If knowledge is power, then the strong haven't forgotten one thing that sometimes gets neglected in this ever-more-digital world: libraries.
In Richmond County schools, the extent students are pushed to use libraries often depends on the efforts of media specialists and principals. Some administrators give students passes that allow them to leave class to check out a book whenever they please. Others reserve that for occasional class trips to the media centers.
In an analysis by The Augusta Chronicle , students at schools with higher library circulations per child generally performed better on state reading tests this past year. With some notable exceptions, schools with low performance on reading tests also had low usage of their libraries.
The analysis looked at circulation data from the 2010-11 school year and compared it to the 2011 passage rates for the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test in elementary and middle school reading and the English/Language Arts passage rates for the Georgia High School Graduation Test.
"The more books the children put their hands on, the more they're practicing their reading skills," said Leslie Olig, the media specialist for Garrett and National Hills elementary schools. "It's the key to everything else they have to do. If they can't read, they're just going to be suffering later on down the line."
Pupils at Garrett had the third-highest library usage of all the elementary schools in the district, with 56.28 books checked out per pupil.
Garrett's CRCT reading scores generally were about middle of the pack for the district. Third-graders had an 80.4 percent pass rate, which was 22nd of the 36 Richmond County elementary schools; fourth-graders had an 81 percent pass rate, good for 12th-highest; and fifth-graders were at 82.4 percent, 18th-highest. Garrett also averaged as one of the best-performing schools on the CRCT reading with an 81.26 percent passage rate.
Olig said Garrett Principal Paula Kaminski pushes pupils to read at least two books each week and pass Accelerated Reader tests on those books. If pupils have completed all of their class work, they are allowed a hall pass to check out books at the library each day.
Their efforts are rewarded with dances and food parties in the cafeteria for the pupils with the highest AR scores.
"There's a lot of incentives for kids to keep up with their reading goals," Olig said.
IN OTHER SCHOOLS, the push for library usage is not as strong.
At Barton Chapel Elementary School, pupils averaged checking out 3.96 books, third-lowest among district elementary schools. Barton Chapel also had strikingly lower CRCT reading results: 72.1 percent of third-graders passed, which was 28th of the 36 elementary schools; the fourth-grade pass rate was 61 percent, 32nd in the district; and the fifth-grade pass rate was 64.4 percent, which was the third-lowest among the elementary schools.
At the middle school level, C.T. Walker Traditional Magnet School had the highest library usage, with 23.5 books per pupil. It was also one of two middle schools to have 100 percent pass rates in sixth, seventh and eighth grades on CRCT reading exams.
A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet School is a notable exception.
It had the lowest library usage with 1.33 books per pupil but had 100 percent CRCT reading passage rates in seventh and eighth grades, and on the graduation test's English/Language Arts section. Results were not given on the sixth-grade CRCT reading exam.
THE DISTRICT'S director of media and instructional technology, Kim Stripling, said high schools are a special case in this analysis. At the high school level, many students use the libraries mostly for computer resources, which are not counted in circulation.
At 10 Richmond County high schools, no circulation was higher than 2.81 books per student except at Davidson Fine Arts Magnet School, where the circulation was 10.26 per student.
Despite the variations, Stripling said the district is focusing on increasing library skills for all students.
All library media specialists undergo professional learning to improve instruction for information literary skills, Stripling said.
"Students that have a love of reading, they know how to find information and they're utilizing the media center to get information, to get books to read for pleasure," Stripling said. "That is our goal and focus. To make sure that all of our media specialists are really focusing on doing that."
The positive correlation between library usage and test scores is not just local. American Association of School Librarians President Carl Harvey said research shows that students with a higher rate of reading usually perform better on standardized tests.
The presence of trained library staff and up-to-date resources also factor in to that statistic, Harvey said.
Nationally, sixth-graders at schools with trained library staff scored 5.5 percentage points higher than the average on reading tests, according to data provided by association.
Students in schools with more media specialists also scored 8.4 percent to 21.8 percent higher on ACT English tests and 11.7 percent to 16.7 percent higher on ACT reading tests than students in schools with fewer library resources.
"Students need that access with a school librarian to funnel through that information," Harvey said. "It's an access thing. When kids have access to books, they get a chance to practice those skills to develop that love of reading, and they become strong readers."
In Richmond County, Stripling said she would like to see more emphasis on reading programs and more time in libraries. Several schools, including National Hills and Lamar-Milledge elementary schools, have moved into new buildings with better facilities, which she hopes will spark a bigger interest in the library.
"My goal is for the library to be the hub of the school," Stripling said. "That space is vital in the learning for all of these students."
In considering how often students may use their school's library, Richmond County school spokesman Louis Svehla said there are some caveats.
In 2004, 24 elementary schools were able to purchase classroom sets of books with a five-year federal Reading First program grant, which allowed teachers in kindergarten through third grade to accumulate mini-libraries in their classrooms.
Most of these classrooms have up to 100 books available for pupils to check out as an alternative resource besides the school's media center. As a result, these books are not counted in the school's circulation numbers.
Some of those schools also used federal Title 1 grant money to purchase classroom libraries for fourth and fifth grades, Svehla said.
Why don't school libraries operate on a limited schedule in the Summer?
Where are the bookmobies of my youth?
If you are serious about increasing reading of books, go to an electronic online system where patrons can download books onto their Kindles, iPads or home computers. That type arrangement is open 24 hours a day and is convenient for everyone. No driving. It's revealing most of us are reading this story in the online Augusta Chronicle.
