Davidsen Middle School Media Center

As a Media Specialist in a middle school, I began to wonder about the importance of the library on a middle school campus. So, I decided to look into how independent reading and absenteeism in school affect students standardized test scores. Below you will find three sets of data that I found to be very interesting. The first set of data, represents students 2013-2014 FCAT Reading Test scores to the number of absences they had the same year. Students with a high absentee rate usually do not utilize the media center on a regular basis, so I thought that might be a good place to start. I was pleasantly surprised to see that a few students with over 10 absences for the year actually did pass the reading portion of the test, but overall test scores for students with over 10 absences were generally lower than students with less absences. I then looked at a sample of 7th grade students in classes that are participating in the Scholastic Reading Counts program. Scholastic Reading Counts is a reading incentive program in which students read books and take quizzes in order to earn points that they can spend in the school store each semester. In my study, I compared the number of books and words read to their 2014 Fall FAIR test scores and their 2013-2014 FCAT Reading scores. The results of the study clearly showed that students who do not utilize the library, and read independently on a regular basis, do have the ability to pass standardized reading tests. However, students who utilize the library and read independently on a regular basis tend to score higher on standardized reading tests.