The Library program teaches skills and attitudes that are used throughout the educational experience at CHS and beyond, working in close collaboration with classroom and special subject teachers. Teaching how to find, enjoy, understand, and use resources are the underlying instructional goals of the program. Our library collection allows children to find good literature to enjoy and in which they will encounter the diversity of our world, including people similar to themselves and their own families.

In Beginners and Pre-Kindergarten, stories are used to delight while teaching about language, life experiences and the world around us. Books by a variety of authors and illustrators engage students in the curriculum as the instructor points out such features as rhyming, alliteration, and the sounds that different letters make. The use of story reenactments, songs and games reinforces that reading and the library are fun.

Beginning in Kindergarten, weekly library classes are times during which students learn to choose and borrow books for various purposes, and in which students’ literacy, information and thinking skills are encouraged and developed. Books and electronic sources that support the curriculum are used to continue fostering literature appreciation, reading fluency and comprehension, and information seeking and usage skills. A respect for the creativity and work of others grow from exposure and is continually stressed and built upon. All aspects of the library program encourage the development of students who will become lifelong readers and ethical users of information.