My library lessons have lots of goals. I support curriculum, teach information and digital literacy and hope to make strong and positive connections with students. But over and above all over that is a desire to support students to develop and maintain a love of reading.
I constantly adjust my lessons and sequencing to improve how I do this.
Last year I introduced BRB time (Browsing, reading and borrowing), and it’s been an amazing hit. Read more here. Students love this time and I love how having a named time for what we do (it’s not new, just has a cool name) has given students and I a shared language, a shared understanding of expectations, and made visible and explicit what this time is for. It has also helped me to make very clear the skills we need for each of these activities – browsing, reading and borrowing. And we practice them.
Browsing
Browsing is a skill. Anyone who has spent hours in a shop or online website browsing through racks, shelves, or pages of results, knows exactly the joy, temptation and rewards that comes from browsing. But we also know the frustration that can come from being overwhelmed, not finding what you want, not knowing what you want, having too much to choose from, or walking away empty handed. And this is exactly what I saw so many of my students doing during our browsing, borrowing and reading time. Endless wandering or just grabbing a random book, neither that helped achieve the goal of finding a book that would capture and hold their attention.
So, we started to work on building our browsing skills. I did this in chunks, introducing it and sharing a technique and adding to these techniques over each lesson.
Intro to browsing
Browsing. We talk about browsing and how we might browse online or in a store for things we like and how some of us really enjoy that time. We then discuss what browsing might look like and I model it to the class, with some student helpers. We talk about walking to a shelf that the sign tells us might be of interest, like heading to the mystery section. I demonstrate picking a book up that was on display (side note, my gosh, how many times have I been asked if they can take something off display?!), reinforcing being drawn in by the cover, that selecting these items is encouraged. Judging books by their covers is a whole other lesson. I flip the book over and read the blurb or ask a student helper to read it to the class. Then I model recommending a book while browsing, placing it in a students’ hands and telling them why they must, absolutely have to read this book. I ask students if anyone has read it and ask those who have to share what it’s about, modelling getting and giving recommendations when browsing.
We then talk about flicking through the book and checking out the chapter length, font size and style. I ask students to indicate if they prefer short or long chapters. There’s usually a nice mix and I ask some to share why that’s their preference.
Then we talk about reading the first line. And I, or I ask students, to read the first line from a selection of new books.
We talk about noticing if it’s part of a series and how to tell, like checking the back of the book for other book covers, numbers on the spine, a series title header on the cover, or a list of series order in the first few pages.
We also talk about browsing online in the library catalogue, though that is the focus of another lesson, when we explore the catalogue and practice search skills.
Choosing based on mood
We then discuss how selecting a book might depend on our mood. I ask them, right now, what do you feel like reading? Something funny, fast, dark, emotional, easy, challenging, real, sad. And we talk about when we might like these different moods and how to find them. I show them our book lists, like Books that will make you cry, or taking on a familiar easy read or a more challenging one during the holidays.
Over the next few sessions, each time we begin our BRB time, I share a browsing strategy. Here are some:
Checking out displays
Thinking about it, maybe it comes from not wanting to touch displays in shops, but I find students are sometimes reluctant to pick up books off display stands or shelves, so I am clear in pointing out that they can and that these are great places to find good books. We talk about how we select these books and I encourage them to put their favourite selections on empty display stands, sharing their recommendations as we do for them.
Asking for a recommendation from the library team or a classmate
Sharing and asking for recommendations is so important, and so we talk about this. I ask them to turn to the person next to them and make a book recommendation. This can be a little tricky, so it’s best done after we’ve already made a few records in our library journals, writing down books we’ve enjoyed. We also talk about how telling someone that you didn’t enjoy a book is just as much fun, just make sure to be clear to never judge them if they do like it and to understand that we all like different things
3 Book strategy
Just picking one book to sit down and read might be easy and quick, but it might not always work out. Just like we take 3 items to the change room, I teach students that we can try taking 3 books to read with us, try each of them and then read and borrow the one that most captures our interest.
Enjoy browsing
Overall, browsing should be fun. It’s about exploring the space and collection, matching mood and interests to what’s available and connecting an authentic reader practice to our routine.
Leaving time
All too often I’ve found myself rushing students. Just pick a book and sit down. And then I wonder why they won’t quietly sit and read. So I am prioritising taking a little longer to find something to read. I’m actually disrupting students who sit within the first few minutes, asking them if they’ve made their selection intentionally or just grabbed something. If it’s the former, we work together to practice our browsing techniques and strategies to find a book that’s more likely to capture their interest. For some students, browsing takes the full 20-25 minutes and that’s okay. Those are the students heading home with 5-10 books they will read over the next fortnight. Other students take 5 minutes to browse and then read for 15, but leave the book behind. At least they got some reading in and we are working on building our reading habit. There’s no right or wrong, but I’m far more intentional about our time.
Slides – template and download
I’ve created some slides to help step students through this process. If you’d like to use them, they are free to download as a PDF, or you can use this Canva template link to edit the slides, style them and download them in whatever format you’d like.
Canva Template link for slides: https://canva.link/fpit253jt4caxm4
Reading Graphic: Browsing
Pair this with the reading graphic on browsing. Download it here.
