• Home library size predicts school success in both elementary and later years (Park, 2008; Sikora et al., 2018). • Twenty-one minutes a day of reading outside of school results in higher scores on reading achievement tests and an increase of more than 1.8 million reading words annually (Fisher & Frey, 2018). • High literacy levels, enhanced by out-of-school reading, positively influence academic performance at secondary school (Daggett & Hasselbring, 2007) and on vocational choices later in life (Kirsch et al., 2002). • When students have access to a larger number of books in their home, their reading motivation is higher, their attitude toward reading is more positive, and reading competence increases (Gambrell, 2011; Katzir et al., 2009; Merga, 2015; Park, 2008; Retelsdorf et al., 2011; Sutter & Campbell, 2022; Zucker et al., 2022). Above all, students who have more books read more and enjoy reading. In their survey of the print access and reading habits of a group of Grade 11 students, McQuillan and Au (2001) found that “the number of books personally owned by the students in this study was significantly correlated with both reading frequency and reading achievement” (p. 232). The exponential benefits of books in the home extend far beyond students and brick- and-mortar schools. When young people are provided with access to home libraries filled with diverse, high-interest texts, the impact ripples into their communities and beyond. What students learn at home provides an essential foundation on which schools can build. Without it, neither students nor schools can reach their full potential (Wherry, 2004, p. 6). HELPING MINDS AND BODIES THRIVE Neuroscientists find that reading not only strengthens the language-processing regions of the human brain, but also affects its sensorimotor regions (Berns et al., 2013). In fact, the impact of an “early-life book-oriented environment may be important in shaping cognitive aging” (Weinstein et al., 2021, p. 274). Availability of books at home during childhood may be related to improved late-life cognitive abilities and to slower cognitive decline, independently of education and life- course factors, such as health, lifestyle, and socioeconomic indices (Weinstein et al., 2021, p. 280).
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