Summer drift, otherwise known as loss of reading comprehension skills or reading achievement, has been a well-known and well-documented phenomenon of public education for decades. Studies from the late twentieth century to the present have demonstrated a slowdown in summer drift attributed to specific summer reading programs addressing motivation…

The National Literacy Trust's Premier League Reading Stars programme (PLRS) is a reading intervention for children aged 8 to 13 that captures the motivational power of football to inspire children and young people to read more and to improve their literacy skills. PLRS is delivered by teachers and librarians. The programme delivers statutory…

An after-school book club, led by the school librarian, was held to test the efficacy of the peritextual literacy framework (PLF) in teaching skills related to critical thinking, problem solving, information literacy, and media literacy. The PLF is an extension of paratext theory developed by Gérard Genette, which provides a typology of the…

Reading is often thought of as a skill, something to be learned and practiced. But reading can also be considered a creative art, capturing the imagination of the reader in ways that result in creative thought and expression. School librarians have a unique opportunity not only to support classroom-based reading skill building but also to serve as…

As advocates for reading, librarians cannot help but love a reading program. In this article, the author talks about the Battle of the Books, a reading enrichment program that had been in place since 1996. Battle of the Books promotes reading among middle school students by offering interesting books and a trivia-type competition. The author…

This article illustrates how the use of the basic elements of a story can help create an event that will stimulate imagination and encourage further reading. Margaret Robison, the librarian at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind (VSDB) in Staunton, Virginia, decided that for Teen Read Week she would use a popular series as a bridge to…

Norfolk Detention School is an alternative school for juveniles under the age of 18 who are awaiting adjudication by the court and those who are awaiting transfer to another facility. This article describes the author's experience as a library media specialist in this juvenile detention school. She describes how she has promoted and encouraged…

Something wonderful happens when children are asked to choose their own books and are given ample time to read and discuss them. They become hungry readers with an appetite for books! This simple strategy was the basis for developing the program known as PIE (Personalized Independent Enrichment) and its recipe for reading success. The goal of the…

The reading patterns and habits of young and old are changing as reading migrates from the printed page to the computer screen. Now, new forms of expression such as remixes and mash-ups are emerging from interactive digital environments. How can school librarians help students read with understanding in dynamic digital environments? How can they…

In the rapidly changing globalized world, school librarians cannot prepare today's students for every possible outcome, but they can give them the skills that will make them adaptable in 21st-century learning and work settings. The mission for school library programs is to ensure that students are effective users of ideas and information by being…

Getting teens to read, much less enjoy classic literary fiction is an on-going challenge for educators and librarians. However, Holly Koelling--author, YA librarian, and "booktalker extraordinaire"--offers a variety of techniques for rising to that challenge and successfully selecting, presenting, and connecting teens with great literature in the…

Discusses the legacy of the work of Margaret Edwards for young adult librarianship. Highlights include accepting adult books for young adults; promoting reading and emphasizing the role of librarians in encouraging reading; meaningful outreach services; and youth participation. (LRW)

Building partnerships to improve students' performance (Fitzgibbons 2004, Small 2002) is not a new concept to the education profession. Borrowing tenets from the business world and universities, schools have come to realize that interdisciplinary collaborations enhance the cohesiveness and achievement of the particular school and district as a…

Learning to read is a major milestone and should be an event to celebrate. The author of this article relates the story of how, with the encouragement of her principal, and the help of a children's librarian at the public library, the community coordinator at a nearby Barnes and Noble, and a children's book buyer at a local independent book store,…

In this study of the Accelerated Reader (AR) program, qualitative and quantitative analyses of the relationship between the implementation of AR and student motivation and extent of reading are drawn from data collected in three schools in Scotland and England. These schools represent low (Scotland, n=53), middle (Scotland, n=40), and high…