Proficiency is Possible
Across the U.S., we have a significant number of students with very few books in their homes, who never or hardly ever choose to read. Ninety-one percent (91%) of those students are not reading at a proficient level by the time they leave 3rd grade. This should sound some loud alarms!
Yet we believe proficiency is possible. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data, which supports our thesis that having an abundance of books in the home directly correlates to the amount of time children spend reading for fun, also shows how the number of books in a home combined with how often kids choose to read for fun affects reading proficiency.
Two of the questions NAEP asks students from which we glean revealing data is:
How many books do you have in your home?
How often do you choose to read for fun?
The power of more
Look at this graph. The four colors indicate how many books students say their homes have. The shapes represent how often students say they choose to read.
Notice how, from left to right, as the colors change from red to orange to yellow to green, reading proficiency scores get measurably better. Also notice that within each color where the number of books is constant, choosing to read from never to monthly to weekly to daily produces an increase in the percentage of students who score at or above proficient.
We can draw three powerful conclusions from this data:
One hundred (100) books in a home is a tipping point for providing the motivational support needed for children to develop a habit of reading.
Choosing to read matters. There is a significant gap between students who choose to read and those who don’t.
More books in homes plus more time spent reading for fun produces more students reading proficiently!