Is The Library Important? Multivariate Studies at the National and International Level

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries
Research has shown that more access to books results in more reading and more reading leads to better literacy development. A new study on the impact of libraries on reading achievement by Stephen Krashen and colleagues using NAEP reading scores and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) data. Three multivariate analyses, all controlling for the effects of poverty, confirm the importance of the library.

Image: cc licensed ( CC BY-SA 2.0 ) flickr photo by Enokson

The researchers conclude:

“In all of the multivariate studies considered here the library emerges as a consistent predictor of reading scores… Of course, providing access is only the first step: Even with access, some children (but surprisingly few) will not read. The research literature consistently indicates that rewards for reading are not effective (McQuillan, 1997; Krashen, 2003; 2004), but that read-alouds and conferencing do help. But in order for these approaches to work, the books need to be there.

But what is clear is that libraries definitely matter and they matter a lot.

Inspection of the betas in the tables reveals that access to books in some cases had a larger impact on reading achievement test scores than poverty (tables 1,3, 4), and in other cases had nearly as strong an impact (tables 2,5). This suggests that providing more access to books can mitigate the effect of poverty on reading achievement, a conclusion consistent with other recent results (Achterman, 2008; Evans, Kelley, Sikora, and Treiman, 2010; Schubert and Becker, 2010). This result is of enormous practical importance: Children of poverty typically have little access to books (Krashen, 2004). It seems that libraries can provide this access.”

Here’s the link to a copy of the pdf version of this research paper Is The Library Important? Multivariate Studies at the National and International Level.

You might also want to keep an eye on Jeff McQuillan’s new blog The Backseat Linguist. Jeff is a former university professor of applied linguistics and education, and now a Senior Research Associate at the Center for Educational Development in Los Angeles, California.

Reading to children has ‘long impact’ according to OECD’s PISA study

Via Scoop.it – Student Learning through School Libraries

Children whose parents frequently read with them in their first year of school are still showing the benefit when they are 15. This PISA study examined the long-term impact of parental support on literacy and found, discounting social differences,  children with early support remained ahead in reading, with results showing a strong link between teenage reading skills and early parental help. Analysis of PISA data “based on teenagers in 14 developed countries, found that active parental involvement at the beginning of school was a significant trigger for developing children’s reading skills that would carry through until they were teenagers. On average, teenagers whose parents had helped with reading at the beginning of school were six months ahead in reading levels at the age of 15.”

The report stated “that parents did not have to be particularly well-educated themselves for this impact to be achieved. What was important was that parents read books regularly with their children – such as several times a week – and that they talked about what they were reading together.”

A summary of the results of this study are published in the OECD PISA In Focus 10 newsletter at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/4/1/49012097.pdf.

Teacher librarians in primary schools should be utilising results from studies such as these to connect with parents of those students entering Kindergarten in Term 1 of 2012. Such findings can be used to encourage a strong relationship between the TL and school library and Kindy kids (and their parents) at the very beginning of the school year.

Consider writing a short column in your school’s first newsletter of the year to parents about the importance of reading being reinforced at school and the home and promote the idea of the TL building a strong partnership with parents to support student achievement.
Via www.bbc.co.uk

Emily Rodda, Lu Rees Archives & literary learning

OK, so I’m a day late with this news because I have just finished reading the hard copy version of yesterday’s Canberra Times newspaper, but I was really taken by this full page feature on Australian children’s author, Emily Rodda‘s visit to Canberra this week to address the launch of a special exhibition and project managed by the Lu Rees Archives of Australian Children’s Literature at the University of Canberra.

Emily Rodda believes it is "vitally important that children have a smorgasboard of the absolute best stories from every culture to choose from."

In April 2010, the Lu Rees Archives began a project to catalogue 462 Australian children’s books, DVDs, puzzles and games published in 32 languages. The Lu Rees Archives had to employ CAVAL, the professional cataloguing company to  gain access to the language expertise required to catalogue these resources  using specialist translators for languages such as Icelandic, Tetum from East Timor, and Zulu! A number of embassies also joined forces to sponsor the project. This represents the breadth of coverage across countries and languages that the works of many Australian children’s authors now have. The Lu Rees Archives now holds 659 items of Rodda’s work which makes it the largest collection in Australia.

The Lu Rees Archives has become one of the special libraries included on the itinerary of the Canberra Study Visit as part of the School of Information Studies‘ professional experience program, and in the past few years we have found the visit to Lu Rees Archives hosted by Emeritus Professor Belle Alderman is always a favourite of students, especially those students studying in the Bachelor of Information Studies, Master of Information Studies and Master of Education (Teacher Librarianship) who are working as children’s librarians and teacher librarians.

Belle is the Collections Development Manager at the Lu Rees Archives and has worked tirelessly in maintaining this unique collection of works and artefacts on Australian children's literature.

Belle has also hosted a number of CSU students as part of our SIS Professional Library Placement program. This is where our students are provided with the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge practically in an information-based workplace, with emphasis being placed on the acquisition of knowledge and the performance of professional activities. As a small special library, students can gain excellent individual attention and hands-on experience in information work, while contributing to special projects and being surrounded by some of Australia’s greatest literary treasures. All the new records for this recent Lu Rees project of translated works are available via Libraries Australia hosted by the National Library of Australia. This way, as Belle states: ‘The world then knows these books exist and are publicly available… ‘Most importantly, such translations demonstrate the importance of children’s stories and their ability to link people of all cultures through common stories.’‘

In this interview Emily Rodda also makes a distinction between ‘books’ and ‘stories’, particularly now as our world becomes more and more digitally-enhanced. She believes it is important to continue supporting an appreciation of literature and reading of stories, no matter the format (whether as an ebook or printed book), and compares this to listening/viewing ‘story’ portrayed via film or video/online games:

”It’s very, very important we go on reading because there is a logic and a rationality to even the most fantastic story, and a complexity and an understanding of how people work things out, which doesn’t appear in film because it’s all visual.

