Dear Dr. Mantz,
My name is Liv Harris, and I am in 7th grade. We recently conducted a survey in Mr. Estes class, and I chose the topic of reading. (If you knew me, this would not come as a shock) :)
I surveyed people from each grade, asking them these questions;
“Do you enjoy reading?”
“How many hours do you read a day?”
“How many books have you read this quarter?”
and
“Would you like to see a bigger library here at WMS?”
From all the data I collected, I found that 24 students enjoyed reading, 11 said it depended on the book, and 15 responded no. I feel that if WMS had a bigger library with more genre options, we could get some of the people who responded ‘it depends’ to end up liking reading much more. If given a good book, some of the ‘no’ replies might turn into yeses.

I also found that when asked the second question, a vast majority of students told me they read more than one hour a day. This tells me that when reading a book they enjoy, students tend to open up more to the idea of reading other things. If they can’t find a good book, they most likely will decided that reading is not one of their strengths.

When asked how many books students have read this quarter, many of the students described their list as above 5, and this was close to the beginning of the quarter. If students are reading this much, they will most likely wish to read interesting and varied books, or explore new genres. A bigger library could potentially bring up lexile levels, which in turn affect how well students understand lessons and homework. Our school would have a higher average overall.

Still not convinced we could use a bigger library? Take a look at the responses of my last question. 64% of students said they would like to see a bigger and more varied library at WMS. Only 12% said no, and 24% said it wouldn’t affect them. I believe the majority rule was displayed in this survey, and we should expand our library.

I won’t give you a problem without a possible solution. My solution to this problem is to hold a book drive. You could have the rest of the year to ask for book donations, and also a couple of dates during the summer. In this way, you could end up with hundreds of books for your library. And since you wouldn’t be getting them from one person, they would all be different and unique.

In conclusion, I would like to thank you for your time. I hope you take my ideas into consideration.

Yours Truly,




Liv Harris