. It's a centralized model, which has Blockbuster scrambling to be more like Netflix and it's push out ways.

     I wonder if the time hasn't come to work more on a push out model for our business...err...libraries. I'm not calling for an end to physical books, or even librarians, but any means. In fact, both remain indispensable to education.  No, what I am suggesting is recognizing the successful models of today, our customer wants, and mimicking them as best as we can. This means divvying library books into classroom sets and adopting eReaders as soon as possible. That's right. Don't put the books into one big room, put the books into all the little rooms where the students are. And, start transitioning to the medium most are using now, electronic delivery of information.

Consider  all of these statements:  

• Every generation, from this point on, carries more computing power in their mobile devices than NASA had when launching the first ships to the moon.
• Electronic books are cheaper than paper books.
• When given the choice between going to the library to check out a book or downloading it to a portable reading device, most will overwhelmingly chose the second option.
• Locating the right read is easier and quicker (even more enjoyable) using Amazon (or our Destiny Quest browser) than working your way through rows and stacks of books. (Okay, I'll admit. I do like the experience of discovering a book by randomly roaming up and down the aisles, but I believe I'm in the minority with this one.)
• The Kindle, Nook, and Sony eReader can hold thousands of electronic books either via purchase or free download from the thousands of books in the public domain. (Wait until Google enters the field!) A lot less physical space is necessary.
• At least one state, Utah, has adopted eReaders as the primary means by which textbooks and pleasure books will be put into student hands. Texas is also heading in the same direction. (The larger sized Kindle displays entire textbooks with perfect clarity and all the usual instant connections to links, videos, updated information, etc.)
• Items stacked next to store registers tend to sell quickly, the so-called impulse purchase. Books, when well displayed (covers showing, not spines) tend to be checked out most frequently. Put 50 books on display in every classroom and they'll start moving. 
• Most eReaders allow users to read the first chapters of new books for free. They also show users books most-like the ones being read or examined. 
• Student connections between subject matter (science, social studies, art, etc.) can be enhanced through the proper pairing of classrooms to teachers and students.

The push out concept is not a silver bullet. There are complications. Tracking books from classroom libraries is much more challenging and potentially onerous for teachers. Librarians must make more trips to classrooms to share books and swap new titles for older titles.  However, this is how major transitions tend to work. It's not without bumps. Netflix began with DVDs to mailboxes only, then limited streaming, and slowly is working toward complete streaming. 

     Librarians, take heed. While I'm confident, as a mere reading teacher, that I misunderstand much of how a library functions, I feel as confident that change is coming and should be embraced. So, for those working the stacks, I welcome any comments you may have.

Summer Enrichment Offerings

The Town of Glastonbury offers several enriching camps and workshops each summer. I'm happy to announce that I will be involved in two of them with my good colleague Patrick Zabroski. We will co-teach both the Reading Enrichment Camp and the Glastonbury Games Club. Specific details regarding dates, times, and price will follow very soon on the Glastonbury Schools website. A brief description of each of our workshops follows:

Reading Enrichment Camp: I know all too well how summer can slip away with children having not even started the required summer reading. (I have three boys and it's happened in each case at least once. I, of course, blame this on my wife. usually from a great distance -like a state, or two :) Thus was born the idea behind this workshop. Patrick and I want to help the procrastinator in us all get a head start on our summer reading. Using a modified Reader's Workshop model, we will present how we read books, take notes, and focus on the pleasurable aspects to reading. We'll also help participants find non-fiction materials to go along with their fiction selection. The workshop meets for one week, four hours each day, allowing us to model strategies, conference with students, discuss and write, and read for a sustained period of time. So, why not take a little of the pressure off the end of summer by joining us at Smith School at the beginning of summer.

Glastonbury Games Club: Let me get this one straight. I love video games, but I recognize that too often this idle pursuit doesn't bring people together as much as it brings player and machine together. Patrick and I decided that, as great as computers are, it wouldn't hurt to nurture the social component that comes from face-to-face meetings. We also thought it might be a good idea to side-step the ole standbys, like organized sports, and go for something new -boardgames. We've got a nice list of games that allow 2-4, or even 4-8, individuals to play together in one room. Imagine that? These are the kinds of games that have a nice blend of easy to learn rules and compelling strategy. They're not your typical games either. There's Quirkle, Rummikub, Formula De, and more, much more.  Some of these may well end up in your home after your child plays them. Game night anyone?

Or, check out some of the other fine offerings within Glastonbury this summer.

Age Banding

The United Kingdom is holding a very interesting discussion which may affect you. In short, book publishing companies are looking into the idea of rating their books the same way movies and video games are rated. This is called "age banding".

Age banding basically means they're going to rate books in a way that suggests what age should be reading them. Their plan, at least for now, works as follows: Early will stand for children 5+, Confident will stand for children ages 9+, and Fluent will stand for children 9+. I'm not sure I understand the labels they're thinking about using beyond Early. 

