Media Literacy Education is a rapidly growing field in the U.S. and across the world. In the U.S., interest in media literacy started in the 1980s with a focus on families teaching children to ask questions about the TV content that they saw. Media literacy lessons and approaches have gradually been incorporated into K-12 education where media literacy skills are viewed in the context of overall literacy and are already mandated in some states. Media literacy education is also incorporated into afterschool programs, youth organizations, and increasingly found in courses and degree programs at the college level.

Project Look Sharp is a nonprofit, mission-driven outreach program of Ithaca College. Their mission is to help K-16 educators enhance students’ critical thinking, metacognition, and civic engagement through media literacy materials and professional development.

Project Look Sharp has over 850 free lessons for integrating media decoding into all subject areas and levels, created by and for school librarians. Check out their Librarians as Leaders for Media Literacy page to get started. Make sure to review a resource to determine if it will work for your students and district.

As an elementary library media specialist, Jennifer likes to keep PreK - 2nd grade lessons very interactive and hands-on, including library centers. Her 3rd - 5th grade classes tend to be more project-based learning and incorporate more research skills and use of digital tools such as creating Google Slide Shows to present.

Her class format usually follows a read aloud related to the lesson with a discussion, sometimes an activity, then browse, checkout, and buddy read or read to self. The remainder of class time is dedicated to working on project-based learning or library makerspace centers (hands-on STEM activities).

Since Jennifer became the library media specialist at Freedom Elementary School in August of 2022, her dream has been to make the biggest impact possible on their reading community by incorporating authentic reading activities that build a school-wide reading culture for students and teachers alike. "My vision is to create a school experience where each student feels like a reader regardless of reading level, where students know reading is a personal journey to gain knowledge and enjoy reading for pleasure and personal growth," said Jennifer.  Some of her programming includes Golden Book of the Week, Book Club, School-Wide Reading Buddies, Reading Fair, and Librarian’s Reading Challenge.

Mrs. Garner holds book clubs during lunch time for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students.  These clubs allow kids of all reading levels and interests to come together to eat and visit with friends about great books.

"Book Club helps students learn about what their friends are reading to help them generate excitement for what they might like to read next because in our book club, we do not all read the same book. You read and share what you like!" explained Jennifer, who always gives away a free book door prize during book club.

Students use story elements prompts to discuss, which boosts reading comprehension skills and oral language skills. A colleague pointed out to Jennifer that the student book clubs and school reading climate actually helped contribute to the formation of a teacher book club.

During the 2022-2023 year, Jennifer facilitated school-wide reading buddies where each class is matched up with a grade-level buddy class and spends designated time buddy reading.

Reading Buddies has grown over the last two years and is such a simple, but effective way to engage our students in authentic reading.  Older students become positive role models, and younger students gain an interest in reading.  After building relationships, these “buddies” have even found other ways to engage with each other, such as becoming testing buddies where younger grades will cheer the big kids on to success during state testing.

For the Librarian’s Reading Challenge, Jennifer challenged students to read 40,000 books during the school year. Students voted for her to kiss a goat (Greatest reader Of All Time) if that goal was met with a fun day filled with reading activities.

Although students did not quite reach the 40,000 book goal, they still read many more books than in the past. Therefore, a compromise was reached, and Mrs. Garner agreed to kiss a baby goat instead of an adult goat.

"It’s my mission to bring as many meaningful reading opportunities to our school community as possible and develop students with a lifelong love of reading," said Jennifer.