Media use and attitudes report

This report examines children's media literacy. It provides detailed evidence on media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people aged 5-15, as well as detailed information about the media access and use of young children aged 3-4. Researchers found that only a third of young people aged 12 to 15 knew which search results on Google were ads, while this figure was even lower — less than one in five — for children aged 8 to 11. Other tests showed that 19% of 12- to 15-year-olds  believed that if a search engine listed particular information then it must be true, while  46% of children could say for sure that Google itself was funded by ads.
Children and parents: Media use and attitudes report. (2015). London:  Ofcom. 
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/market-data-research/other/research-publications/childrens/children-parents-nov-15/

School Libraries Work! study

The 2016 edition of Scholastic's School Libraries Work! summarizes major recent research about the impact of school libraries in the U.S.

School Libraries Work!: A compendium of research supporting the effectiveness of school libraries. (2016). New York: Scholastic.  http://www.scholastic.com/SLW2016/

Independent reading and English improvement research

An analysis done by Nation (2014) leads to the conclusion that readers in English as a foreign language can gain about one-half a point on the TOEIC test for every hour of independent English reading. A statistical analysis of progress made by seven adult acquirers of English living in Japan was performed to confirm this conclusion: All were intermediates, but there was considerable variation, with TOEIC scores ranging from 220 to 705. All engaged in self-selected reading,  and took pre and post TOEIC tests. Hours spent reading was shown to be an excellent predictor of gains on the TOEIC, and the rate of improvement was shown to be nearly exactly the same as that reported by Nation.
Krashen, S., & Mason, B. (2015). Can Second Language Acquirers Reach High Levels of Proficiency Through Self Selected Reading? An Attempt to Confirm Nation's (2014) Results. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching 10 (2): 10-19.
Available at: ijflt.com  OR http://sdkrashen.com/articles.php?cat=2