Martin County Teachers offer facts about children’s
literacy
Access to books is
fundamental to reading success:
 | Increasing access to
print material is the most successful way to improve the reading achievement
of low-income children. Communities ranking high in achievement tests have
several factors in common: an abundance of books in public libraries, easy
access to books in the community at large, and a large number of text books
per student.1 |
| In a study comparing
reading literacy in the U.S. with other countries, the National Center for
Education Statistics2 found that nearly two-thirds of the
low-income American families they studied owned no books for their children.
|
Children who read
frequently are better readers and better students:
| The National Assessment
of Educational Progress (NAEP)3 2000 national reading assessment of
fourth-grade students found that reading for fun had a positive relationship
to performance on NAEP reading scores. The 87% of students who reported
reading for fun on their own time once a month or more performed at the
Proficient level, while students who never or hardly ever read for fun
performed at the Basic level. Students who read for fun every day scored the
highest. |
| The NAEP3
also found that fourth-graders who reported reading 11 or more pages daily for
school and for homework had higher reading test scores than students who read
fewer pages daily. Sixty percent of fourth-graders reported reading 11 or more
pages daily for school and for homework in 2000, compared to 54% in 1994 and
56% in 1992. |
NEA's Read Across
America reminds parents of the crucial role they play in their children's
education. Taking time to read with a child is one of the most important lessons
that adults can share with their children:
| More than half (51%) of
young people say that their parents do not encourage them to read other than
for schoolwork. These findings provide evidence that this type of parental
involvement is important—children who report that their parents encourage them
to read are more likely to read a high volume of books (63% read more than 10
books a year) than those who say their parents leave it up to them (51% read
more than 10 books a year)6. |
| When asked to compare
the amount of time that they spend reading with the amount of time their
parents spend reading, more than a third (36%) of young people, including 42%
of young women and 30% of young men, report that they read more in their spare
time than their parents4.
|
1America's
Child Care Crisis: A Crime Prevention Tragedy,
Sanford Newman, T. Berry Brazleton,
Edward Zigler, et al., Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, 2000.
2U.S. Department of Education, Office of Education Research and
Improvement, 1996. Reading Literacy in the
United States: Findings from the IEA Reading
Literacy Study.
3The Nation's Report Card: Fourth-Grade Reading 2000, P. L.
Donahue, R. J. Finnegan, A. D. Lutkus, N. L. Allen, and J. R. Campbell, U. S.
Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, National
Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), 1992-2000 Reading Assessments, April
2001.
4Poll commissioned for the National Education
Association by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, February 2001.
This page modified on:
07/09/2008
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