Is it possible to triple a 12 year old’s pleasure reading?
Posted: September 7th, 2012 | Author: Michael Goldstein | | 65 Comments »
Dear readers, I have 2 puzzles for you today.
Let’s zoom out for some context.
1. Most charters aren’t so hot. You can quibble about the details.
2. Some charters generate unusually large learning gains with kids from poor families. Interestingly, the gains in math tend to be 3x higher than in English.
3. College graduation is the goal of these charters.
There is some debate over which factors matter most in helping kids from poor families achieve this goal — knowledge, grit, money, “skills,” socialization, career aspiration.
But I bet most people would agree that, if we had to pick, we’d rather be sending kids to college who’d made 3x gains in English than in math.
Our small posse here at Match Education is not focused on replication. Instead, we’re trying to find practical interventions. Stuff that make it easier for kids and teachers to succeed. This seems like an important question. Geez, if we could vault out-of-school pleasure reading sky high, that’d be big.
So this month we’re trying a small experiment, a pleasure reading club of sorts.
* * * *
I’ve asked before: How to Flip Middle School Non-Readers into Voracious Ones? Click to read, lots of good comments on that thread.
The scholarly research (pdf) on this topic shows:
Furthermore, as will be shown later in this paper, research is accumulating that suggests that a growing number of young people do not read for pleasure. Similarly, a number of studies have shown that boys enjoy reading less and therefore read less than girls (e.g. Clark & Foster, 2005), while children from lower socio-economic backgrounds read less for enjoyment than children from more privileged social classes (e.g. Clark & Akerman, 2006).
So with that set-up, I offer you
Question 1:
How much pleasure reading do you think a typical Match middle school student does? Think about it for a sec.
If it helps: demographically, our kids are: 59% black, 34% Hispanic, 78% low-income, 17% special needs.
So…how many hours per week?
* * *
My colleague Ray and his team tackled that question. With all the limitations of relying on student’s self-reports.
interviewed 135 students.
Only 2 students self-reported 3+ hours per week.
The median student self-reported 50 minutes per week.
Ray thinks the 50 minute/week baseline is actually an overly rosy estimate. He asked kids a lot of open-ended questions — what they were reading, when they read, what they read last week, etc — and concluded that the estimates didn’t quite match up to the discussions as a whole. So take with a grain of salt.
* * *
We’re trying out a reading club. I have no idea if it will succeed. The goal is a big bump in student pleasure reading.
1. All the middle schoolers choose after-school clubs. They meet 2x/week. Usually an hour.
2. What happens in the book club?
a. Kids are in small groups with a tutor. 3 or 4 kids.
b. The tutors work to get each kid a book he likes.
c. Each kid is using a Kindle.
(Mom, that’s a device that looks like a small hardcover book, but it has a screen. Pictured above. Which reminds me: Pru wants one for birthday. Which reminds me: our anniversary date approaches. Must make dinner reservation. And another note: I scrolled through 22 pages of kindle pictures on Google. Zero had hands that didn’t look like those of a white person. Okay, back to our story).
d. Simple club. If you enjoy what you’re reading, you just keep going. If not, tutors find out why. Probably need to get the kid a new book.
e. Some book discussion. Goal is to create some peer competition/pressure to keep reading the book. Tutors hype up what’s coming up in the book, kids talk about their favorite parts, etc.
3. Who are the kids?
We had room for 20 to 25 kids. About 70 were interested. We randomly chose the kids who’d participate. (Fun fact: an MIT senior volunteer, Noam Angrist, is carefully measuring our results. His dad, MIT economist Josh, is one of the leading authorities on this sort of stuff).
Got that? This particular intervention is not trying to reach the kids who describe themselves as hating reading. It’s going for kids who are open to the idea of reading, but don’t actually do it very often.
So this brings me to
Question 2:
a. During these 8 weeks, how many minutes per week pleasure reading will the 20-odd kids do out of school? (I.e., don’t count the time they’re actually sitting in this club).
Remember, the baseline is about 50 minutes a week.
b. Same question, different date.
When we do a follow-up survey in January or so — after the club has long ended — how many minutes per week pleasure reading will the 20-odd kids do out of school?
I look forward to any predictions in the comments.
I think the Patriots will win 12 games this year.
But I have no idea of the reading impact we’ll see, if any. I’ll guess:
a. The 50 minutes per week will rise to 3 hours per week.
b. The 3 hours per week will decline to 2 hours per week once the intervention is over, when we survey kids again in January.
Thanks for the post, Mike.
