Students will spend a greater amount of time reading if they have books at an appropriate level which are suitable to their interests. Fellow teachers, this means there are 2 things you must know: 1) the reading levels of your students, and 2) the interests of your students. Books will get borrowed from your shelves more often if they are facing outward. I use plain plastic bins with genre labels, and stand all the books facing outward. Think about yourself, browsing at the bookstore. Aren't you more likely to pick up the books that face outward? See. don't make it too much work for the kids to find the books. Face them outward and they can browse the rest of the bin by walking their fingers through it like a filing cabinet. Fill your library with quality literature AND some of the fluffy, movie- and merchandise-based books that the children like to read. Sometimes award...
You will not find ideas here about how to make an adorable bulletin board or how to cover your filing cabinet in cute patterned tape. What you will find here are some tidbits about my life and kids, some ideas about what I use in the classroom based on research, and some opinions that I've developed based on thousands of interactions with children.