News
Connecting with books
Pinewood library specialist uses survey results to encourage reading
March 9, 2009
Pinewood
Library Media Specialist Mindy Holland has stopped telling her
students to read. She’s halted the reading promotions and she’s
taken down the posters that simply say “Read.”
In turn, she’s hoping that her students are reading more.
Last year, when Holland was trying to figure out what reading promotions were working with her students she turned to a system that has been used by educators, politicians, scientists, statisticians and many others time and time again – data collection. She devised a survey through www.surveymonkey.com, which was then completed by more than 400 of her students.
“I was trying to find out what reading promotion would work,” Holland said of the survey. “I found out that none work.”
What she learned, is that kids are not motivated to read by silly gimmicks or flashy posters. They don’t read more if they are rewarded with prizes. What makes them read, the survey revealed, are good books – books they are interested in and books that they want to read.
In fact, 52 percent of the students who took the survey said they would read more if there were books that interested them more. Additionally, when asked what would improve their school library, 70 percent of them typed in a request for a specific book.
“These results got me thinking about the corporate world,” Holland wrote in an article she recently had published in Library Media Connection (LMC), a magazine for school library and media specialists. “Have you ever seen an advertisement suggesting that you go to the movies? Of course not, all ads are for a particular movie. How about ads to go to restaurants, see shows or vacation anywhere?”
“These ads don’t exist because they would not be effective. Corporate ads are for something specific and library media specialists need to do the same,” she wrote.
The changes to the Pinewood library were almost immediate. In her next book order, Holland said she ordered many of the books her students suggested in the survey— Hannah Montana and Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z and pop artist biographies. She also replaced her “Read” posters with posters for specific books, like the Harry Potter books and Marley and Me.
“Books tied into television shows and biographies of American Idol winners might not seem worthy of school book funds, but it turns out they get readers to connect with books,” Holland wrote in her LMC article. “A good book is a book that a child will want to read. Books that collect dust on the shelves are no good to anyone.”
No longer is Holland’s library an advertisement for reading in general, but an ad for the books themselves.
She said she’s seeing a real shift from non-fiction to fiction, which she attributes to students knowing more about the books available to them. She also has several books that have waiting lists, something that was very rare in the past.
“The biggest drawback is that I don’t have enough of the books the kids want,” Holland said. “I feel like they’re really reading more.”
Holland said that she’s also been getting e-mails from school library media specialists across the country who saw her article in LMC.
“People near and far are talking about how they are going to change things,” she said about these e-mails.
Pinewood students are currently taking Holland’s reading survey for the second year in a row. This time around, she said, she’s hoping to see that the kids are reading more minutes throughout the school year. She’s also hoping to harvest new ideas for books that the students want to read.
