Hello, library friends! I hope to see many of you at conference this week.
I'm using info from this reading study to advocate for the library in our district newsletter and wanted to share. I used evidence from this study to "pat our principal on the back" for instituting 45 minutes of SSR (silent sustained reading) per week for all grades 7-12 students and to point out the library's importance in all of this, and to explain how we'll be using some grant money to buy multiple copies of the most popular books and buy newly released books quickly based on student request. :-) I think most people understand how reading for pleasure would boost reading/vocabulary/spelling scores, but this study found it also improves math. I'm always looking for ways to show the library's relevance and importance, and I think this study does a lot to reinforce that idea.
Reading for pleasure puts children ahead in the classroom, study finds
http://www.ioe.ac.uk/newsEvents/89938.html"Children who read for pleasure are likely to do significantly better at school than their peers, according to new research from the Institute of Education (IOE).
The IOE study, which is believed to be the first to examine the effect of reading for pleasure on cognitive development over time, found that children who read for pleasure made more progress in math, vocabulary and spelling between the ages of 10 and 16 than those who rarely read."
Amy Brownlee
K-12 Library Media Specialist
6th Grade Reading Teacher
Sterling USD #376
