Classroom Library in Spanish Class

Have you ever thought of starting a classroom library in your middle or high school Spanish classroom? For years, all I had was a bookshelf filled with random books I had inherited from retired teachers or picked up here and there throughout my career. Students really didn’t have access to them. This year, however, I made a change!

Children’s Books in Your Spanish Classroom Library

Now that my own children are older, I started bringing in a few books that we read at home. There is a series of books that are titled: Esta no es mi….. and on each page, there is something that is meant to be touched. As children read through the book, they find out why “this isn’t my “doll” because it has a scratchy dress, curly hair, wrinkly socks, etc.

My high school students LOVE these!! I noticed how drawn they were to reading the short sentences, using the context clues to understand, and how they so enjoyed touching the parts of the doll, tractor, dinosuar, etc. that was the main focus of the book! So I brought in more!

Readers For Your Classroom Library

A few years ago, we re-wrote our curriculum. In each year of our middle and high school curriculum, we now include a reader. They are short and level-appropriate. Most readers now come with a teaching guide, pre-made activities and ideas about how to teach it. So I added these to my classroom library. Now I had a small collection, and I encouraged my students to pick a book to look through when they finished assessments and were waiting for classmates.

School Budget Purchases

Right before Covid hit, I must have put in a budget request for a colorful bookshelf. (I will admit I don’t even remember asking for it!) As budgets work, the thing arrived in the middle of a school year, and it stayed in pieces, in the box, for the remainder of the year. I took it home last summer and built it! I requested a variety of other Spanish language books of all sorts, and voila! This year, I have a classroom library! Our district has a goal to increase reading fluency, and therefore, I am capitalizing on that interest! I have received several deliveries of books last year and this year, and I am filling up the shelves of my bookcase!

How I’m Using My Book Collection Now

Now that I have a decent classroom library, I find times to encourage students to read them! Here is a list of ways I use my classroom library in Spanish class!