How Many Words Per Year Should a Middle School Student Read to Grow a Reading Level

This is the 2nd entry in the Pedagogy Leader's Guide to Reading Growth, a 7-part series nearly the relationship between reading practise, reading growth, and overall student achievement.

In our last mail, we examined how reading do characteristics differ between persistently struggling students and students who showtime out struggling only finish up succeeding—and how potent reading skills are linked to high school graduation rates and higher enrollment rates.

However, it'south non only struggling readers who could do good from more than reading exercise. A study of the reading practices of more than 9.9 million students over the 2015–2016 school year found that more than one-half of the students read less than 15 minutes per day on average.¹

Fewer than 1 in five students averaged a half-hour or more of reading per day, and fewer than 1 in three read betwixt 15 and 29 minutes on a daily footing.

The problem is that xv minutes seems to be the "magic number" at which students get-go seeing substantial positive gains in reading accomplishment, yet less than half of our students are reading for that amount of time.

15 minutes seems to be the "magic number" at which students start seeing substantial positive gains in reading achievement; students who read just over a half-hour to an 60 minutes per day see the greatest gains of all.

An analysis comparison the engaged reading time and reading scores of more than than 2.two meg students constitute that students who read less than five minutes per day saw the everyman levels of growth, well below the national boilerplate.² Even students who read 5–14 minutes per day saw sluggish gains that were below the national average.

Only students who read xv minutes or more than a day saw accelerated reading gains—that is, gains higher than the national average—and students who read just over a half-hour to an hour per 24-hour interval saw the greatest gains of all.

Although many other factors—such equally quality of instruction, equitable access to reading materials, and family groundwork—also play a function in achievement, the consistent connection between fourth dimension spent reading per twenty-four hours and reading growth cannot exist ignored.

Moreover, if reading do is linked to reading growth and achievement, and then it follows that low levels of reading practice should correlate to low levels of reading performance and loftier levels of reading do should connect to high levels of reading functioning. This design is precisely what we see in pupil examination data.

Strong connections between reading practice and achievement

An analysis of more than 174,000 students' Programme for International Student Cess (PISA) scores revealed that connection between reading engagement and reading performance was "moderately strong and meaningful" in all 32 countries examined, including the The states.³ On boilerplate, students who spent more time reading, read more diverse texts, and saw reading equally a valuable activeness scored college on the PISA's combined reading literacy calibration.

The written report also found a educatee's level of reading appointment was more highly correlated with their reading achievement than their socioeconomic status, gender, family unit structure, or time spent on homework. In fact, students with the everyman socioeconomic background only high reading date scored amend than students with the highest socioeconomic background but depression reading engagement.

Overall, students with high reading engagement scored significantly to a higher place the international average on the combined reading literacy scale, regardless of their family unit groundwork. The opposite was likewise true, with students with low reading engagement scoring significantly below the international average, no matter their socioeconomic status.

The authors suggested that reading practice can play an "of import role" in closing achievement gaps between different socioeconomic groups. Frequent high-quality reading practice may help children compensate for—and even overcome—the challenges of being socially or economically disadvantaged, while a lack of reading practice may erase or potentially reverse the advantages of a more privileged background. In short, reading practise matters for kids from all walks of life.

For students within the United states of america, reading practice may not simply be more of import than socioeconomic status—it may also be more of import than many schoolhouse factors.

Looking at only American students' PISA scores, we see that reading engagement had a college correlation with reading literacy accomplishment than time spent on homework, relationships with teachers, a sense of belonging, classroom environment, or even pressure to achieve (which had a negative correlation). In addition, a regression analysis showed achievement went up across all measures of reading literacy performance when reading appointment increased.

Although the PISA only assesses 15-year-olds, similar patterns can be seen in both younger and older American students. In 2013, the National Middle for Education Statistics (NCES) compared students' National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scores with their reading habits.^iv For all age groups, they establish a clear correlation between the frequency with which students read for fun and their average NAEP scores: The more than frequently students read, the higher their scores were.

What is especially interesting about the NAEP results is that the correlation betwixt reading frequency and reading scores was true for all historic period groups and the score gaps increased across the years. Among 9-twelvemonth-olds, there was only an 18-point difference between children who reported reading "never or inappreciably e'er" and those who read "almost every 24-hour interval." By age xiii, the gap widened to 27 points. At age 17, it farther increased to thirty points.

This seems to run opposite to the commonly held wisdom that reading exercise is most important when children are learning how to read but less essential once cardinal reading skills accept been caused. Indeed, we might even hypothesize the opposite—that reading practise may grow more of import as students move from grade to class and run into more challenging reading tasks. Until more research either confirms or disproves this possible explanation, it is nothing more than than a gauge, but an interesting i to consider nonetheless.

All the same, what is clear is that reading practise is decreasing among all age groups, with the virtually dramatic decreases among the very students who may need it the most.

Troubling declines in reading do

Over the concluding three decades, reading rates have dramatically declined in the Usa. In 1984, NAEP results showed the vast majority of 9-year-olds read for fun in one case or more per calendar week, with more than half reporting reading most every day. Just one in v reported reading two or fewer times per month. Past 2012, 25% of all 9-year-olds were reading for pleasance fewer than 25 days per year.⁵

For older students, the drop is even more precipitous. In 1984, 35% of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day, and another 35% read i or two times per week—in total, more than than two-thirds of 13-year-olds reported reading at least one time a week. In 2012, nearly half read less than once a calendar week.

