As our assessments show, children continue to enjoy Book Trust and reading, and to benefit from its impact, throughout elementary school. The program retains the interest of both boys and girls through the ‘4th-grade slump’ and beyond. As children grow up, the aspect of choice becomes vitally important.

Observed behavioral changes in Book Trust program participants and in classrooms, reported via surveys and letters by teachers, parents and students from 2001-2010

• More respect for books and better care taken of them
• Pride in book ownership; creating a special place for books at home, carrying them in backpacks throughout the day, showing them off to classmates and those in other classes

Reading Habits

• Reading spontaneously throughout the school day, during recess or at lunch
• Reading when an assignment is completed
• Requesting additional time to free-read and more time to read at home

A “Community of Readers”

• Mass celebration when the boxes arrive!
• Exhibiting excellent behavior so the teacher may sort and distribute books quickly
• Discussing and sharing newly arrived books and the upcoming month’s selections
• Giving each other recommendations on favorite titles
• Requesting the opportunity to decide, as a class, what their next assigned book will be
• Discussing books more frequently in the classroom, formally and informally
• Creating impromptu book clubs

Background Knowledge & Skills in General

• Better able to make connections between disparate information
• Better able to identify with different stories, plots and characters
• More confident reading silently and aloud

Family

• Younger siblings arrive at school with experience reading at home
• Younger siblings showing greater motivation to learn to read
• Older siblings choosing books at younger reading levels to share with siblings at home
• More parents reading with children