In an international study of more than 70,000 participants in 27 nations revealed that after controlling for economic status, father’s occupation, and parental education, the effect of home access to books had about the same impact as parental education on student achievement.

The impact was double the impact of the father’s occupation and outpaced family economic status. What’s more, students with the biggest gains from home libraries are those who came from a lower economic status.

Access to books in the home is one of the strongest predictors of educational achievement

Children in homes with more extensive home libraries read more, have higher-level reading skills, and attain more years of education overall than those with access to fewer books, even after controlling for parental education level

Nearly one-third of American families (28%) have fewer than 25 books in the home

Children without access to reading materials in the home are more likely to suffer learning losses when out of school.

Home libraries are one of the best tools schools and communities have to combat learning loss.

The likelihood of being on track in literacy and numeracy “almost doubled if at least one book was available in a student’s home

Books read in adolescence have a direct correlation to adult literacy, numeracy, and technology skills

Summer slide - on average, students’ achievement scores decline over summer vacation by the equivalent of one month of learning. The extent of learning loss is understandably larger at higher grade levels

Summer vacation created a reading achievement gap of about three months between middle- and lower-class students. The study reported that between Grades 1–6, the cumulative impact of this gap could snowball to 1.5 years of lost reading development.

By ninth grade, low-income students were reading at a level almost three grades behind that of middle-income students, with summer reading loss accounting for more than half of the difference in reading skills. This difference in achievement also predicted later dropouts and college attendance.

Children’s books are hard to come by in high-poverty neighborhoods

The measurable impact of a home library was equal to or larger than high-cost interventions.