Blog

Every parent wants their children to have all the resources they need to perform well academically and beyond. However, it’s practically impossible to purchase every resource kids need, especially expensive books for purely research purposes. It is why school libraries exist to support students.

At Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, ranked as the best CBSE school in Gurugram, we treat school libraries as training grounds where children develop sharp reading and research abilities needed for remarkable success. It’s more like a safe yet competitive space that supports steady development. Hence, we’ve created two massive libraries for our primary and senior wing students, stocked with thousands of books across different categories.

If you’re curious how something as simple as a school library can shape strong readers and researchers, the following points will help you understand it better.

• Exposure to different texts that build reading breadth

School libraries give children far more text variety than the books in their usual curriculum do. You can expect a well-stocked library to feature collections spanning fiction, non-fiction, poetry, graphic novels, biographies, and a lot more.

This diverse exposure aids children in studying different writing styles, frameworks, and content areas. It gradually strengthens their reading ability because children encounter varied sentence complexity, vocabulary levels, and organisational patterns as they read books in different formats.

At Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, we have over 13,057 books in our middle and senior wing libraries to ensure that our students never face any shortage of resources. Even our primary wing student library has over 11,305 books spanning different genres, so that young students have all the right resources from the beginning.

• Expanding vocabulary through wide reading options

How often do you use unfamiliar vocabulary while talking with your kids at home? Chances are that you or any other parent wouldn’t do it. Discussions at home are mostly free-flowing, with the focus on communication rather than vocabulary enhancement.

This is where a school library’s role becomes significant in building children’s vocabulary. Reading books on different subjects delivers the best results in this regard. If they read purely academic books, they may come across words such as ‘analyse’, ‘hypothesis’, ‘perspective’, etc. Reading economics or finance-related books can expose them to words, such as inflation, layoffs, assets, arbitrage, liquidity, etc.

What’s remarkable is that different books show how the same words can be used in various contexts and sentence structures. As students build their vocabulary over time, they can read unfamiliar texts with greater clarity.

• Building information literacy with structural search skills

Besides helping children to become proficient readers, school libraries also nourish students to become remarkable researchers. It starts with something as simple as locating the right book from hundreds of options in the same category.

This is why at our school, we make sure that our teachers are always there to help students learn to locate relevant and reliable information across multiple formats. Even librarians guide students through formulating clear research questions, identifying appropriate sources, and using effective search terms. It is during this process that students learn the differences between encyclopaedias, journals, books, autobiographies, etc.

They also develop systematic approaches to gather information. These foundational skills help replace random searching with strategic, purposeful investigations so that every student masters the art of research over time.

• Developing critical source evaluation and credibility assessment

Becoming a strong reader and, moreover, a researcher requires the ability to judge information quality and reliability. Children can develop this skill naturally if they regularly use their school library for research purposes.

At Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, we believe that when students are given unrestricted library access, they learn how to examine author credentials, identify publication dates, recognise bias and perspective, and distinguish fact from opinion.

When this happens, children stop taking information at face value when gathering information from library books. Instead, they learn to ask the right questions, such as ‘Who created this information?’, ‘Why was this created’, ‘What evidence supports the stated claims?’, and other related questions that are crucial for quality research. This process instils strong analytical abilities in children that extend far beyond school assignments. 

Conclusion

Having a school library can help students achieve their full potential as readers and researchers. A well-stocked library does far more than provide students with the books they need for independent research or academic purposes. It equips students with the skills they require to thrive academically and also in other areas of their lives.

We’re talking about skills such as strong vocabulary, reading fluency, ability to discern between authentic and unreliable information, sharp research abilities, critical thinking, etc. This is why we at Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, one of the most well-known top school in Gurgaon, have invested heavily in our school libraries for both the primary and senior student wings. Special focus has been placed on selecting books that provoke thought and spark creative imagination in our students.

Today, by means of this blog post, we would like to urge parents to encourage your kids to use the school’s library thoughtfully. You can suggest relevant books for them to read or ask them to take their teacher’s help in selecting the right books that nourish them intellectually and emotionally.