If you’ve been up to the Handley Library Kids Place Room recently, you may have noticed a few of our collections have moved around. One of these is our Easy Reader collection, a section with books for those who are learning how to read or have started to read on their own. In addition to its move, the Easy Reader collection is getting a much deserved makeover and new name: the Beginning Reader collection (JBR).
The collection is now organized into four categories: red for Phonics Readers, yellow for Emergent Readers, green for Early Readers, and blue for Transitional Readers. Each book will have a matching solid-color sticker on its spine to mark what category it belongs to. If you’re wondering where your reader falls, use this guide that breaks down what each category entails. This poster is also on display by the collection for clarification, and if you still have questions, library staff will be happy to help answer any of your questions.
Why the change? As a library, we are constantly striving to make our collections easily browsable and helpful to all patrons. By reorganizing this collection, we hope to better represent the science of everyone’s reading journey and to support readers no matter their level and ability.
Beginning Reader books will be organized on the shelf by color for easy browsing, and then by the author’s last name. As we convert the collection, there will be old-style books still on the shelf and in the system, so if you see a book marked JER or without a color sticker, it just hasn’t been changed to the new labeling. As things change and shift, please ask for help if you can’t find something you’re looking for.
If you’d like to search for Beginning Reader books in our catalog, just sort by collection and select Juv Beginning Reader. If you would like to search by a specific color category, click on a title in the category you would like, then click the subject tag starting with “Beginning Reader,” as seen in the photo below, or search: subject: "Beginning Reader - category". Again, older style books may not have this feature yet, but will eventually.
We hope you enjoy our new Beginning Reader collection! Please let us know if we can do anything to make the collection easier and more enjoyable for you, and happy reading!