School libraries are one of the most accessible places for students to find resources that help them achieve success. Instilling children with a love of reading from a young age can make it easier for them to interact with school reading assignments and develop interests that can help them in academic spaces. Libraries also contain an essential social element that can help them with projects that involve others, which prepares them for individual and group assignments.
Certain programs, such as ones that highlight subjects such as Black History Month and sexual educatoin, are about “getting kids to see different perspectives” (Cockcraft). By giving students the opportunity to learn more about those around them, libraries teach students tools about not just academic subjects, but social and societal ones as well. This gives them a wider perspective with which to interact with the world. One librarian states that in a high school book club, the group read a book of poetry and then “talked about the students’ favorite poems in the book and how different losses may affect one’s life” (McKee). By teaching students how to relate literature with their own life in a respectful and meaningful way, it allows them to understand how to engage with academia in a deeperl way.
Encouraging students to enjoy reading and consuming information is also crucial to their academic success. This can be achieved by providing them with alternatives to traditional methods of reading. Plymouth Regional High School, for example, was able to provide Kindles to students who found them easier to read on or with limited space to store books (Harland).
Many students found more success using these tablets instead of traditional books, which ignited interest in reading even for students who did not enjoy reading before. They were also helpful for comprehension, allowing them to highlight passages in books and easily make notes about difficult course materials they were studying in school (Harland). By providing a variety of options that benefited the different needs of individual students, libraries were able to help students study to their fullest ability.
Students all have different needs when it comes to learning and reading, and the better equipped a library is to deal with a wide variety of people, the more successful the students visiting them can be.
Works Cited
Cockcraft, Marlaina. “Real Talk with Teens.” School Library Journal, vol. 66, no. 1, Jan. 2020, p. 20. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=141024624&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Harland, Pam, et al. “The High School Book Club--Now With Kindles!” Teacher Librarian, vol. 37, no. 5, June 2010, pp. 57–59. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=52571267&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
McKee, Beverly. “Adventures with a High School Book Club.” Library Media Connection, vol. 23, no. 4, Jan. 2005, pp. 44–46. EBSCOhost, https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.palomar.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=16537476&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
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