Support for in-school independent reading

Sent to Education Week,  April 29, 2017

It is satisfying to know that 94% of the teachers and principals interviewed by Scholastic agreed that “students should have time during the school day to read a book of their choice independently" ("Study: Teachers Value Independent Reading But Lack Class Time for It," April 26).

As author Liana Loewus noted, in 2000 the National Reading Panel concluded that the evidence did not support in-school independent reading programs, such as Sustained Silent Reading. Re-analyses and discussion of these results, published in several books, journals, and other publications, including Education Week, showed otherwise. 

Ed Week readers might be interested in knowing that research has confirmed that in-school independent reading works for English as a foreign language as well.

I list below three recent meta-analyses done in the last ten years. In each study included in the analyses, time was set aside in the "experimental" group in which students could select their own reading material, and accountability was either minimal or there was no test of any kind. The comparison group experienced traditional pedagogy. Effect sizes in favor of the readers on tests of reading comprehension ranged from .54 (Jeon and Day) to .87 (Krashen).

Jeon, E.Y. and Day, R. (2016). The effectiveness of ER on reading proficiency: A meta-analysis. Reading in a Foreign Language 28, (2), 246-265.
Krashen, S. (2007). Extensive reading in English as a foreign language by adolescents and young adults: A meta-analysis. International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 3 (2), 23-29.
Nakanishi, T. (2015). A meta-analysis of extensive reading research. TESOL Quarterly, 49(1), 6–37.

Stephen Krashen
Professor Emeritus
University of Southern California


Original article: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2017/04/study_teachers_value_independent_reading_but_lack_time.html?cmp=eml-enl-eu-news2