Children Don't Read Enough!

Last week, the New York Times published an article titled "Study Links Drop in Test Scores to a Decline in Time Spent Reading". Although I don't take much stock in standardized testing, I do believe that children are spending less time reading, and that this is detrimental to their intelligence. It is not just children that are reading less, adults are too, which creates a snowball effect. When adults don't provide children with print rich environments and model the love of reading, children don't learn its intrinsic value.

The National Endowment for the Arts report is the basis for the NY Times article. They write:

Among the findings is that although reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college. The data also showed that students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.

So turn off the TV and have some quiet reading time at home together each day. Remember sustained silent reading from your elementary school days? This practice at home, as well as reading aloud, will help your children make reading part of their daily routines and create a little tranquility in the home.