This is a guest post from Kim Colvin, Media Specialist at Onamia Elementary School.

The grant that Onamia Elementary School received from Central Minnesota Library Exchange helped the library in many ways. The books that we purchased were books that students and teachers requested to help grow the library. 

Thank you so much for helping me get new books into my students’ hands. They are so excited to read all these great books and want to read more books because of it, and are becoming more open to different types of books.

This is really helping the students become better readers because they want to read these books and explore all the new books we received. Some new skills the students are learning with these books are their ability to read and to enjoy reading. It’s not just something they have to do in school.

Students are learning about different genres of books and what types of books they enjoy. Many students developed a spark for different books that they never would have read if it weren’t for this grant.

We did speed dating with the new books so they could see what they were about and get them interested in other books. This opened many students’ eyes to different types of books and got them hooked. Many students were begging to read the book beyond the 10 minutes, or not to go to the next book.

I personally ordered a couple more copies of some books because so many students wanted to read them. The books that many students related to had characters struggling with tough issues. It was an instant connection to their life. 

Students are enjoying these new books! The ones that are really enjoying them are the ones that don’t want to read the traditional type of books or the ones that don’t think reading is fun and interesting. These books are reaching the students that are struggling to read or that don’t really like to read.

Hopefully, the books from the grant will help students see there’s such a variety of great books out there! We appreciate the books that we could get through this grant and the students are loving the different types of books and the new desire to read that it sparked!

This grant expanded the library with books and got many students at Onamia Elementary School excited to read! Thanks so much from everyone at Onamia Elementary School!