Set your classroom up for success. Follow these tips to organize your digital or physical classroom library.
As we’re entering back-to-school season, teachers are preparing their reading curriculum— that includes organizing their libraries. If you’re wondering how to organize your classroom library, we’ve got you covered. Whether it’s physical books or digital books, here are some ideas.
1. Organize books by type.
It’s easy for students to search for books when you organize them by genre. Bucket books into categories like nonfiction, mystery, humor and graphic novels/comics. You can even sort books by subject or theme. For example, you could group by seasonality like Christmas, Halloween or Valentine’s Day, or by animal types, like farm animals or dinosaurs.
Another way to group books by genre is to focus on topics like kindness, sharing or friendship. Organizing your classroom library in this way can help students identify different genres and collections.
If you’re organizing physical books, consider placing them in different baskets and labeling them. If you’re working in your digital library on Epic, it’s easy to create your own collections and share them with students. Here’s an example of a nonfiction book collection.
2. Organize books by author.
Another way to organize books for a classroom library is to order books in alphabetical order by author. This can be a preferred method for older grades since it helps students recognize authors and practice alphabetical order.
3. Organize books by series.
You can also try organizing your classroom library by series. This method can work great for any grade, including a kindergarten classroom library. Grouping books by series allows students to get familiar with different books in each series and return to their favorite collections over and over. For example, this Magic School Bus collection features all audiobooks in this series.
4. Organize books by level.
Set your students up for success by organizing your classroom library based on reading level. Many teachers prefer this method because it’s easy for them to find books for each reader in their classroom.
It also helps students know which books are at their reading level and which books might be more challenging. You can remind students to use the 5 finger rule to help them choose the right book. That’s when a student puts up one finger to represent each word they don’t know on a particular page. If they hold up one to two fingers, that’s the perfect choice. More than three fingers might be too difficult for them, but they could give it a try! If they hold up zero fingers, the book might be too easy of a reading choice.
The good news? Epic has already leveled all the books in the library and suggests books based on a student’s reading level!
We hope these ideas for classroom libraries inspire you! No matter how you organize your library, it’s important to get kids excited about books in and out of the classroom. Did you know that Epic School Plus provides 24/7 access to 40,000+ books for students? Learn more about how to get it for your school or district.
Plus, follow us on Instagram to share pictures of your classroom library. We’d love to see how you’re using Epic with your students this year!
