by Linda B. Gambrell
Will reading practice, or time spent reading, make a student a perfect reader? Probably not. But I’m convinced that practice helps students become better readers. As the ancient Assyrian Publilius Syrus said in 42 B.C., “Practice is the best of all instructors.”
Reading has the potential to improve with the right kind of practice. Therefore, I maintain that the productive use of time for independent reading during the school day is critical to the development of both the skill and will to read.
As a child in the 1950s, I spent a fair amount of time reading after school. In the part of South Carolina where I grew up, we could get television reception for about 3 hours a day, so television was not a huge distraction.
Things have changed greatly since the 1950s. Today, students’ after-school time is heavily scheduled with activities such as sports practice, music lessons, and down-time alternatives such as television and video games. Whereas children from generations past may have had more time to spend in reading after school, the competition for those after-school hours has become a lot stiffer today.
But as with any skill, reading requires practice. The question is this: “Where will our students get the type of practice that is necessary for the development of fluent and proficient reading?” I suggest that unless we incorporate productive time for independent reading during the school day, our students will not get the practice they need in order to develop to their full literacy potential.
Questions about how to balance teacher-directed reading instruction and independent reading during the school day have intrigued me since my early teaching years. In 1984, I conducted a study to determine the amount of time students spent actually reading during teacher-directed reading instruction in grades 1–3. In this particular study, first-grade students spent 3 minutes, second-grade students about 5½ minutes, and third-grade students about 5¾ minutes on average engaged in contextual reading during teacher-guided instruction. These findings suggested that the amount of reading practice students received during teacher-directed instruction might not be sufficient to support literacy development.
As Tim Shanahan stated (Reading Today, June/July 2006), the experimental research on sustained silent reading (SSR) and other approaches to independent reading is scant. The studies that have been done to date have been based on an “old view” of SSR—that is, a model where the teacher sits at the desk and reads during the SSR period.
Today, many teachers use SSR in innovative ways that are vastly different from the traditional view of SSR. For example, some teachers use the SSR period to conference with students and provide individual guidance. Other teachers allow time at the end of the silent reading period for students to talk with a partner about what they’ve been reading.
These adaptations of SSR are based on current research on the value of individualizing strategy instruction and the value of discussing texts. Until research on these newer models of SSR is conducted, I have to agree with my good friend Tim Shanahan that we need more evidence to guide us in designing productive reading practice. Fortunately, several researchers have recently taken up the call to action.
Several recent experimental studies have provided new insights regarding the role of independent reading and reading achievement. In a study that explored the development of fluent and automatic reading with second graders, Kuhn et al. (2006) reported that increasing the amount of time children spend in reading appropriately challenging texts with scaffolds leads to improvement in both word reading and reading comprehension.
Samuels and Wu (2003) explored whether differences in independent reading time, when provided in addition to a regular balanced reading program, can affect reading outcomes in third- and fifth-grade classrooms. They found that additional reading practice was beneficial to all students; however, the amount of time spent in independent reading should match the student’s reading ability and capacity to maintain attention.
Clearly, there are learning differences that require teacher monitoring in order for independent reading to successfully increase reading achievement. These studies begin to highlight the factors that are important to consider when designing effective independent reading programs.
In closing, let me share with you that among the many tasks a new President of IRA faces is choosing a theme for the annual convention. I’ve chosen the theme “Engaging Learners in Literacy” for the International Reading Association’s 53rd Annual Convention, which will be held May 4–8, 2008, in Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Engagement and motivation will also be featured topics in columns I will be writing for Reading Today over the course of the next academic year. I believe that our students deserve instruction that emphasizes both the “skill and will” to become proficient and passionate readers.
IRA President Linda B. Gambrell is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Eugene T. Moore School of Education at Clemson University.
P.S. It takes a lot of practice to become a kite runner. For your summer reading I recommend The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseine (Riverhead Books; available in paperback). This is a wonderful book about the unlikely friendship that develops between two boys growing up in Afganistan in the 1970s. This gripping story provides an intimate account of family, friendship, betrayal, and salvation.
Gambrell, L. B. (1984). How much time do children spend reading during teacher-directed reading instruction? In J. Niles & L. Harris (Eds.). Changing perspectives on research in reading/language processing and instruction (pp. 193–198). Rochester, NY: National Reading Conference.
Kuhn, M. et al, (2006). Teaching Children to Become Fluent and Automatic Readers. Journal of Literacy Research, 38, pp. 357–388.
Samuels, S.J., & Wu, Y.C. (2003). How the amount of time spent on independent reading affects reading achievement: A response to the National Reading Panel. Retrieved April 12, 2007, from www.tc.umn.edu/~samue001.
Shanahan, T. (2006, June/July). Does he really think kids shouldn’t read? Reading Today, Vol. 23, No. 6, p. 12.
Reading: Does practice make perfect?. (June 2007). Reading Today, 24(6), 16.
Journals
Reading Today