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    Key Takeaways

  • Encouraging students to build a personal home library is a great way to instill a love of reading among your students.
  • Letting students choose books for their home library has many benefits, including an increased interest in reading.
  • Scholastic Book Clubs is a great way to expand both students' home libraries and your classroom library.

    • All teachers want their students to love reading. And of course, they want that passion for reading to extend beyond the classroom and into their students’ homes. Encouraging students to build their own personal library at home—and to choose the books that line their shelves—is a great way to strengthen even your most reluctant readers’ love for the written word.

    But an increased interest in reading among your students isn’t the only benefit teachers can expect. Here are some more reasons you should encourage kids to set up a library at home:

  1. Increases confidence and teaches responsibility
    By setting up and selecting the books for their home libraries, students will experience increased confidence. They’ll also see their home library as their own and will want to take care of it and make it grow.
  2. Kids will be represented in the books they read
    When you empower your students to choose books for their home library from Scholastic Book Clubs, you can expect diversity in titles and an increased likelihood that your kids will be represented in the books they read.
  3. Aids lesson plan development
    Your students’ home libraries will also help drive your own instruction. Think of their libraries as windows into exactly the types of things they are interested in, which you can then utilize when developing lessons or other activities to increase reading fluency. Be sure to check in with students occasionally and ask what new books they’ve added, or are hoping to add, to their home libraries. The details they share will help you get to know your students, allowing you to tailor your lessons to their interests.

    These are just a few of the benefits teachers can expect to see as a result of their students setting up their own personal libraries at home. One added bonus is that encouraging students to build their own home library will help your classroom’s library grow, too!

    By organizing and running a Scholastic Book Club, teachers are able to earn bonus points to build and add titles to their classroom library. Each month, you will receive grade-appropriate flyers with a broad range of interests and reading levels, with all the titles and wider online title selection. Students then choose from both classics and new titles that will ultimately drive their interest in reading. And with each class order, teachers earn bonus points to make selections—with the input from students, of course—for FREE books. With Scholastic Book Clubs, it’s possible to build a library that’s organized and leveled to your students’ needs quickly and in an affordable way.

    Here's how it works:

  • You send home book flyers with your class code. A wider selection of titles is available online.
  • Kids choose books, and parents submit their orders online to you using your class code.
  • You submit your class orders to Scholastic and get FREE books and resources for your class with every order. (Through September, teachers can choose one FREE six-copy pack with every $50 order; you can get up to six FREE packs of six! And parents get to add a $5 book with every online order of $25 or more.)
  • The Book Box arrives in class, and you'll distribute student book orders.
  • Before you know it, your kids will have their own personal home library, and you'll have everything you need in your classroom to grow the next generation of readers.

    • To start growing your students’ love for reading, visit Scholastic Book Clubs. If you’re new to Clubs or Scholastic, just create an account, and place your first order to start receiving free books and resources for your classroom!