[CALIBK12] Shameless self promotion: A WOW at ALA

[Stephen Krashen]

New, Spectacular Data on Libraries

At an ALA poster session, Syying Lee, Jeff McQuillan and I presented evidence supporting a hypothesis that everybody seems to agree with but nobody does anything about: Better libraries mean higher reading scores. The new data comes from multivariate studies done in the US and internationally.

McQuillan (1998) found that access to books (at home, in the community, in school) was a significant predictor of fourth grade NAEP scores, controlling for poverty.  We replicated this with 2007 data, using school library and public library data, and also found that school library holdings and public library circulation helps predict the difference between grade 4 and grade 8 scores, suggesting that access to books is a factor in improvement. 

We examined data from PIRLS, an international study of 40 countries, and also found that library quality is a predictor of fourth grade reading scores, even when we control for poverty. 

These results are of overwhelming importance: Children of poverty have little access to books other than libraries, and their lack of access is the reason for their lower reading scores. English learners are also typically from low-income families: Providing access to reading is the most important step we can take to insure their successful acquisition of academic English.