Report Finds Students Aren’t Reading For Fun – Maybe Science Of Reading Advocates Should Push Class Time For That As Well As Phonics?

“As anyone who has been reading the news today knows, the feds issued a report today that, among other things, found that young people aren’t reading much for fun. Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows is from NBC News. I think many aspects of the Science of Reading movement have been positive. However, at least from what I’ve seen and heard, some advocates have not supported the idea of making class time available for students to read books of their choice – or at least haven’t been as vocal about that as they have for interventions like phonics instruction. When I was in the classroom, “warm-up” time was always ten-or-fifteen minutes of students reading what they wanted. I would spend that time checking in with students and helping them find books (including many I would purchase myself)) they found engaging. Not that I think standardized test scores are the be all, end all of things, but here’s another excerpt from the NBC News article: Students who read in their free time are more likely to score higher on standardized tests than their peers who read less frequently, according to the NCES report. I’m adding this info to The Best Resources Documenting The Effectiveness of Free Voluntary Reading .

Summary generated from the RSS feed of Larry Ferlazzo (Teaching). All article rights belong to the original publisher. Click through to read the full piece on larryferlazzo.edublogs.org.