[CALIBK12] [CSLA Research Update] Reading study

[Spielman, Kathy]

Reading for pleasure is the answer. Lots of reading.
This is interesting to me. for the past 3-4 years, our circulation at our middle school has risen sharply. We decided to concentrate on ordering popular fiction. We began to ask the students when checking out books, what elementary school they were coming from, how many books they read a month, and reasons for why they read the books they read. 
It was a real eye opener. At the beginning of the year, many of the 6th graders rarely checked out books. We started the survey and found that students who attended schools using AR, stopped checking out books once they came to our school that does not do AR. They said they didn't like to read. The students who had attended elementary schools without AR were avid readers. 
We scheduled classes to come in for book talks and discussions on reading for pleasure. These same students got huge smiles on their faces and asked if they could really, really pick any book they wanted. They were delighted to find out that they not only had free choice, they had no limits set on how many or what types of books. I even have parents of 5th graders from feeder schools coming in and checking out books for their kids that their teachers won't let them read because they are not their AR level.
Our circulation has risen from about 80 books a day to over 300 books a day. We have 850 students. We are currently tracking pages read for fun on our crane from School Libraries Build Readers theme. We are just shy of 1 million pages. Yes, staff reading pages are included.
 
Now, instead our new problem is getting enough new books.  Yes, that is a good problem to have. 
Kathy
Kathy Spielman 
Middle School Library/Media Technician 
Yorba Linda Middle School 
4777 Casa Loma Ave. 
Yorba Linda, CA 92886 
(714)528-7090 ext.7062 
kspielman at pylusd.org 
Read to succeed! 
I am the best I can be BECAUSE I CAN READ 


-----Original Message-----
From: calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu [mailto:calibk12-bounces at lists.sjsu.edu]On Behalf Of Lesley Farmer
Sent: Monday, November 19, 2007 8:55 AM
To: calibk12 at listproc.sjsu.edu
Subject: [CALIBK12] [CSLA Research Update] Reading study


Americans appear to be reading less for fun, and as that
happens, their reading test scores are declining. At
the same time, performance in other academic
disciplines like math and science is dipping for
students whose access to books is limited, and
employers are rating workers deficient in basic
writing skills. These findings are based on
an analysis of data from about two dozen studies from
the federal Education and Labor Departments and the
Census Bureau as well as other academic, foundation
and business surveys. 
National Endowment for the Arts. (2007). To read or not to read. Washington, DC: NEA.
http://www.nea.gov/research/ResearchReports_chrono.html 

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Posted By Lesley Farmer to CSLA  <http://cslaresearchupdate.blogspot.com/2007/11/reading-study.html> Research Update at 11/19/2007 08:51:00 AM

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