Word choice is VERY important and labeling books "confident" and "fluent" makes me worry that more negative attachments will come with those labels than positive ones. For example, "fluent" suggests that a child who can read all the words on the page is automatically ready for the 9 and up books. This is not always true. It also cuts another way. There may be pressure to move a child up to a book labeled fluent when he or she is not ready for it; or voices of derision for a child enjoying a book deemed "below" his/her age.

Banding opens the door for many other labels to land on books. As it is now, there are sometimes "age appropriate" labels on books, and/or reading levels given to them. These are simplistic labels and as a highly experienced reading teacher -oh and reader- I often question the validity of either form of labeling. I've come across plenty of books claiming to be one reading level but are in fact either much higher or lower than claimed. Besides, reading levels do not tell us anything about the complexity of the content inside.

I do see merits to age banding at times. Video games are a pretty solid example. But books aren't video games. Books are a different matter entirely. As you may suspect, I love the printed word. I do not withhold any materials in my home because I feel that if I do this, then they only want the books in question all the more. I'm fine with my children trying books, which the age-banding publishers might deem above their age range, on their own. What happens is that they either put it down (too confusing or boring) or find  this "difficult" book, interesting enough that they then begin to push themselves as readers. Awesome!

We live in an age where SO MUCH is available to use when it comes to learning the appropriateness and content of books that it seems completely out of touch to STEP BACK with simple, age banding, labels. Take 5 minutes, scan Amazon from home or your iPhone, and then decide if a book is a good match for your child. There you get a book's themes, reading/age levels, reviews, and a chance to sample the text yourself.

I've got some strong feelings on this topic, but I would love to hear what you think about this idea. Maybe I'm overreacting.

I leave you with a quote from C.S. Lewis, which is also the pretext for the No-to-Age-Banding website.

... the neat sorting-out of books into age ranges, so dear to publishers, has only a very sketchy relation with the habits of any real readers. Those of us who are blamed when old for reading childish books were blamed when children for reading books too old for us. No reader worth his salt trots along in obedience to a time-table.

CS Lewis (1952 essay On three ways of writing for children, collected in Of Other Worlds (latest edition, Harvest Books 2002)

-Mr. Lagana

Hard (Copy) Decision

The question isn’t will I, it’s when will I. When will I switch from purchasing, carrying, and peering into hard copies of the written word and embrace the soothing, high-resolution, electronic delivery of the written word, because the next step in delivering the written word to each of us is in mid-stride.


Kindle is leading the way, followed by eReader, and now the Nook. Each device is portable and capable of delivering a massive number of books, articles, and blogs to your fingertips. Anyone who says this won’t replace books did not pay attention to events in the music world.

The iPod came, it saw, it conquered. Vinyl recordings are a clear marker in my life of how old I am these days, and I don’t sound all that hip and relevant when I mention music CDs either. (Hmmm… add the word hip to the list of you’re-showing-your-age items.)

I do love books. I find it incredibly relaxing to peruse books in a library, store, and even online. I like holding books and being an owner of books. My home is in many ways a small library unto itself because of how much I enjoy books. And yet, this does not mean I won’t eventually change how I receive the written word of others.

Frankly, there’s too much to like about the new age of print to stay away from it much longer. The real difficulty is going to be deciding which portable device I finally purchase. There are pros and cons to each device, which I will not bother with here as there are hundreds of sites that have done this already. Instead I’ll give my reasons to go electronic along with my worries.



The reasons to buy electronic:

It is cheaper. Yes, the machine costs money, but the savings with electronic version of books makes up for it. Hard copies of books cost far more and take longer to come down in price. Electronic books begin cheaper and move down in price quicker than those we purchase from a brick and mortar locale. There is less clutter. Books pile up quickly, and they have an eerily magnetic way about them when it comes to dust. A thousand books on shelves is messy. A thousand books in electronic form is sublime. I will make better decisions. I don’t always leave a store with the books I planned to purchase. Sometimes it’s due to cost and other times it’s spotting something else of interest. By accessing Amazon, for example, directly from Kindle, I can see reviews of books and similar types of books to assist with my decisions. There should be less guess work. I’m also often under a time constraint when I’m at a bookstore and make hasty decisions. I’m hopeful there’ll be better organization. My books are sometimes filled with ear-marked pages, highlights, odd slips of papers, or a notation along the inside covers. All of which seem like good ideas until I need to actually return to this information. Then, I’m left wondering what my grand organizational plan was at the time as I look through shelves of books. An electronic device will force me into one method, which is (I hope) much easier, reliable, and sensible.



The reasons I worry about going electronic:

Foremost in my mind is ownership. When I buy a book I can do with it what I will -not so with an electronic version. I cannot readily hand off the copy to a friend. Some electronic readers will allow you the chance to lend a book for two weeks, like a library, but that’s not good enough. Generally, when I lend a book, I don’t expect it back because I know it’ll be gone for months. I worry about instantaneous collection loss. What happens if my portable device breaks? A broken device means I’ll have nothing to read until it’s replaced or repaired. Amazon claims to backup all your purchases, but I’ve read mixed reviews on this. Example, periodicals are only backed-up for two weeks! Normally, I try to weed out piles of magazines. But, if I can have an electronic copy, I would not have to decide what to throw away. I like seeing books. Books packed into shelves simply sings to me. They don’t even have to be my books or books I’ve read.

