All over the world people are being affected and challenged by the measures put in place by COVID-19 and this has been an interesting time for me as a parent, teacher and teacher librarian. Many students are learning from home and some parents are struggling with the balance of working from home and managing this whilst trying to manage the wellbeing of everyone in their family. The stakes are different depending on the age of the children and  I truly believe that for primary aged children it will not matter if they do not complete any of the tasks set by the school if that causes stress for the family. However, of course, I am going to say that it does matter if they are not reading regularly! To me, this is a time that educators seize the opportunity of promoting reading for pleasure in different ways. This also comes with implications. For some without digital access, this is more challenging and for those with digital access there is a plethora of choices and it is hard to choose where to go. There are also the copyright implications of sharing other people’s work without permission and this seems to be an area that many people are unaware of.

I could talk for hours about the importance of regular reading and finding texts that children enjoy so that it is reading for pleasure, not just purpose. If you want to know more about that, have a look on my blog here at Why Reading is Important. Instead, I will share a selection of resources that could be useful for students reading at home. There are some very good online resources which give access to audio and eBooks. Many are offering free access whilst so many schools around the world are closed. My colleague Fiona Shea helped me to compose a list that we shared at work and we found Common Sense Media and Kate Messner’s information very useful if you want to look for even more great resources. I think the greatest challenge for many parents and educators at the moment is that there is so much available online that it is challenging to choose what resources to use! One role of a teacher librarian is to curate resources and help eliminate this problem of information overload so here is some of what I have curated.

My top 5 for free audiobooks and eBooks

As well as finding eBooks and audiobooks there are so many authors who are streaming virtual storytimes. It was hard to narrow it down but here are a few of my favourites for primary school students:

My top virtual storytimes

• Julia Donaldson has launched a weekly series on Facebook, called Julia Donaldson and Friends
• Stay at Home Story Time, a ~20 min. picture book read-aloud with Oliver Jeffers (Lost and Found author)
• Neil Gaiman and friends have read The Graveyard Book & Coraline
• Lunch Doodles with Mo Williams, the creator of the Pigeon and Elephant & Piggie.
• Elevenses with David Walliams
• The Scottish Book Trust has a virtual library of talks, storytelling and drawing sessions with authors from Chris Riddell to Cressida Cowell.

Information for educators about recording stories and the copyright implications

There are copyright implications of sharing other people/s work without permission and this seems to be an area that many people are unaware of. It is an important connection for children to listen to their own teachers reading at this time and many educators are making recordings or virtually streaming storytime. In normal times, this would be breaching copyright law, although some argue that there is the element of fair use involved. Here is a link to all of the publishers who are giving permission rights for teachers to record themselves reading their stories. In most instances, the publishers ask the teacher to credit the publisher, author and illustrator and email them to inform them. In addition, it should be shared within a schools intranet and it should be taken down by the 30th June 2020 (when hopefully most schools around the world will be open again).

Some authors have given educators direct permission to record themselves reading their stories at this time without contacting the publisher. It is still good practice to acknowledge them and their publishers, as this is demonstrating respect for intellectual property and acknowledging their generosity. They are in essence potentially sacrificing income to do this. Here is a list my colleague, Fiona Shea, and I made of books in our primary libraries.  

Kay Oddone, who is the Head of Libraries at The Australian Internation School (AIS) in Singapore created this useful infographic for her staff. She shared it with our teacher librarian network and I will finish this post by sharing it with her permission here.