Lower School Library Program
Take a peek into a month in the Lower School Library!
At Burke’s, every Lower School class participates in a weekly class instructed by Lower School Library & Digital Media Specialist Diana Rivers. The Library program provides additional support to students beyond their classroom reading and writing instruction. Classes at the Library prepare them as readers, researchers, and members of the community and sharpen students’ skills, from pronunciation, reading comprehension, and research to critical thinking, emotional intelligence, and imagination. At the end of every class session, students are given ample time to explore the vast collection of 40,000 items. To foster a lifelong love of reading, they are encouraged to check them out for home reading.
The Library curriculum varies by grade and can fluctuate from year to year to connect with student interests. Classroom and specialist faculty also regularly collaborate with the Library to provide students with experiences that pique their curiosity and resonate with their developmental level.
A week in December, for example, included:
- Kindergarten: The young students were directed to draw bears after a read-aloud of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? They practiced their handwriting, spelling, and syntactical formation skills.
- First Grade: As part of a longer fairy tale unit, first graders followed along with Ms. Rivers as she read King Midas to them. Students were tested on their reading comprehension, including their ability to understand and foreshadow the story, as well as their imagination and listening skills.
- Second Grade: The Class of 2032 was inspired by author/illustrator Elisa Kleven, creating art that emulated her artistic style of a watercolor collage and themes focused on people, animals, food, and fantastical elements. The second graders’ collages depicted themselves with an animal they would like to have a picnic with, honing their skills in imagination, spelling, and vocabulary, and connection forming (i.e. nature to self, art to self).
- Third Grade: Students partnered up to read fiction series aloud over an extended period, completing worksheets to assess their comprehension. Through this work, they practiced reading fluency—focusing on expression, pacing, and thoughtful pauses—while also strengthening their comprehension skills. Additionally, the activity nurtured emotional intelligence by fostering empathy and social awareness. Students learned to read fiction not only to expand their imagination and understanding of others’ experiences but also to engage in meaningful discussions, sharing recommendations and forming opinions supported by evidence from the text.
- Fourth Grade: In a unit related to the differences between narratives and expository biographies, fourth graders read about Louis Braille with avid interest, and then welcomed guest Dr. Jennifer Lo over Zoom to answer questions about blindness and vision. Class discussions centered on emotional intelligence, information literacy, and research.
“Modern students engage meaningfully with information,” Ms. Rivers says. “One of the important throughlines of the Library program is for students to learn to search safely and analyze information. We ask them, ‘What are you interested in, and how can you learn more about these interests? How can you ask good questions to find what you need, and how do you choose the right people to ask? What is information, and where can you safely look for it—including with technology?”
Every class engages students and encourages them to grow into competent, curious, creative, and confident researchers; open-minded and critical thinkers; productive, empathetic, and ethical members of the learning community; and most of all, enthusiastic readers.
Burke's mission is to educate, encourage and empower girls. Our school combines academic excellence with an appreciation for childhood so that students thrive as learners, develop a strong sense of self, contribute to community, and fulfill their potential, now and throughout life.
Burke's admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national and ethnic origin in administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic and other school-administered programs.