Keynote: Libraries at the heart of school literacy: building students' reading engagement and literacy performance
Tracks
Libraries
| Friday, June 4, 2021 |
| 9:05 AM - 9:45 AM |
| Room P1/P2 |
Details
School libraries should play a key role in building student literacy. Students with greater access to school libraries do better in literacy testing, and recent research suggests that access to libraries may be more powerfully associated with students’ reading engagement than factors such as age and gender. Reading engagement in turn is strongly related to students’ literacy attainment. In this keynote, we will explore diverse factors that may influence reading engagement, and discuss how libraries can implement and measure the efficacy of literacy-supportive practices in their schools. We will also examine recent findings about struggling literacy learners beyond the early years, to identify innovative ways that qualified library staff can work with teachers and school leadership to optimise outcomes for our most vulnerable literacy learners. Attending this keynote should help you to cement the position of your school library as integral to the literacy advancement of your school.
Speaker
Margaret Merga
Private
Keynote: Libraries at the heart of school literacy: building students' reading engagement and literacy performance
Biography
Dr. Margaret Kristin Merga's research explores the social and environmental influences on literacy engagement and acquisition and the position of reading and books in the contemporary world. Her research explores the role that librarians, teachers and parents can play in supporting young people to become life-long readers. She has published a substantial body of peer-reviewed research papers in this area, and she has led a range of mixed-methods research projects exploring these issues in local, national and international contexts. She is the author of two recent (2019) books on reading engagement and libraries, and co-author of a recent book on conducting quantitative research in education.