For those who still want a brick and mortar library for it's cultural appeal, fine. We can still provide a place for those who don't have a computer, need a place to get out of the heat or want to flush a tennis shoe down the toliet. But far as increasing actual book readers at a fraction of the cost, let's move into the modern era and have everyone looking cool like the girl in the Kindle commercial on the beach utilizing her electronic Dewey Decimal System.
river---I'm not giving up my dad-burn books....not now & not ever...I'll put up a fight...& it will get ugly!!!!:)
If a kid doesn't learn to read at an early age he is lost----give them colorful books to read & enjoy....make it a fun experience...share reading time with them..
I did pay my daughters for every book they read in the summer time---soon they read for the pleasure of reading.....& still do read a lot.
I just like the feel of that hardback in my hands as I caress the pages flipping through......ya knowwhatta mean....
So...don't make me go for my 38....AIN'T Giving em up.
LOL....I can visualize SeenItB4 shooting up all the Kindles and iPads with her trusty 38.
Keeping statistics like how many books checked out per pupil (to two decimal places) is what is ruining education. They could fire two-thirds of the BOE staff at the central office and never miss them. They do nothing but amass statistics.
When I was in school from seventh to twelfth grade, we had a period called "Study Hall." It was a room adjacent to the library. You were assigned a desk and you had to be quiet. You could do your homework, you could read, you could go to the library, or you could sleep. Study Hall was one of the most important tools to success in school (and in life I would say), because it empowered the student for that one hour to make something of his life's education.
Well lets go back to where kids had to go to the library and did a book report.It seems that Richmond County is so afraid to go back to the basic. Why are there no spelling words to help them learn more words and use it the right way. If kids learn new words that would like to read more and it will improve SAT scores as well. Teachers might learn to used words correctly as well. There are many school outside of GA that have 15 min of reading in the morning. That have no cost at all. It seem that Richmond County Board of Education always feel that everything seem to have a cost. Everyone don't have computer. Children need to learn how to write book report. Have them to put information together. Going on line is not the key. There are some that don't know how to even go to the library to start looking up a book.
Well lets go back to where kids had to go to the library and did a book report.It seems that Richmond County is so afraid to go back to the basic. Why are there no spelling words to help them learn more words and use it the right way. If kids learn new words that would like to read more and it will improve SAT scores as well. Teachers might learn to used words correctly as well. There are many school outside of GA that have 15 min of reading in the morning. That have no cost at all. It seem that Richmond County Board of Education always feel that everything seem to have a cost. Everyone don't have computer. Children need to learn how to write book report. Have them to put information together. Going on line is not the key. There are some that don't know how to even go to the library to start looking up a book.
Study hall is an obsolete model. Now it's viewed as a waste of instructional time. The closest example of study hall is today is In School Suspension. NCLB puts tremendous pressure to actively engage students every minute of every day--no time to sit around and study! Library literacy translates into all sorts of organizational thinking, researching, and proper sourcing. Most kids can't do effective Internet research--they fall for the ads and propaganda, and rarely use a primary source.
Lynn7044, I had to do book reports like:
"This was a good book. I liked it. Dick was a good man and Bluto was a bad man. I recommend this book." That would get an A.
I was in the 9th grade reading the NY Times book reviews that were in the Sunday paper (along with everything else in the paper) and once wrote one that sounded like those although it wasn't copied. It went something like:
"Mr. Brown displays a skill involving the reader to understand the motives of his......"
She gave me an F. Heh.
If your college curriculum is rigorous, not only will you live at the library, but you will discover the interlibrary loan system in order to get primary sources that are not electronic and only exist in three or four places in the state or nation. A good librarian will always teach you the way to successful learning.
The study hall at my school was a large room with a lot of desks. There were about twice as many desks as students, so the study hall monitor (usually a teacher, but occasionally the mean old principal would monitor) would make us sit apart so that we could not talk to anyone. You could go to the library to check out a book and return to your desk. Or you could go to the library to use the reference materials (dictionaries, encyclopedias, magazines, etc.) to help you with the "themes" the teachers made you write.
Mr. Clawson in eighth grade English was the guy assigned to teach us how do do a research paper. He taught us about how to make "source cards," "content cards," etc. to organize our thoughts and make our research paper coherent. My first research paper was in Mr. Clawson's class and was about the "Dances of Bees" where I learned that bees in a hive can communicate how to send their companions to newly-discovered flower fields for nectar and pollen.
Study hall was magical to me. I learned so much.
By the way, I used those same principles learned from Mr. Clawson to write my Master's thesis in nuclear physics. See what study hall can do?
Oh, yes, on those "source cards," "content cards," (and I think there was another category of cards, but I cannot remember) we had to learn terms like op. cit. and et. al. and ff. to make our bibliography. Would an eighth grader do that today on his Power Point presentation?
Little Lamb, ooooooohhhhhhhh, do I remember study hall and especially those content cards, foot notes, op, cit, et al and so on. When you wrote a paper half the page would be full of footnotes that you had to have source cards for.
I later wrote a book in my career field that turned out to be pretty successful. It was left up to me whether I wanted to use footnotes with references and so on. Ha...after my experiences in high school, I said I would write it in a more informal way. I wasn't about to do all that again.
The concept of a library may be outdated, but the necessity of a librarian or teacher to show where to get information and how to use that information in not outdated. Notice how all discussions about schools and education are directly related to, or are in the context of test scores and NCLB? Maybe the number of toilet flushes per day relates to achievement...or lack of?
The internet has done more to educate Americans than all the libraries and schools combined....for zero cost.
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