I happily spend my days with first graders . . . I love to guide them as they discover, read, and tell stories. I am curious about kids. What does reading look like in the classroom? What motivates kids to read? What kinds of books support kids learning to read? I feel an overwhelming responsibility to meet the needs of first grade readers. I want them to have success reading words, understanding their reading, and linking it to their lives. But most of all, I want them to love reading. Here are some of the ways I organize books, and have my students help me organize books, in order to promote that love of reading.

Beginning with "My Stack"

The first thing that I do to prepare for my students each day is collect the books that I will be sharing with them. I start by finding books that will support my discussion or mini lesson for my reading and writing workshop. I find books that will help my students explore math ideas. I find books that will help us think about science, social studies or health concepts. It's my favorite part of the day because I can't wait to observe how these books will support them as learners. As I choose books that I will use for teaching, I am also thinking about my students . . .

I think about how Angela will light up when I show her Here Comes Spring...and Summer and Fall and Winter by Mary Murphy. I am hopeful that it will help her generate ideas for the season book she is writing. I know she will enjoy reading the simple text and enjoy the delightful pictures.

I imagine Jeremy devouring the Mercy Watson series by Kate DiCamillo. He loves to read series books, enjoys good pictures and interesting characters.

I think about how Astrid will probably not stop asking me for Here's a Little Poem after I reread some of our favorites. She loves to reread and go back to her favorites because she feels safe and successful.

"My stack" is my guide for the day. The children look forward to what is new, old and different. They know that what I read aloud and what we read together will instantly be part of our classroom library.

Our classroom library contains many different kinds of books because kids need practice with different kinds of reading (and isn't it just more fun to get your hands on different things). I have found first graders need practice reading picture books, song books, rhyming books, nursery rhymes and fairytales, author books (getting to know many books by the same author), non-fiction books, poetry, and leveled books.

Collaborating with Students to Develop Basket Themes

One of the first baskets we begin adding to the library is a basket we call "Good Books for Picture Reading" basket. These "picture-reading books" are those read alouds that the kids enjoy and will want to revisit on their own, but don't quite have the tools yet to read independently. Picture reading is also one of the first strategies I want my students to practice as they begin to decipher words on the page. I encourage them to retell the story in their own words as they use the pictures as a guide.

After we think more about what picture reading is, we think about books that makes sense in this basket. This year, books like Unlovable, Caps for Sale, and Harry the Dirty Dog are in this basket. I love how this basket will later in the year scaffold into books that students begin to grab and read independently.

Another important basket that we create is the "We Can Read" basket. After we read titles like Blue Cat, Good Night Gorilla, Mary Wore Her Red Dress and Where Is the Green Sheep?, we begin thinking about why these books are books "we can all read." This year they came up with things we noticed like: there are just a few words on each page, the words repeat, there are words we know (like color words), the pictures match the words and we like the stories! I posted their thinking about the basket and we continue to add books with similar features to the basket throughout the year.

The rhyming basket was added after I realized (through reading a number of rhyming books aloud) that my students were struggling with oral cloze. I took this opportunity to suggest that we add a rhyming basket to our library. We had many discussions about how rhyming words sound and what they look like in different stories. We added favorites to our rhyming basket which include A-Hunting We Will Go, Is Your Mama a Llama?, and Goodnight Moon. As students began to develop an understanding for rhyming words, they noticed that we could put many of the nursery rhyme books and some song books in this basket. We discussed that for organizational purposes it might be difficult to find the books we need if all three baskets were combined. (I loved that they were thinking about books!)

Books that delight children with inventive words and engaging illustrations that encourage picture reading.

Song books are an immediate favorite for primary kids. We talk about creating a Song basket and why a book would fit in this basket. Wheels On The Bus, Ten in the Bed, Over in the Meadow and The Lady with the Alligator Purse are a few my students enjoy. Once I sing and read them, the students join in and want to do the same. I have many copies of these song books because they are so popular.

