How can libraries promote literacy

Making cities stronger : public library contributions to local economic development. The programs encourage children to enjoy reading and give them opportunities to spend lots of time with books—a first step toward developing strong reading skills. Children also benefit from the rich literacy experiences afforded by the many special events and organized programs the library offers.

For thousands of children through Pennsylvania, preschool and summer reading programs offer a strong step in their climb toward reading achievement, and ultimately, success in school As these findings suggest, summer reading clubs encourage children to read, and to read often. Research has shown that the amount of time children spend with books is crucial to reading achievement, and ultimately, to school achievement in general.

Nevertheless, these students enjoy and benefit from interaction and encouragement from the librarian. To further engage able-readers librarians may organise a variety of programmes and activities such as:. You can initiate events to promote reading and encourage the school community to host events in the school library. Ideas include:. Reading promotion. Engaging teens with reading. Reluctant readers.

In Wellington, under Alert Level 2 we are on reduced services and our reading rooms are open. Find out more. Some features of our website won't work with Internet Explorer. Improve your experience by using a more up-to-date browser like Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

Take our survey. No thanks. Search our collections. Advanced search. Ask a librarian. Sharing this passion is important to me and as an adult who reads I am proud and always keen to promote the wonderful books that authors write. Personal passion has a lot to do with reading and enthusing our students to get on board — but how else can we get the message across?

Our form time book boxes help keep students focused and also help to calm our students before the busy school day begins. Competitions, quizzes and book challenges — they all help and if run annually really do get the message out that it can be cool to read.

Having everyone on board, not just the librarian, but involving colleagues from across the school, is vital too. What we really need is for all staff in school who read to shout about it, to share their own passion and to allow that passion to rub off onto our students. It has to be a joint effort — and although the school library can provide all the resources and of course the expertise, it is also important that other adults in school are seen as role models for reading too.

Before Christmas, for example, we launched a festive book challenge and, together with English teachers and form tutors, we rewarded those who read and encouraged those who do not. This kind of activity could be run at any time of year. It is a constant promotion, year-in, year-out, but it helps. Moving our services online this year due to Covid has in fact been a massive help in enthusing students and this work really has reached heights I never knew possible.

Elsewhere, to enable our library lessons to still function during Covid, I am currently pre-selecting books for our users across years 7, 8 and 9. For me this has been a challenge, but in a very good way.

I have had the time to take stock, look back on past loans, and match-up books that I think and hope our readers will enjoy. The books are then added to a large plastic wallet ready for a library lesson, when the pupil will have a choice of six to eight books — it is a kind of personalised pre-selection of books. So far, the approach is working well and is something that we could retain post-Covid.

Reading programmes: Having a reading programme in place also has a huge impact on borrowing and reading — this could be a subscription to a reading programme or an in-house one. These programmes are created with readers in mind and can help turn your under-used library into a thriving and busy one.

We currently subscribe to two programmes, both of which are very well-received. Class reads: Another brilliant way to get the library resources used is to have your librarian help select class reads — and why not? Having recently been a part of helping to choose a class read for a year 7 group, this is just a wonderful way to stay connected with colleagues and to share our expertise. We recently decided on The Goldfish Boy written by Lisa Thompson and I am sure our year 7 English group will absolutely enjoy every page they are about to turn.

Book recommendations: Fantastic Fiction and Love Reading are two of my favourite places to search for book recommendations. Audio books: Having an audio book to accompany a book is worth its weight in gold. The publication goes further to highlight the fact that libraries at every level, local and national, should be well-resourced to serve their surrounding communities and users in order to create a successful learning environment.

Harnessing the potential power of libraries by integrating their activities with national literacy efforts and strategies at local, regional and national levels will help countries achieve the literacy targets set out in the Agenda for Sustainable Development. Skip to main content.