Research showing that the amount of reading counts - 'The Matthew Effect'

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Research showing that the amount of reading counts - 'The Matthew Effect'

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Thank you to Dr Kerry Hempenstall for supplying these summaries about the consequences of reading:
“New words are learned mainly through reading. Children’s books contain 50% more "rare" words (outside the vocabulary of 9-12 yr olds) than do adult prime time television, or the conversation of college graduates. Popular magazines have roughly three times as many opportunities for new word learning as prime-time television and adult conversation.”

Stanovich, K.E. (1993). Does reading make you smarter? Literacy and the development of verbal intelligence. Advances in Child Development and Behaviour, 24, 133-180.
“The average number of new words taught directly in a year - about 300 to 500. The average number of new words learned in a year - about 3,000 to 4,000. … “According to the National Reading Panel (2000), estimates of students’ vocabulary size indicate that most of a student’s vocabulary is learned in contexts other than formal learning, especially through independent reading.”

Osborn, J.H. & Armbruster, B.B. (2001). Vocabulary acquisition: Direct teaching and indirect learning. Basic Education Online Edition, 46(3). Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1079088.pdf
“Beginning in about the third grade, the major determinant of vocabulary growth is the amount of free reading.”

Nagy, W., & Anderson, R. (1984). How many words are there in printed school English? Reading Research Quarterly, 19, 304-330.
“Extensive independent reading is the primary means for increasing vocabulary knowledge (Nagy, 1998). Students who read more learn more about words and their meanings. Although direct, explicit teaching of word meanings is effective and important, it cannot produce the needed growth in students’ vocabulary knowledge that should occur in the fourth grade.”

Nagy, W. (1998). Increasing students’ reading vocabularies. Presentation at the Commissioner’s Reading Day Conference, Austin, Texas.
“(In this study) children at the 10th percentile of reading ability in the fifth grade sample read about 50,000 words per year out of school. The comparable figure at the 90th percentile was 4,500,000 words.”

Fielding, L., Wilson, P., and Anderson, R. (1986). A new focus on free reading: The role of trade books in reading instruction. In T. Raphael & R. Reynolds (Eds.), Contexts of literacy (pp.149-160). NY: Longman
“Children had on average acquired about 5,200 root words in their vocabulary by the end of grade 2 and an average 3,200 additional root words in grades 3-5 and that advantaged children had acquired 6,200 root words by the end of grade 2 and an additional 2,500 thereafter. Thus, large differences in root word vocabulary had occurred by grade 2.”

Biemiller, A., & Slonim, N. (2001). Estimating root word vocabulary growth in normative and advantaged populations: evidence for a common sequence of vocabulary acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 498-520.
“Print exposure appears to compensate for modest levels of general cognitive abilities .... low ability need not necessarily hamper the development of vocabulary and verbal knowledge as long as the individual is exposed to a lot of print.” p.162

Stanovich, K.E. (1993). Does reading make you smarter? Literacy and the development of verbal intelligence. Advances in Child Development and Behaviour, 24, 133-180.
“By the end of first grade, the good readers in our study had seen approximately 18681 words in running text in their basal readers. The poor readers, however, had seen only about half as many – 9975. … by at least the end of second grade (it) is further compounded by differences in the amount of time spent reading outside of school (Juel, 1988).”

Juel, C. (1993). The spelling-sound code in reading. In S. Yussen & M. Smith (Eds.), Reading across the life span (pp. 95-109). New York: Springer-Verlag.
“In a first grade sample, one of the less skilled group read on average 16 words per week in school, while one skilled reader read 1933 words. The average skilled reader read 3 times as many words in group reading sessions as the average unskilled reader.”

Stanovich, K.E. (1988). The right and wrong places to look for the cognitive locus of reading disability. Annals of Dyslexia, 38, 154-157.
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