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School librarians are no longer the stereotypical woman with no or little higher education who simply checks out and re-shelves books while maintaining a card catalog and keeping the library an absolutely silent environment. In sharp contrast, many school librarians of today have master's degrees in library science or media. They are highly trained in evaluating research and helping teachers and students to utilize media resources available to them. Why, you might ask?

First of all, in today's world, schools are faced with a great deal of pressure to assure that their students score at or above a specifically defined level of proficiency. Teachers and other educational professionals, including but not limited to school principals, counselors, psychologists, special education directors, curriculum directors, testing coordinators and librarians, are more encouraged than ever before to team together to determine the best ways to increase student test scores and develop learning to facilitate that goal.

Reading is extremely important to all learning, which makes it essential for students to develop the skills necessary to master it. If students are able to find a way to enjoy reading, they will find it to be a more desirable task, which will in turn make required standardized testing a more pleasurable experience.

Librarians are in an excellent position to facilitate a love of reading in students. First of all, when they order books for the library, they can order a variety of fiction and non-fiction books that encompass a wide variety of subject and interest areas. Then, they can display these books where students will easily come in contact with them. They can also organize book clubs where students can discuss books that interest them and/or organize reading contests or programs where students are encouraged to set a goal for reading a certain number of pages or books in a certain amount of time. These two ideas integrate social skills and competitiveness into reading, something that may engage students who wouldn't be interested in reading otherwise.

School librarians and/or media specialists can use their skills to help teachers and other educational professionals to integrate media resources into their classrooms to enhance existing curriculum and turn more students on to learning and in the process help to increase the school's overall test scores. The more that existing and developing technology is utilized and integrated into the learning process, the more improvements will be made in engaging students in learning, which will better prepare them for the future. Every educational professional plays an integral part in this process, including school librarians.

Learn more about this author, Olivia Kay.
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