Hi blog readers, this is Ray, the guy who’s running the club. Here are my predictions:
Notre Dame wins 9 games. My big talk on Fridays with the middle schoolers comes back to bite me on 3 Mondays.
as for kids:
a. 50 minutes/week goes to 3.5 hours/week
b. that goes to 1.5 hours/week when we resurvey
As Mike mentioned, the 50 minutes/week is self-reported. I did some careful interviewing, but kids (well, humans in general) don’t tend to sit and time their reading habits accurately, and of course over-report their tendency to do something they think they’re supposed to do. But hopefully that’ll come out in the wash and the self-reported minutes during the club are equally biased upwards.
You piqued my interest, so I asked my 18 kids how many of them had read independently the previous night. About 12 had read. Most of those 12 had read at least 30 minutes, with about 8 had read for at least an hour. All 18 students said that they had read at home at some point over the past week.
I think the Kindle idea is interesting, but I think one way that kids get into books is by sharing them and passing them around when they really get into them. And you can’t see what someone else is reading on their Kindle. We find that one thing that helps is getting lots of new books in front of kids and talking them up. And then, once the first wave of kids finish them, getting them to share what they love with their friends. In my time teaching, there have been a number of waves – Potter, Twilight, Pretties, Cirque du Freak, Bone, Hunger Games, etc. Those books were like crack.
I think book clubs are great. I led one last year. One of the books was a hit and the other was too hard for most of them – not the reading, per se, but rather the concepts – religion vs. science, etc. I think there are a couple of things to consider. First, book clubs should be a team thing. Kids should be motivated to finish because they will be letting their team down otherwise because the discussion will suck. Second, I think tutors should bring books that are like crack, at least at first. If the goal is to really get kids hooked, don’t pick Mockingbird, or Malcolm X. Broach those with high readers later, once they are hooked.
On an aside, this year we have 30-45 minutes per day for sacred reading time in all classes. No other interruptions are allowed. Kids having that amount of time to focus has lead to a lot more reading, it seems to me. And they are reading choice books. One other thing, we are also ordering a ton of books. Each grade has a sizeable budget to buy books each month so continue stocking our libraries with fodder for reading.
Another thing to consider, that I didn’t know before last year, is that many new books have trailers like movies these days and you can get them online.
Hi, Mike–Really glad to see y’all are pushing forward on the issue of reading for pleasure; I believe it could close the gap more quickly than many other things. There are some resources on The Literacy Cookbook “Independent Reading” page (http://www.literacycookbook.com/page.php?id=139), including a couple of fun, creative ways for students (esp. MS and HS) to check out books they might enjoy reading: “Speed Dating with a Book” and “Weekend Date with a Book,” contributed by my friend Allison Miller, who used to teach at North Star and now heads the English Dept. at Paterson CS for Science & Technology. Over the summer, Allison and I developed a “Strategic Reading” elective for struggling HS students, the primary goal of which is to help students fall in love with reading.
One other thought for the book club is to consider starting a blog where students can share their reviews; I humbly submit my blog, “Only Good Books” (http://onlygoodbooks.wordpress.com/) as a model.
Can’t wait to hear how it goes!
Hi MG,
Over at Boston Prep, we’re actually doing a huge IR push this year as well. Our ELA Department created a whole new incentive system around IR. Each homeroom has an IR “mountain” with different benchmarks based upon the number of books that students have read. Each grade has a goal for how many books students should read by the end of the year to reach the “top” of the mountain, with litte prizes (pens, bookmarks) along the way as students hit their goals. Students get credit for a book when they submit a book review that we place in a classroom binder so that students can see which books their friends did/did not like and what other options there are if they like a particular genre. Our more valuble shift, I believe, however, is that we’re making independent reading a part of homework in 6-8 Reading classes. Students are assigned to read a certain amount (usuallly 15, sometimes 30) of choice reading and they are required to write down the pages they read and a 3-4 sentence summary of what happened. As a result, at the beginning of the year, students are already finishing 2-3 books (as they also have IR time during the day). The downside is tha this involves a lot of self-reporting and tracking by the teachers (both during IR time and when looking at HWs), so that some gaming of the system will probably happen. But we’re hoping that putting the emphasis on incentivizing and helping students find choice books will minimize it.
20% of kids lose/break/otherwise make useless their Kindles
50 minutes goes to 3 hours std. dev. 1.5 during the intervention, goes to 2 hours std. dev. 2.5 after intervention. Conclusion: intervention is remarkably effective for some kids.
Great idea Mike!
My prediction is as follows:
50 minutes/week will increase to 2.5-3.5 hours/week, but back down to 1.25 once the intervention ends.
Good luck!
I guess that during the club the kids will self-report reading for three hours a week; afterwards, maybe 100 minutes? Somewhere between 1.5 and 2 hours. That number could probably be bumped to the higher end by tutors who consistently engage kids in discussions about what they’re reading, recommend books, etc. Keep that norm going as much as possible. I also agree with mathteacher’s advice to give them books that are “like crack”—get them hooked! Definitely looking forward to seeing what comes of this experiment.
