Who knew?

There are almost as many ways to learn to read as there are learners.  And there is a method to make each one of them easier!  As I discovered in the four week long ALSC course, Reading Instruction and Children’s Books, one size does not fit all for learning to read.

Instructor Kate Todd, who was a children’s librarian at New York Public Library for more than 25 years, shared her insight and her resources with a variety of students in this class.  Our class roster included librarians from all over the country; and some from outside of the U.S. as well.  We hold a variety of positions and have varying levels of experience in the field.  In our discussions on the various assignments we discovered common issues, concerns and much knowledge to share.  We were an excellent and communicative group, willing to agree, disagree, and learn from one another.  The group projects Ms. Todd has us work on reinforced the idea of sharing our experiences.  The research material she provided to us gave us a great starting point, but also required that we have fun (i.e.: use our research skills) in finding more.  In addition to our research skills, for many of us our technology skills were stretched and honed as well.  One of the assignments required us to create a wiki–a new experience for me and a number of the other students.  Help was always and readily available–both from other students and from our instructor!

Another very useful aspect of this course was the methods of determining reading level for childrens’ materials, for everything from a paragraph to a Web site.  (This blog entry, for example, I now can easily determine has a readability level of 9.8.)  In each lesson, the real-world, current applications of this skill were a big part of our discussion, making this course much more applicable to what I do on a daily basis than some I have taken in the past.  For anyone who works with children, parents or teachers regularly, I would highly recommend this course.  In the short time since the course was completed, I have made use of the information we covered several times in my interactions with coworkers and library patrons.  This was my first ALSC online class, but I am very likely to pursue others in the future!

Jennifer H Beach
Kenton County Public Library, Erlanger Branch
Erlanger, Kentucky