Customer Reviews

Complete Library Skills Activities Program: Ready-To-Use Lessons for Grades K-6

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Ideally, all students need to learn basic library skills in elementary school. However, it takes time to develop a workable curriculum to use in the classroom, so it is easy to overlook teaching some research skills. This book makes it easy to teach library skills, as the course development work has been done for you. The book includes a pretest to determine skill levels, reproducible activity sheets, recommended sources, and a bibliography. The lessons begin with kindergarten reading groups and progress through Dewey Decimal System use. If you are an elementary teacher or librarian, this book is for you. Also, as a junior/senior high librarian, I can recommend this book for library skills classes, as the lessons are easily adapted to older students. Ms. Druce's background in librarianship is great preparation for writing the book, and her obvious love for books and reading really comes through.

This is a wonderful book for someone like me who is just beginning as an elementary library specialist because it thoroughly covers all the basics of teaching children about books and libraries. It was, however, published in 1990, so it does not include instruction in electronic card catalogs and the integration of technology.

This book is feeling its age, and it is no longer "complete." It is ok for libraries that still use a card catalog since most of the lessons for the upper grades are based on it. I would recommend finding a different book if you are looking for lesson plans.

I have not found this book to be very helpful at all. It is outdated, and the lessons that are still applicable are things I figured out to teach (and how) on my own last year in my first year as a librarian (how to turn pages, how to put books back on shelf, etc.) "Complete Library Skills" by Linda Turrell is a much better option. (I have the older versions, purchased here, and the newer ones, purchased from a library supplies vendor, and I use them both.)

Too bad most folks have a library with flexible scheduling and integration of the library skills with what is done in the classroom. Yeah, I do have computerized catalog, but the library here is still a teacher break, in the good ole 'art-music-PE-library' rotation. The kids go to music and get taught music, they come to me and get taught library. This does not make sense, but hey, it pays the bills. This book has some good lessons on the Dewey Decimal System, using the encycolpedia, etc. that work for me, and would even work if you have a school library that does meaningful stuff.