Content-area books help build the background knowledge and academic language students need to enhance curriculum-based learning. In most classrooms, however, students’ exposure to content-area text comes from textbooks that are often challenging to read and out-of-date.Authentic content-area books facilitate comprehension and motivate students to read by capitalizing on their interests and whetting their appetites for more information, while also providing in-depth coverage and accurate, up-to-date information. Students learn to read while reading to learn about engaging subjects.

Research indicates that English language learners benefit from the same language-rich environments as their native English-speaking peers. Effective classroom libraries promote the acquisition of academic English and content-area knowledge that ELLs need in order to achieve high standards. Books should be linguistically accessible, while addressing age-appropriate content and grade-level standards. Because ELLs progress at such different rates, teachers need ample amounts of reading material on hand to support students at various levels of language acquisition and literacy development.

State standards increasingly expect students to be able to read, write, and learn from nonfiction texts and current estimates show that fifty percent to eighty percent of the reading passages in standardized tests are nonfiction. A lack of nonfiction is the most common deficit in classroom libraries.They should consist of forty to sixty percent nonfiction books, including a variety of genres such as biographies and autobiographies, history, reference and informational texts, that will give students the experience they need to succeed in an information age.

Students struggle when they find a book is beyond their reading level, and they cannot access its content. Whether students are learning to read, reading to learn, or reading for pleasure, they need books they can read accurately, fluently, and with good comprehension. A key feature of classrooms with high reading achievement is a large supply of books representing a range of instructional and independent reading levels.

Children from culturally diverse backgrounds have been shown to learn best when the classroom environment is respectful of their linguistic, social, and cultural heritage.Trade books that build on the foundation of knowledge and experience that students bring to the classroom help bridge the gap between home and school and motivate them to read more. Engagement with reading increases when books reflect a student's cultural and world knowledge.

Providing students with books matched to their instructional and independent reading levels accelerates their reading development and ensures that they will grow as learners. Struggling readers respond well to high-interest books with content that their on-level peers are reading but targeted to their reading levels. Every classroom library must provide access to high-interest books containing vocabulary appropriate to students with below-level reading skills.

Students reading at least two grades above their grade placement are considered talented readers. While they experience greater success when exposed to challenging books written at their reading level, we find that most classroom books are targeted to students reading on or below grade level.Talented readers need access to books at an advanced reading level if they are to continue to grow as readers. At the same time, though, the books should reflect a maturity level appropriate to their age and grade.

Research demonstrates that boys typically have a tougher time learning to read than girls, value reading less, and are two to five times more likely to have a reading disability. Nearly fifty percent of boys consider themselves nonreaders by high school. Helping boys to become proficient readers begins by honoring their reading preferences. Reading motivation and achievement increases when classroom libraries expand to include the type of books boys enjoy—informational books, adventure tales, sports books, suspense stories, graphic novels, and humor books.

Preschool students are expected to develop phonemic and print awareness, alphabet knowledge, and letter/sound associations in school as well as outside school.To acquire these emergent literacy skills, preschoolers need print rich classroom environments that promote pre-reading skills such as print concepts, letter name knowledge, and story concepts. In addition, when preschoolers hear books read aloud, oral language development is enhanced, as is understanding of the people, places, and things of everyday life.