The excitement in Mrs. Kidwell’s room was palpable when she announced, “We are getting new books for our classroom library!”. The Cissna Park Education Foundation allowed the third grade classroom to purchase over 60 books for their classroom library.

One of the main goals Mrs. Kidwell had coming into the year was updating her classroom library. Mrs. Kidwell believes that a diverse classroom library helps foster a love of reading. Her goal was to add books from every genre including fantasy, non-fiction, historical fiction, fairy tales, and culturally diverse books. When the books arrived, it felt like Christmas morning.

Students spent all morning looking through the new books and happily chattering about what books they can’t wait to read. Mrs. Kidwell has seen a change in her students’ ability and attitudes towards reading in her classroom. This change was predicted by research done by Baldwin, Peleg-Bruckner, and McClintock. As stated in their academic journal, “When students are interested in a text they are reading, their comprehension improves more than when they are reading a text in which they are not interested. In addition, when students are interested in what they read, they put more cognitive effort into the process,” (Baldwin, Peleg‐Bruckner, & McClintock, Reading Research Quarterly). Mrs. Kidwell is excited to continue to promote reading in her classroom and cannot wait to add new books to her growing library!