Consider These Facts: • Reading builds a cognitive processing infrastructure that then “massively influences” every aspect of our thinking, particularly our crystallized intelligence —a person’s depth and breadth of general knowledge, vocabulary, and the ability to reason using words and numbers. (Stanovich, 2003). • Children between the ages of 10 and 16 who read for pleasure make more progress not only in vocabulary and spelling but also in math than those who rarely read (Sullivan and Brown, 2013). • “Omnivorous reading in childhood and adolescence correlates positively with ultimate adult success” (Simonton, 1988). • Multiple studies have shown that avid readers demonstrate both superior
literacy development and wide-ranging knowledge across subjects (Allington, 2012; Hiebert and Reutzel, 2010; Sullivan and Brown, 2013).
• Avid teen readers engage in deep intellectual work and psychological exploration through the books they choose to read themselves (Wilhelm and Smith, 2013). In addition to increasing intellectual prowess and expanding vocabulary, reading also educates the imagination, “kindling the spirit of creativity in every human heart” (Jago, 2010). And reading fiction, in particular, expands the heart, making us more compassionate (Oatley, 2014). The Reading Life We’ve known for a long time that the best way to help our students succeed is to encourage them to read. To that end, we want our students to discover themselves as readers, to have a sense of their own unique, rich, and wondrous reading lives. What books make their hearts race? What topics do they return to again and again? Dick Robinson, president and CEO of Scholastic, sums it up: “You are what you read.” Effective teachers work hard to help their students establish a reading identity that declares, “This is who I am as a reader.” This research compendium aims to showcase decades of reliable reading research to support you in your ultimate aim as an educator and parent: to help all children become proficient, avid readers who bring passion, skill, and a critical eye to every reading encounter (Atwell and Merkel, 2016). In this way, our students might grow to exemplify and embrace the words of Myra Cohn Livingston, poet, musician, critic, educator, and author: “Books have more than changed my life— they have made it possible.”
4
INTRODUCTION: WHAT READING MAKES POSSIBLE
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs