But even at 8, she knew she couldn't tell the teacher she was afraid. Instead, she got angry. She rushed through her lessons and said she didn't care if she got bad grades and slammed her books down, silently telling them she hated them.

"I felt bad," says Marsha Mercie.

"So what changed?"

Kelli Roads rests her hand on the small girl's shoulder. "What changed your mind?"

Marsha tilts her head up, the hallway light bouncing off her pink eyeglasses. "You," she says to Roads.

A reading coach at West Gate Elementary School in West Palm Beach, Roads does more than run tests and work with individual students on their reading skills. She also strives to show children how words are everywhere -- on their television screens, street signs, cereal boxes. Gently, she teaches them that words are windows, not walls.

"Reading is the beginning of everything," Roads says. "I think children naturally like to learn. And when they see reading as a spark for learning, that's when it clicks."

Classroom libraries can help make that magic.

An educational tool used in schools around the country, classroom libraries are collections of books housed in individual classrooms. It makes for a very different kind of library than the school's media center, typically a large room with imposing bookcases where students tiptoe in accompanied by their teachers.

"It's a library that's right there, easily accessible. It's a much more encouraging atmosphere," says Mary Kay Murray, executive director of the Education Foundation of Palm Beach County.

The foundation, a nonprofit organization that encourages donations and partnerships benefiting public schools, made classroom libraries its focus this year. The foundation is surveying the county's 100 elementary schools to determine what they need and is encouraging corporations to sponsor a classroom. It takes about $600 to start or refurbish a classroom library plus give teachers training on how to use it, Murray says.

In James Gray's third-grade room at West Gate, the classroom library is a cozy corner by the door. Pillows perfect for lounging are scattered on a carpet square.

Instead of being packed on shelves with only their spines showing, the books are in bright-colored plastic baskets with their friendly faces turned out, making it easy to see titles and pictures. The students, guided by Roads, got a subtle lesson in cataloging and themes as they sorted the books and labeled each basket with a category: "Holidays," "Food," "Dinosaurs."

Tyler Bragdon, 9, browses the "Animal" titles. He's doing a report on tigers that will explore "what they like to do and what they eat," explains Tyler, an animal lover with four cats and two dogs of his own. "When I see a tiger book, I have to read it over and over."

Students are encouraged to take books home from the classroom libraries and while Gray eventually inquires about strays, there are no fines or penalties for lost or damaged volumes. He and the other teachers understand that best-loved books are the most tattered.

"Many of these kids don't have any books at home at all," says Gray, who like many of the teachers supplements his room's library with his own money. Gray especially likes titles included in a school database so that as soon as the kids are finished, they can go to the classroom computer and test themselves. Reading comprehension is a big part of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test that third-graders must pass in order to move on.

FCATs and the fact that schools are graded on their students' performance are reasons that literacy has become Job One at West Gate. The majority of children there come from lower-income Hispanic, Haitian or African-American families. Some have parents who speak no English, or who are illiterate in their native languages.

Principal Thais Villanueva has applied for grants so each classroom can have a library and keep it updated. "If we wanted to promote literacy, we knew we needed to have a lot of books," Villanueva says.

At the beginning of third grade, Marsha was reading at the lowest testing level, Level One, and her teachers feared she would flunk her FCAT and be left behind. A year later, she is one of the best readers in her fourth-grade class, at Level 4.6 of 5, she'll quickly tell you.

Marsha's happier and more confident now. A child of Haitian immigrants, she says she wants to be a doctor "so I can help people."

"People tend to think that reading is just for pleasure. But reading is crucial," Roads says. "If you can read, you can learn anything."