In the last year, there's been a huge boom of easier readers, so of course I went on a spending spree and bought a bunch of them. I have Quot Animalia, Quid Edam, Brando Brown, Filia Regis et Monstrum Horribile, most of Lance Piantaggini's books, Iter Mirabilis Dennis et Debrae, Cattus Petasatus, Olivia, Ritchie's Fabulae Facies, Vesuvius iand other Plays, Itinera Petri, and many others.
I've retained my folder library, which is discussed here, and I have augmented it with Anthony Gibbins' Legonium, and his new Latin-teaching series he's been working on. I have sorted those in purple folders, so that anyone looking for Legonium specifically knows what color to look for.
I also got my hands on some rain gutter which has been great. You can find them at your local Home Depot quite cheaply. Some Home Depots will cut them for you; others won't. Mine did, so I have a length (6 foot and 4 foot) on either side of the couch in my classroom. They're screwed directly into the wall, something the janitors did for me. I tried about 30 other things, and they kept falling down, so if something other than hardware works for you, please let me know...
My paperbacks are mostly on one, the hardbacks mostly on the other. Now I have three spaces in my classroom with books - my folder bookshelf, which sits in front of my desk, my wooden bookshelf (which is painted and sorted by level of difficulty, and mostly contains Cambridge textbooks these days), and my rain gutters in the back of the room. Kids are welcome to select from any of these when they want to read.
We read every Wednesday for ten to twenty minutes, depending on the level and general restlessness. I generally find a comfy seat in the room and read with them as well.
When we dismiss to get books, I like to dismiss them by "type." I'll say "people who eat breakfast more than three times a week, go get books. People who have at least two pets, go get books. People whose index fingers are longer than their noses, go get books." It allows me to exercise some bizarre grammar and vocab that they hear less frequently, as well as controlling the amount of people moving at any given time, while not accidentally giving preference to one area of the room over a period of time.
I make it clear to them that they can exchange a book at any time - they read it and don't want to reread it, they didn't like it, it's too hard, they just want a new one - as long as something gets read. They're expected to be reading the whole time. We do quite a bit of book previewing for the first several weeks of class, and then we'll do it again about halfway through the semester (especially as I continue to add books, I will preview that book in front of everyone specifically). In my upper levels, I ask them to give "book reports" - sometimes they do this in small groups, sometimes they volunteer to stand up in front of class and give a quick two-sentence summary of their story. At lower levels, I'll ask them to note words they recognized, and then I'll give a quick summary of what happens in that book. Sometimes, I'll ask kids who enjoyed their books to raise their hands and say the title of the book. That way, there becomes a wider familiarity with what books are available.
On most of my book-spaces, books face outwards - and I find that the books with visible covers get read more often than the books with spines out (and studies support this!).
We haven't had to move to accountability-keeping yet, and I'm hoping we keep it that way. More kids have been reading engaged this year, and I haven't had anyone ask yet "how long we have to do this," so I'm excited for how it is going!
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