THE POWER OF READING CHOICE, TIME, AND PLEASURE “I was lucky enough to grow up when … the most wonderful thing a teacher might say was, ‘Go to the library and pick out a book.’” —Dr. Bill McBride, educator, author, and speaker
KEY FINDINGS
> > Children who read for pleasure are likely to do significantly better in school than their peers who rarely read. Sullivan and Brown (2013) demonstrate that pleasure reading is linked to increased cognitive progress over time. They recommend that educators and policy makers “support and encourage children’s reading in their leisure time.” > > Sullivan and Brown (2013) found that children between the ages of 10 and 16 who read for pleasure made more progress in vocabulary and spelling as well as math than those who rarely read. > > “The research base on student-selected reading is robust and conclusive. Students read more, understand more, and are more likely to continue reading when they have the opportunity to choose what they read” (Allington and Gabriel, 2012). > > Self-selected reading is twice as powerful as teacher-selected reading in developing motivation and comprehension (Guthrie and Humenick, 2004). > > Wilhelm and Smith (2013, 2016) demonstrate that pleasure is always at the heart of engaged reading and that pleasure is multifaceted. Their interviews with avid teen readers revealed that teens read deeply for a wide range of reasons: play, intellectual, social, and “inner work” (psychological and spiritual exploration). > > As essential aspect of becoming a real reader is knowing yourself as a reader— made possible through wide reading driven by access to abundant books and personal choice (Wilhelm and Smith, 2014; Miller, 2013; Tatum, 2009, 2013; Allington and Gabriel, 2012).
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THE POWER OF READING CHOICE, TIME, AND PLEASURE
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