Among 17-yr-olds, the per centum reading almost every day dropped from 31% in 1984 to merely xix% in 2012, while the pct who read for fun less than in one case a week rose from 36% to 61%. The number of 17-yr-olds reporting reading "never or hardly ever" actually tripled.

And the reject in reading is not due to students spending more time on homework in 2012 than in 1984. During the same time period, the percentage of students who reported spending more than than an hour on homework actually declined.

In 1984, nineteen% of 9-yr-olds, 38% of thirteen-yr-olds, and 40% of 17-year-olds reported spending an hour or more than on homework the twenty-four hour period prior to the NAEP. In 2012, those numbers had dropped to 17% for 9-year-olds, thirty% for xiii-yr-olds, and 36% for 17-twelvemonth-olds.

Why are we seeing the greatest gaps and the greatest declines in the oldest students? Although many different factors are likely at play, i of them might exist that the effects of reading practice are cumulative over a student's schooling, especially when it comes to vocabulary.

The long-term effects of reading practice

What's the difference between kids who read more than 30 minutes per twenty-four hour period and those who read less than 15 minutes per day?

Twelve million.

Betwixt kindergarten and 12th grade, students with an boilerplate daily reading time of 30+ minutes are projected to encounter xiii.seven million words. At graduation, their peers who averaged less than fifteen minutes of reading per day are likely to exist exposed to only 1.5 1000000 words. The difference is more than 12 one thousand thousand words. Children in between, who read xv–29 minutes per twenty-four hour period, will encounter an boilerplate of 5.7 million words—less than half of the loftier-reading grouping but nearly four times that of the depression-reading group.^ane

Some researchers estimate students acquire 1 new word of vocabulary for every thousand words read.⁶ Using this ratio, a student who reads but 1.five million words would larn only 1,500 new vocabulary words from reading, while a educatee who reads 13.7 million words would learn xiii,700 new vocabulary terms—more than than nine times the amount of vocabulary growth.

This is especially of import when we consider that students tin can acquire far more words from reading than from direct educational activity: Fifty-fifty an aggressive schedule of twenty new words taught each week will consequence in only 520 new words by the finish of the typical 36-week schoolhouse year. This does non mean that reading practice is "better" than direct instruction for building vocabulary—management instruction is primal, simply teachers tin merely do and so much of information technology. Instead, we enquire educators to imagine the potential for vocabulary growth if direct instruction, structural analysis strategies, and reading do are all used to reinforce one another.

Vocabulary plays a critical role in reading achievement. Enquiry has shown that more than than half the variance in students' reading comprehension scores can be explained by the depth and breadth of their vocabulary cognition—and these two vocabulary factors can even exist used to predict a student's reading functioning.⁷

Nosotros tin see the relationship betwixt vocabulary and reading accomplishment clearly in NAEP scores, where the students who had the highest average vocabulary scores were the students performing in the top quarter (above the 75th percentile) of reading comprehension. Similarly, students with the lowest vocabulary scores were those who were in the bottom quarter (at or below the 25th percentile) in reading comprehension.^eight This means those additional 12 million words could potentially have a huge impact on student success.

So what are we to practice, when reading practise is so conspicuously connected to both vocabulary exposure and reading achievement, just not enough students are getting enough reading do to drive substantial growth?

The answer seems clear. We need to make increasing reading practice a top priority for all students in all schools. Making reading do a system-broad objective may be ane of the most important things we can exercise for our students' long-term outcomes, particularly when nosotros combine it with loftier-quality educational activity and constructive reading curricula. It is time to put as much focus on reading practice equally we exercise on school civilisation, student-educator relationships, and socioeconomic factors.

Still, not all reading practice is built the same. Quantity matters, but so does quality. In the next post in this series, we explore how you can ensure your students are getting the almost out of every minute of reading practice.

To read the next post in this series, click the banner below.

References

¹ Renaissance Learning. (2016). What kids are reading: And how they grow. Wisconsin Rapids, WI: Author.
² Renaissance Learning. (2015). The inquiry foundation for Accelerated Reader 360. Wisconsin Rapids, WI: Writer.
³ Kirsch, I., de Jong, J., Lafontaine, D., McQueen, J., Mendelovits, J., & Monseur, C. (2002). Reading for change: Performance and engagement beyond countries: Results from PISA 2000. Paris, France: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
⁴ National Center for Educational activity Statistics. (2013). The nation'southward report card: Trends in academic progress 2012 (NCES 2013 456). Washington, DC: U.S. Section of Education Institute of Pedagogy Sciences.
^five National Centre for Education Statistics. (2013). Table 221.30: Average National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading scale score and pct distribution of students, by age, amount of reading for school and for fun, and time spent on homework and watching TV/video: Selected years, 1984 through 2012. Digest of Education Statistics. Washington, DC: U.Due south. Department of Education Institute of Education Sciences. Retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_221.30.asp
⁶ Mason, J.M., Stahl, S. A. , Au, 1000. H. , & Herman, P. A. (2003). Reading: Children's developing knowledge of words. In J. Flood, D. Lapp, J. R. Squire, & J. M. Jensen (Eds.), Handbook of enquiry on instruction the English language arts (2nd ed., pp. 914-930). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
⁷ Qian, D. D. (2002). Investigating the Relationship Between Vocabulary Noesis and Academic Reading Performance: An Assessment Perspective. Language Learning, 52(3), 513-536.
^eight National Center for Education Statistics. (2013). 2013 Vocabulary written report. 2013 Reading assessment. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education Establish of Instruction Sciences.

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