From Literature to Literacy: Bridging Learning in the Library and the Primary Grade Classroom

Learn how elementary school teachers and librarians can collaborate to provide rich and fulfilling literary and literacy experiences for the children they teach. Teachers will find that they can observe students’ responses to new challenges in a setting outside the classroom, and librarians will gain a deeper understanding of children that will help them plan literature programs and individualize their response to each child.

Authors Moss, a school librarian and literature teacher, and Fenster, a teacher of a combined K–1 classroom, developed a yearlong literary/literacy program that exposed first graders to a wide range of literary selections in weekly read-aloud sessions in the school library. The dialogue that emerged as the core of the children’s literary experiences enabled them to confidently explore unfamiliar territory in the world of literature. You’ll witness firsthand the culmination of the program in "The Magic Library," a story that the students wrote collaboratively based on what they had discovered in the literary/literacy units.

Joy F. Moss is a librarian and literature teacher at the Harley School, Rochester, New York, USA, and an adjunct/associate professor at the University of Rochester Warner Graduate School of Education and Human Development, Rochester, New York, USA.

Marilyn F. Fenster is a classroom teacher of a combined K-1 classroom at The Harley School, Rochester, New York, USA.