With the holidays upon us I wanted to take this chance to remind the St Bede’s community of the importance of reading. There are four important points to be made here.

Firstly that hundreds of correlational studies have found that the best readers read the most and poor readers read the least; these studies suggest that the more children read, the better their fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension becomes (National Reading Panel, 2000). 

Indeed, it is during successful, independent reading practice that students consolidate their reading skills and strategies and come to own them; reading proficiency lags without reading practice (Allington & McGill-Franzen, 2003). 

Simply put, reading improves reading.

Secondly, ability in reading comprehension has consistently been found to be the major determining factor in academic success (Watson et al. 2012). Bereft of the strategies and ability to make full sense of text, students severely limit their potential to access knowledge and perform across subjects.

Thirdly, there has appeared a clear correlation between time spent reading independently and academic performance. It has become clear that the more a student reads the greater their academic success becomes (Kirsch et al. 2002). I attach here a link to an article claiming 15-minutes of independent reading per day is the tipping point that starts to show positive impacts on academic performance. I suggest that any amount of time spent reading, outside of what is required for their schoolwork, will improve both reading skill and academic performance. I would also point out that by ‘reading’ I do not mean only traditional books. The saying of “the right book is the one he wants to read” applies here. Be it a sports magazine, a graphic novel, a ‘how to’ book, a news article – it is all good and will pay dividends.

Finally, there is a phenomenon called Summer Slide, which is the name given to loss of reading ability that can occur over a sustained period out of school i.e. a holiday. Named by North Americans to reflect the large break they have over their summer, it has been shown that between 1/3 – 1/2 of yearly progress in reading can be lost over a two month break (Khufeld, 2018). Though the effect is smaller over just two weeks it still exists. 2-3 hours of reading per week can hold back this slide. Just remember, “If you don’t use it you lose it”.

There is a lot of information to digest and consider here. But in essence, the importance of reading lies in its ability to further improve reading and increase academic performance.

If you had any questions about any of this please do not hesitate to contact me at cwilson@stbedes.school.nz

Mr Callum Wilson
Teacher in Charge of Literacy