Fairytales becomes a favorite basket for first graders (repetitive and predictable). I want them to know these classic tales. I like starting with Byron Barton's version of the fairy tales. His simple text and bright pictures support picture reading for my early kids and simple text invites my transitional kids. We add to the basket quite a bit throughout the first month and then of course throughout the year. I like to find as many versions of different fairytales to add to this basket (they add variety and immediately start conversations about comparing and contrasting). Some of their favorites are The Gingerbread Man, Somebody and the Three Blairs and Out of the Egg. Often, students will check out a fairytale in our school library and add it to our basket.

Seedling has a series of Nursery Rhyme Lap books that I use quite a bit for introducing strategies for reading words. These Nursery Rhyme books are bigger than a picture book but not quite as large as your typical big book. The first page of each book contains a complete nursery rhyme. The actual story is an extension of the nursery rhyme and is simply written like a leveled book.

I love how the books meet the needs of different readers. I like how the words are large enough for choral read. The kids love the stories because of the simple text, great pictures and the anticipation of the back cover. It leaves the reader thinking and predicting. It leaves me with opportunities for shared or interactive writing for at the end of the book. We keep the stack of them against the wall with the label "nursery rhyme stories."

The nonfiction baskets include ocean animals, weather, seasons, books that teach us about being healthy . . . these are just a few labels my students decided to put in our non-fiction baskets. We spend time searching through the already organized but untitled baskets of books. They work with partners to decide on a label that describes the books in the baskets. We share our discoveries and the partners introduce their baskets to the other students and then to our library.

Poetry is something that we read all year. I think it is appropriate to keep poetry in a pretty little basket and that's just what we have in our room. Poetry books in a basket . . . books like Little Dog Poems, Lunch Money And Other Poems About School and Here's a Little Poem never really do stay long in our basket.

Other Areas in the Classroom Library

One area that I have already set up when students arrive in late summer is the author bins. In these bins, I feature many books by the same author. The bins also have a label and picture of the author. Audrey Wood, Mem Fox, Eric Carle, and Kevin Henkes books are just a few of the favorites I start the year reading aloud to my students.

Bins of books organized by favorite authors.

These stories become some of the first stories my students begin selecting for reading workshop. These bins also help me connect my students to real authors. I use the author bins as way of developing writer identity during writing workshop and later use these as a study for mentor authors.

Another area I have organized and set up is the smaller leveled bins books. In the past I have put a letter that matches the level for each book and book bin. But, I found that the kids end up paying too much attention to the level instead of the actual book. They get lost in who is reading at what level instead of getting lost in the book. I decided not to put a number or a letter that corresponds to a level on the books and bins.

Leveled books using my dot system.

This year, I just put colored dots on the individual books and then on the corresponding bins (thanks to an idea I read about in Growing Readers by Kathy Collins). If I need a leveled book for a student or I know a student would benefit from leveled practice, I can grab the color bin that matches that reader or group of readers.

Writing workshop titles that we are using to think about and notice are always put on the book display. These are the only books I ask my students not to keep in their own book bins. They are always available to read but I ask that they are put back (on the display shelf) so that I have access to them for workshop discussion.

Books on display that teach writer's craft. Right now we are noticing punctuation.

The Power of Collaborative Organization

Debbie Miller points out that " . . . charts, student work, and the organization of books and materials reflect the teaching and learning in your classroom." To me, this means we work with kids to establish our space. We collaborate with the students to think about and set up our library space. Together, we explore our school library and discuss what we notice. We compare it to the parts of our library that are already set up. We come up with new ideas for our class library, creating book baskets, discussing why and where certain books are sorted and then label the baskets with our thinking.

There is a feeling that I am unable to describe . . . maybe a quaintness or a coziness that you get when you walk into a space you've crafted. There is an appreciation of the just-right colors, soft lighting, a comfy cushion and open space - it is a comfortable and safe feeling where you know you are at home. That's what it feels like in our library space.