About the School Library Media Center Program
The School Library Media Program (SLMP) at Strawberry Knoll Elementary provides instruction, resources, and services to assist students and teachers in becoming critical thinkers in the pursuit and use of ideas and information. Our program attempts to provide all students and staff members with equitable and timely access to ideas and information and an integrated instructional program to ensure that students and staff are effective users of ideas and information. (Source: MCPS SLMP home page "Program Description")
In order to accomplish the purpose of the program, we have a partly fixed, partly flexible schedule at SKES. Students in Pre-Kindergarten, Head Start, PEP, Autism, Kindergarten, and First grades have a weekly, fixed time to visit the Media Center with their class. During that time the focus is on literary enrichment and basic library skills, such as how to find resources, and explore the different types of resources available.
Students in grades 2-5 do not have a weekly, fixed time to visit the Media Center. These teachers can plan with the Media Specialist when they reach an appropriate juncture in the curriculum. After planning with the Media Specialist, the teachers can then bring their students into the Media Center when they are at that critical point in their unit to work on reports and projects They do not have to wait until a "scheduled time" in the Media Center to collaborate with the Media Specialist and integrate information literacy skills into an actual lesson.