Photo courtesy of Kelly Jahng

In January 2024, the third-grade students at South Park Elementary School in Deerfield, IL, were struggling.

A benchmark test showed a significant number of the kids would not meet the state reading standards when assessed later in the year, according to school librarian Kelly Jahng. The principal reached out to Jahng, among others on the staff, for ideas to help improve the students’ reading skills.

“A lot of school principals aren’t even thinking about their librarian as a resource to help with academic gains,” says principal Marcie Faust. “We have so much talent in so many different areas of our building, and we have to think creatively about how to reach students with the resources that we have.”

Jahng believed these students were not reading for fun, not reading beyond school assignments. This is the class, she says, that began kindergarten remotely because of COVID, and while they learned to read, they lacked not only the ability to comprehend and retain what they read but the enjoyment of it.

After Faust reached out to her, Jahng implemented two initiatives through the library.

The first program was Bragging on Books. After reading a book, students could come to Jahng, answer a few questions, and discuss the title. Students would earn a “brag tag,” a small plastic, book-themed charm that could be hung on backpacks or worn as a necklace.

“She designed a really great program that encouraged our students and incentivized them to read and then sign up to talk to her about the books, which gave them practice with some of those questions that they were typically being assessed on,” says Faust.

While some students loved collecting the charms, others just wanted the one-on-one time to discuss a book. Jahng credits her flexible schedule with making the program possible and freeing up time for her to have the conversations with kids.

“One of the students said to me, ‘Oh, I don’t really care about the tag. I just want to talk to you about what I’m reading,’” she says. “I thought [that] was so sweet. He’s a quieter kid, too. I think that may have been the first time I’d ever really had a substantial conversation with him.”

Jahng’s second initiative was a Parent Student Book Club. Despite the name, it was for a student and any adult willing and able to join the lunchtime book discussions and activities. Babysitters and grandparents, among others, participated, Jahng says. And for kids who didn’t have someone, faculty and staff would step in. It was a program that ran years earlier at the school and Faust was thrilled that Jahng revived it.

“There’s power in importing parents into the reading life of their children,” says Faust. “Parents will often say, ‘My child doesn’t like to read.’ Parents aren’t always modeling it.”

Before the club started, the school sent a note to the third graders’ parents.

“The letter that went out came from me, the third-grade [classroom] teachers, and the principal,” says Jahng. “It did include some language that said that we’ve noticed that our students are not performing quite as well as we would hope on their on their reading at this point in time, so there are some things that we’re going to be doing to work on it. This is one of those things. We were transparent about it, and the reason behind it.”

Thirty of the 45 students in the class signed up for the first book, which was The Doughnut Fix by Jesse Janowitz. To help get students excited about it, Jahng decorated the library and served doughnuts at the book club meeting.

“It was so well-attended, and Kelly just took it to the next level,” says Faust, who read the book and attended the first club in case a child needed an adult. “It just felt like such a celebration to have everybody join in the shared experience and make it so fun.”

Future test scores showed the school’s interventions had made an impact. According to Faust, in that original winter testing, 26 percent of the then–third graders were “low growth.” By the spring, it was 21 percent; then the following winter it dropped to nine percent, she says.

“I’m sure it was a collection of efforts, but definitely part of it was the creative programs that she was able to implement,” Faust says of Jahng, who won the 2024 Innovative School Library Program Award from the Association of Illinois School Librarians for Bragging on Books and has continued and expanded both programs to include younger students in the school.

“I encourage other schools to look at their librarian as a specialist in their school to help achieve schoolwide goals, that this person does more than just help kids pick out books,” says Faust. “We’ve seen really incredible experiences for our kids because we give the library autonomy to create a schedule and create programs that are engaging, hands-on, and beyond those basic skills.”