Most likely, I'll find myself holding onto both in the end. I'm looking forward to the new experience.

Tisk, Tisk, to Both of Us.

I cannot help myself. I don't really want to note the problems with an alphabet puzzle meant to entertain toddlers but, as a well-known philosopher often said, "I y'am what I y'am."  (Hmmm...so Popeye is not a philosopher, but he is well known.)

I'm unsure how the puzzle pictured above came into our home, but I'm the first to admit that I'm disappointed I let it remain in my house all these years. The puzzle is a Melisa & Doug creation and it's quite likely you own or have owned one of their many products. To be clear, I think the company (duo?) produces many fine educational toys, but with this one, they failed.

Well, what's wrong with it, you may wonder? It looks like a rather nice alphabet puzzle all things considered. It's colorful, made of fine, solid, wood, and quite picturesque. All true, but that's not what has me thinking tisk, tisk to both myself and the designers.

To begin, the letter E rankles me. No, I have nothing against elephants. (Does anyone?) I'm bothered by the use of the word "elephant" to teach the sound of the letter E. The word "elephant" does not allow for the discrete, clear, pronunciation of the short sound for E. What we say, and what a child mostly hears, when the word "elephant" is spoken is an L sound. Most children will certainly hear and see the letter E in many other words as they learn language, but for some even one instance such as this can cause problems. Better choices are words such as "egg" and "Eskimo." Of course, drawing any of these along the shape of the letter E is not necessarily easy. Still, is it that hard to paint a dozen eggs instead? Or an Eskimo with his body making the vertical line, his sled as the bottom horizontal line, an outstretched hand as the middle horizontal line, and maybe a cloud, some wind, or a sun as the top vertical line? If they can squish a picture of a kangaroo into the letter K and have two monkeys (holding hands?) for the letter M, then they can come up with alternatives to an elephant! Okay, I need to calm down right? It's only one letter. Oh but no. That's not true at all.

Not even two spots away sits the letter G...I think. The picture for this letter is a globe. The hard G sound is most appropriate. So no real issues for me there. However, the picture itself is baffling. A ruler of some measure (longitude? latitude?) is wrapped around the globe, and it is nearly impossible to discern from the globe. The end result is a blue and green circle better representative of a football helmet in shape than the letter G. To quote the lingo of today's youth I say, "EPIC FAILURE!" (My 5-year-old generally calls it a G. He knows G follows F because he can sing the alphabet but it doesn't stop him from saying it in a questioning voice after having paused a few seconds. It's a very troubling two seconds in both our lives.)

Hey, I can hear pleas for reason among many of you. 24 out of 26 isn't all that terrible, you say. That's 92% you rightly point out. Maybe, maaaaybe I could meet you half-way on this matter because anything above 90% just seems so credible. Sigh (and tisk, tisk Melisa & Doug) even this benchmark is not met. Enter the letter I.

The letter I is a picture of ice cream on a cone. Lovely...if you're being offered it, and as far from a treat as one can imagine if it's supposed to help a little one learn the short sound of the letter I. Every time I see that "ice cream" I scream, "What were they thinking?" The long sound of any vowel is (pardon my dessert focused mind) a piece of cake (not ice cream). One simply tells a child that all long vowel sounds say their name. So, the direct instruction, from a parent or teacher, is really set to teaching children the short vowel sounds. The letter I should have been pictured by something like an impala, or an insect, or a nice igloo to go with my Eskimo. Better yet, let's roll with an iguana! An iguana is both cool looking and rhymes with Lagana. (Hmmm...I suppose the marketing department for Melisa & Doug might balk at this particular pitch. How many Laganas are in the market for a puzzle board?)

I'm not done with Melisa & Doug and their poorly designed letter I just yet. The shape is totally unacceptable. Where's the dot over the body of the letter? Oh right, we can't have a picture with a single scoop of ice cream floating over a cone because that would be bad for a child to see. Well then, if it's supposed to be a capital letter then where are the little horizontal line thingies at the top and bottom? Apparently a picture fitting to the shape of an upper case I is beyond the creative talents of this company.

So, to the optimists I now present an updated score. The correct tally is now 23 of 26 letters, which is 88%. That's a B, and in teacher parlance not quite head-of-the-class when it comes to alphabet puzzles. You'd "B" wise to avoid this Melisa & Doug product.

Before I dismiss class and hop down from my beleaguered soapbox, let me share a better wooden alphabet puzzle. The one on the bottom is far superior and far less likely to have me in fits. I love the upper and lower case letters near one another. I also like, very much, that the letters are solid colors with pictures below. And wouldn't you know, it's another Melisa & Doug puzzle. A little redemption for them, eh?

Tisk, tisk. I've really no one but myself to blame for holding onto the first puzzle to begin with.