The ability to successfully use library resources is vital to academic success. Throughout a child's schooling, he will encounter numerous projects that require him to gather information from the library. Using a library effectively is not something that we are born knowing do, but instead a skill that we acquire through practice. One of the most useful things you can do for a child is to teach him use a library, as having the ability to utilize the vast resources within those halls will open up a world of knowledge.
Instructions
1. Practice developing research questions. Before students can effectively utilize the information in a library, they need to be able to develop questions. Work with the child to develop questions that can be answered through research. Model this practice by helping her take a topic, for example, the Civil War, and pull from it a relevant question such as "How did the Civil War start?" Remind the child that research is most effective when she is seeking answers to specific questions.
2. Assist the child in collecting appropriate sources. Children often struggle when trying to critically discriminate between sources. Remind the child that he wants to find a source that is authoritative and believable. Also note that if he is seeking information about an actual event, he needs to consult a non-fiction source. Collect a variety of materials covering the topic and sort through them with the child, helping him determine if the source is good or bad. Abandon the less useful sources and keep the strong ones to continue the process of research.
3. Demonstrate organized note-taking. Work with the child to take notes of the material presented in each source. Tell her to use one sheet of paper for each source and to write the identifying information, including the title, author, publisher, city of publication and date, on the top of each sheet. Then help her search through the book for information that can help answer the questions she posed.
4. Show the child use the index and table of contents to locate answers to his question. As he continues taking notes, the child will likely become frustrated with flipping through the pages and searching for information. Help him speed up the process by explaining that text features, like indexes and tables of contents, are like maps that lead to the information being sought.
5. Help the child evaluate the gathered information. Once she has moved through all the quality resources and completed the note-taking process, explain that she needs to determine which information of that gathered is the best at answering her research questions. Read through the notes together and have her highlight those pieces of information deemed best.
6. Following any guidelines he has been given at school, help the child to combine the information he has gathered to create a report. Help him to organize his material into a cohesive report detailing and explaining his research findings and to create appropriate citations for his sources.
Tags: with child, child that, develop questions, each source, information that, Remind child