The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of school library access on student reading comprehension as measured by the Easy CBM universal screener test. The population consisted of 5th and 6th grade students enrolled in one intermediate school in an urban school system in East Tennessee. Data were analyzed for the population of the…

Cultural capital is a key term from the Social Reproduction Theory, and it is defined as the codes and practices that parents pass on to their children (Bourdieu, 1984). Previous empirical studies have confirmed the importance of cultural capital, and it is positively related to students' reading achievement (e.g., Kosutic, 2017; Noble &…

In this study, we examined students' access to text, defined as the number of texts freely available to children in their classrooms. From 60 elementary classrooms across five states, we catalogued the books in first, third and fifth grades in both high- and low-achieving schools (based on state-wide reading test scores) to create a database of…

Imagine a classroom where students are actively engaged in seeking scientific knowledge from books and computers. Think of a classroom in which students fervently write to create PowerPoint presentations about their scientific topic and then enthusiastically practice their speaking roles to serve as docents in a classroom museum setting. Visualize…

Student-run literature circles within the classroom setting have been well documented in recent years. This past year the author was given the opportunity to have her fifth grade library class for an additional library period each week to devote to literature circles. For their program, the goal was to expand the student's pleasure in reading and…