Abstract:
While librarians in schools often face significant budgetary cuts, they can play an important role in supporting learning in literacy and literature. However, little is known about the practices that they may employ to this end. Of particular interest is the role of librarians in schools in supporting struggling readers, as these students may be increasingly disadvantaged as they move through the years of schooling. Semi-structured interview data were collected from teacher librarians at 30 schools and analysed to identify practices exercised by teacher librarians that aligned with extant research around supporting struggling readers. Teacher librarians provided support by identifying struggling readers, providing them with age and skill-appropriate materials, undertaking skill scaffolding supporting choice, supporting students with special needs, providing one-to-one matching, promoting access to books, enhancing the social position of books and reading, reading aloud to students, facilitating silent reading, and preparing students for high-stakes literacy testing.
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"For some time now, there has been rising concern about the steady decline in the performance of Australian students in international testing such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the stagnation or decline in various aspects of our National Assessment Program. At the same time, staffing levels of qualified teacher librarians (TLs) are dropping around the nation.This article examines the skills Australian students will need for the future and how school library staff and services support these skills. The results of an ongoing study into library staffing levels in Australian Capital Territory (ACT) schools are shared and discussed. Future implications for the library profession are identified here."