Read this important article on the effects of reading 'out of school'

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Debbie_Hepplewhite
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Read this important article on the effects of reading 'out of school'

Post by Debbie_Hepplewhite »

I really wish when I was a young mother that I had fully understood the importance of 'reading'. I would go so far as to say I didn't fully understand its importance even as a young teacher.

Bear in mind I'm a grandmother now, and there was no internet, no communication channels like we have nowadays to help young parents and young teachers to be savvy about everything. Life was truly much simpler. There was plenty of reading going on for me as a child, and for my children as they grew up so I took 'reading' for granted, but as a teacher in junior schools, I could not understand why I inherited so many pupils who could not read and write, or who could not read and write well. Thus my story begins as to why I got into the field of literacy instruction in such a 'big way'.

Susan Godsland flagged up this article on Twitter, and as I read it, it occurred to me how much I would have valued reading it as a mother and as a teacher. So I've flagged it up here:
WHAT READING DOES FOR THE MIND

BY ANNE E. CUNNINGHAM AND KEITH E. STANOVICH

AMERICAN EDUCATOR/AMERICAN FEDERATION OF TEACHERS SPRING/SUMMER 1998
http://www.aft.org/sites/default/files/ ... ingham.pdf
A positive dimension of our research is that all of our studies have demonstrated that reading yields significant dividends for everyone—not just for the “smart kids” or the more able readers. Even the child with limited reading and comprehension skills will build vocabulary and cognitive structures through reading.

We can thus elicit two crucial messages from our research findings. First, it is difficult to overstate the importance of getting children off to an early successful start in reading. We must ensure that students’ decoding and word recognition abilities are progressing solidly.Those who read well are likely to read more, thus setting an upward spiral into motion.

Second, we should provide all children, regardless of their achievement levels, with as many reading experiences as possible. Indeed, this becomes doubly imperative for precisely those children whose verbal abilities are most in need of bolstering, for it is the very act of reading that can build those capacities. An encouraging message for teachers of low-achieving students is implicit here.We often despair of changing our students’ abilities, but there is at least one partially malleable habit that will itself develop abilities—reading!
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