Reading Corners

  The first semester of my sophomore year, I took the class Children's Literature where I learned more about the importance of Children's Literature and how to bring literature in a classroom. My children's Literature teacher emphasized several times that every early childhood and elementary classroom should have a reading corner.  It was said so many times that it was imprinted on my brain. By far, reading corners are beneficial and encouraging to young readers.

The question is, how do teachers create fun, encouraging, and beneficial reading corners?  

1. Before you start decorating, you need to have a good amount of books!! Ask around to see what books are popular(co-workers, parents, students, and librarians)  

Have all kinds of genres.  Sports, non-fiction, fiction, picture books, etc. My mom is a teacher and she has always told me to keep an eye out for caldecott award books. A great website that I learned about in children's literature is readingrockets
2. Organize all the books into genres and alphabetize them within the specific genre!  This will make it very easy for students to find what they are looking for.  

3. Grab a couple of shelves and paint them or be creative with them!  You can organize the books by selecting a shelf for each genre! 

4. Don't forget to make reading comfortable! Sitting in a hard chair and reading is not so much fun! Make the reading corner a comfortable area by placing bean bag chairs or homemade pillows for children to sit on.  Before finalizing your reading corner, don't forget to get a chair for yourself when reading aloud to the students. Here are a few ideas for seating that I have found from surfing the Internet.  

These are bandana pillows! I found them at http://www.twostorycottage.com/2011/05/where-we-play.html
Have parents bring in two bandanas for each child.  Then buy the filling for the pillows.  This will make the project very cheap. :)

Crate seats are also a wonderful idea for a reading corner!  Go here and find the directions on how to make one!  http://gingersnapstreatsforteachers.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-to-make-crate-seat.html

5. The final thing you want to do is to make the reading corner inspiring and engaging! Adding quotes on the wall will help inspire kids! 

I love this idea and give credit to the teacher of the blog http://missjacobslittlelearners.blogspot.com

Another thing you can do to make your reading corner engaging is creating it as a "getaway place".  All stories start somewhere so have your kids start their reading choices somewhere exciting!! You can do this by following the theme of a certain story. My favorite reading corner theme is a forest or a camping site! 

Create a camping theme by Using a tent! I found this idea at http://abcprimary.blogspot.com/2012/04/library

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I recommend checking out this teachers blog.

Yes, it is one tent.. I know.. You are probably 

Thinking oh kids will just fight over this tent.

If you go ahead and read her post about the tent, 

You will discover that there are ways around that

Problem! What she suggests is explaining very 

Clearly that there is one tent and all students 

Must share. She carries out this instruction by

Drawing two names out of a bucket everyday. 

These two students will have the privilege to 

read silently or outloud to each other inside the

tent for the whole school day.

Another prop you can use are fake trees or real plants. A couple months ago I did my general clinical hours in a 5th grade classroom and the teachers reading corner was jungle themed! The kids loved the  plants and trees within the reading corner!

I hope you enjoyed this post and are thinking of cool ideas for your own reading corner! :D Stay posted for more ideas and thoughts on education from a college student.