Things might happen in a logical order in a film but you don’t get that rational explanation of why things happen.

If we want our future citizens to be able to reason and to see propaganda for what it is, for example, or work their way through people trying to persuade them to do something by appealing to their emotions, it’s important, in their childhood, that they’ve learnt about rational argument and I think that’s one thing books do.”

I think this final statement sums up the power of literary learning and why it must remain fundamental to a 21st century education. School libraries are central to building a reading and literary learning culture within a school. As part of the NSWDET 21C school library futures project Envisioning School Libraries in 2009, Ross Todd and I devised a set of eight (8) principles underpinning 21C school library design as an instructional zone within and beyond the school emerged, one of which was:

A centre that supports literary learning, where students become immersed in imaginary worlds, explore personal reading interests, develop sustained voluntary reading practices, develops reading for meaning and independence as critically-capable readers. (Hay & Todd, 2010, p. 16)

I think this reflects what Emily Rodda has emphasised in this Canberra Times feature.

A detailed presentation on these principles of 21C school library design can be viewed in my presentation at the Cairns Diocese Curriculum Conference:

Concluding comments from Roy and others at the close of Library & Info Week

May 31 saw the close of another week of library advocacy in Australia hosted by the Australian Library & Information Association (ALIA). The theme for Library and Information Week 2009 was Libraries your passport to discovery!, which was a great opportunity for our information profession to promote the value of libraries in today’s society. I noticed Sue Hutley‘s (Executive Director, ALIA) statement that “libraries offer every Australian a chance to discover, access and connect to a much wider world – and in these tough economic times, it’s a lot cheaper too!”, was a message that resonated through a number of comments in the media this week, including those of Robert McEntyre (Public Libraries NSW Metropolitan Association Executive Director) in the Herald article Book now: libraries are top shelf in family attractions by Rachel Browne (on May 31).

It was also great to see  the words of Roy Crotty (fellow studentslearn blogger, President of ASLANSW and Associate Lecturer with us at the School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University – love the concluding quote in the article Roy:

“If anything, the digital era has made a teacher librarian’s job even more relevant.”

The ALIA media release highlights the cultural, educational and economic benefits to society afforded by libraries and information agencies, noting that each year “Australia’s 1,500 public libraries lend over 178 million items to 12 million registered borrowers” which is over half of Australia’s population. Additional figures quoted by Sue Huntley provide the public with an idea of the breadth of library services across the nation including “approximately 9,000 school libraries, 42 university libraries, 387 TAFE campus libraries, and thousands of health libraries, law libraries and other special libraries.” In addition, the Herald article Students can borrow to boost chances outlining public libraries’ support of school children’s reading habits through the provision of multiple copies of books on the Premier’s Challenge reading list each year, demonstrates how public libraries are ‘switched on’ to the needs of kids and in supporting school libraries to resource public programs that can sometimes be beyond the capabilities of an individual school library’s budget. 

Sherman Young’s article Is the book dead? published on ABC’s Unleashed on May 26 and National Simultaneous Storytime on May 27 capped off a busy week for libraries, authors, publishers and booksellers in promoting the value of libraries, books, reading and literacy for all Australians.

An interesting antidote to the good work presented in the media this past week about the value of libraries in Australia, can be found in ABC’s Unleashed article The vulgar modernisation of our libraries (published at the end of April) is you missed it. Love to hear your feedback on any or all of the above!

School libraries: The power of student voice

School students know what they want from their school library. Just ask 11 year old Jamaican student, Daniella who wrote a letter outlining why her school library needed to be the winner of a $100,000 donation from a local bank. This story is a great example of the use of ‘student voice’ as advocates of change with regard to the resourcing of school libraries to support student learning.

This is supported by recent research such as the Ohio Study (by Todd & Kuhlthau (2004) and the Australian replication of this study by Hay (2006). Based on over 6, 700 student responses to the Australian School Libraries Supporting Student Learning survey from 46 primary and secondary schools, my article in Scan (Vol 25, No 2 – May 2006) presents the findings of this research project, and concludes that students want their school libraries to be “flexible and dynamic learning laboratories”. 

This Jamaican newspaper item demonstrates that Jamaican kids (just like Aussie kids) also have a vision of how their school library can contribute to their learning. School Libraries Work (3rd ed, 2008) states, “A school library program that is adequately staffed, resourced, and funded can lead to higher student achievement regardless of the socioeconomic or educational levels of the community.” (p.10). We look forward to hearing more stories about students who become advocates of change for their school library and student communities.

E-books

In today’s (3/3/09) SMH Technology section there is an interesting feature on the use of Kindle, an e-book reader and a challenge by authors to a feature that Amazon is including.

New York Times features school library in the digital age

Helping kids critically evaluate information

Great to see a teacher librarian achieve ‘street cred’ by being featured in the New York Times. This article and accompanying videoclip illustrate the importance of having a dynamic information specialist on staff who is both a qualified teacher and librarian. Presents the importance of the TL’s role in supporting the development of students’ literacy skills as well as critical thinking skills. Note Rosalia’s advice to the young 5th grader about the need to select books that are of an appropriate reading age in order to ‘have fun’ in the coming week.