For Individualized Daily Reading (IDR), students require access to a wide range of fiction and nonfiction texts at various levels. Consider displaying books in boxes or baskets with the name of the book category clearly displayed. Categories might include: Favorite Authors or Illustrators, Award Winners, Popular Series, Topics or Subjects (weather, presidents, animals), Theme (friendship, growing up, faraway places), Genre (historical fiction, mystery, biography), or Recommendations (students can add books to this bin when they want to recommend a book to their peers). Students might also enjoy organizing the classroom books into categories of their choosing.
You can also display or store the IDR books in a way that allows students to easily choose books at an appropriate reading level. Some teachers use a color-based system to organize books by level (colored bins, colored labels, colored dots, etc.) and encourage students to choose a book with a certain colored label/dot or from a certain colored bin. Consider having students choose books at a time other than during IDR so that reading time is not lost due to browsing.
Whatever system you choose, be sure it is simple to use and sparks students' curiosity and enthusiasm for reading.
If you would like to learn more about our IDR Libraries, visit this page.