BLOG POST 2

 For this Blog post I interviewed Ms. Ryder whom is a librarian at a local early childhood center. During our interview we talked about Shared Foundation IV which is Curate. We talked about the domains Think, Create, Share and Grow and how she uses these daily in her library. The school librarian domains and competencies we focused on the most was under the Think domain.

“School librarians challenge learners to act on an information need by:

1.Modeling the response to a need to gather and organize information.

2.Designing opportunities for learners to explore possible information sources.

3.Guiding leaners to make critical choices about information sources to use (AASL, 2018, p.94).”

 

Ms. Ryder says she uses this domain regularly with her students. She teaches students ages 4 – 8 years old so I was interested in how she uses research with her students. I am use to older students that already know how to complete simple research but working with younger students and research must be more difficult but she does not think so. She said the key is breaking down research to the simplest terms and not isolating the process. Presenting it this way is key to young students ability to grasp what the basic processes are. She included that the word research can give students anxiety so she starts off teaching research as informed decision making. The class comes up with a problem and she walks through how she can conduct simple research to answer the problem. Then she has her students complete a packet where they come up with a problem and they go to selected kid friendly websites to find the answer. Some of those websites are Fact Monster, Kidtopia and Kiddle. She states it is easy to overload students so giving them a few options is better than the entire internet.

 

Ms. Ryder collaborates with the classroom teachers to find out what they are studying to see how she can build her research unit around it. Students find it easier to research something if they are already studying it in their classroom. Making those connections and activating that prior knowledge of the subject is a great way to create a research unit. Sometimes the librarian will start a lesson on research in the library and the teacher will finish the lesson in the classroom. Library lessons can be extension of the classroom lesson and vise versa.

 

References

 

AASL. (2018). National school library standards for learners, school librarians, and school libraries. American Library Association.