Supporting Reading Online
Walter Minkel -- School Library Journal, 12/1/2000
Erving (MA) Elementary School Library: www.erving.com/library/erving_library.htm Robin Shtulman, a library aide at Erving (MA) Elementary School, is a woman whose mission is getting books into the hands of the approximately 160 K-6 students she serves. "We want to make sure our kids stay hooked on books," says Shtulman (shtulman@erving.com). To that end, she's created a homey Web site for her library that points students and parents all over the world of reading. What It's All About: Three years ago, Erving's technology coordinator, Mike Lipinski, taught Shtulman how to put up a site using Claris Home Page, and she was ready to go. She admits that her site initially was "pretty boring"--just a list of what was in the collection--so off she went in search of what she thought her students and parents wanted to see.
First on her mind was using the site to promote reading throughout the school, because, she says, "reading is what it's all about."
RAT Money: She set up a community-oriented promotion of the school's Read-a-thon, known affectionately as the RAT. For eight weeks, from January to March, students in the fifth and sixth grades read like crazy and raise "RAT money." Then the kids help Shtulman decide how to spend it. In the 2000-01 school year, for the first time, her students will be participating in the Massachusetts Children's Book Award, and her students are currently "enthusiastically reading and talking" about the nominees. She uses the site to point them and their parents to information about the award-winning novels, as well as Caldecott, Newbery, and Coretta Scott King Award-winning books.
Going Public: Her school library site also does one thing few of its peers do--it includes a directory of the addresses and hours of all the public libraries in the area. "I am a big fan of my local library, Wheeler Memorial Library in Orange, MA," Shtulman says. Her predecessor at Erving Elementary now works for the nearby Montague Public Library and does a lot to support Erving students' use of the public library.