50 min will increase to 3 hours a week, back down to 2 hours once intervention is completed.
This is a great idea!
My prediction is that during book club, reading hours will increase from 50 minutes to 2.5-3 hours/week.
Once book club has ended, I think that reading levels will fall a bit, and be between 1.5 and 2 hours/week.
A. I think that students will certainly increase their out of school reading time during the weeks that the club is running, and I agree that 3 hours isn’t too much of a leap to expect!
B. I think a decrease in reading time after the club has ended is almost guaranteed, but I think that the extent of it can be mediated by continued engagement on behalf of the tutors. When I was a kid my dad would take us to the library on the weekends and bring home a huge stack of books that we had picked out together. If I had gone on my own, I don’t think I would have been able to select books that both interested me and helped develop my reading skills; I would have defaulted to picking easy books that matched or were below my skill level. If there’s a way to continue helping students with book selection (recommendation lists created before the club is over, some kind of check in during the winter term, etc) I think you may see a better return on your investment.
I don’t think the intervention will triple students reading, since the self report numbers were so seemingly inaccurate. I would predict it may double the initial number, however, with the intervention of book club and Kindle.
Im excited to see how this plays out with our students at MMS!
I also predict reading will increase to 3-3.5 hours during the “reading club” trial period, then drop back down towards 1.5-2hrs.
Awesome plan! I predict a definite increase in hrs/week while the intervention is going on, but in order to maintain those figures I think there would need to be some sort of check in/incentive!
A. I want to believe the best in the kids and I think that they will be reading around 2.5 hours a week outside of school during the 8 week program.
B. I imagine that the reading will decrease after the program is ended and the guidance has lessened to around 1 hour per week.
My prediction is that 50 min will increase to 2.5 hours a week.
Once reading club finishes, the motivation might dwindle to about 1 to 1.5 hours/week.
Predictions:
1) City edges out United (again…errr) for the cup, Chelsea finishes 3rd, and Arsenal drops to 6th.
2) 4 hours/week during club
3) 3 hours per week after club ends
I predict that during the duration of the club, student pleasure reading will increase from a weekly 50 minute average to a weekly 3.5 hour (30 minutes per day) average. After the intervention has ended a decline will most likely occur to a weekly average of 2.3 hours (20 minutes a day), however; I do predict some outliers of scholars who become hooked on pleasure reading and begin reading a weekly average of 5+ hours.
I’d love to see the intervention lead to a 2+ hour bump…but it just seems unrealistic. I predict that:
a) the 50 minutes goes up to 2 hours/week during intervention
b) it drops down to 1-1.5 hour after the intervention ends
@Dylan – I think your Kindle prediction is funny. I’d be interested to see the results of that prediction as well.
2a. I predict that it will go from 50 minutes per week to 3 hours. Of course it depends on the book and how engrossed they are in it.
2b. I think that the number will go back down to about an hour. I think it’s surprisingly difficult to find books that really grab your attention; it’s something I know I struggle with. Without the support that comes from a book club like this, I think it would be hard for the students to do it independently. Perhaps one element of the book club can be teaching students how to learn about new books that would be enjoyable reads, so that if they are motivated to read more, they know where to find appropriate and interesting books.
50 mins will improve to 1.5 hours.
I predict that kids will report 2-2.5 hours a week during the intervention, but that it will drop to 1-1.5 after.
I think they’ll be reading at least 30 min a day. So that would be at least 3.5 hours Per week.
During the “reading interventions” students will not only have tutors supporting them, but the pressure of their classmates as well. Reading could become competitive, and if one student’s friend is on page 200 of the Hunger Games, they may try to log the long hours to catch up.
My prediction:
a. During the Club: The self-reported 50 minutes will jump to 3.25 hours. (Students will burn through series of popular books such as The Hunger Games, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, etc.) The Kindle will still be new, and exclusive.
b. Post Intervention: Students will still struggle to find books that they enjoy. Many may have finished reading entire series and give up on finding something just as good. Also, January/February is hard on everyone. 3.25 hours will dip to 1.5.
I’m an optimist so I will say the 50 minutes will go to 2.5 hours and after the intervention will either stay at 2.5 hours or go up to 3!
I’d estimate the kids read 3-4 hours a week on their own. Many of them have long commutes to and from school and it’s likely that they will spend at least some of that time, at least in the afternoon when they’re more awake. As far as after the initial study goes, I think it will depend on a number of things. If the students got interested in a series or particular author, their outside reading minutes will be higher than those students who read just one book…I’d estimate about 2 hours. Other students will probably go back to between 1-1.5 hours. If the students are allowed to continue to use or have access to a kindle, I think their numbers will be consistently higher than those without the technological aid, probably about 1.5-2 hours. Excited to see how it turns out!
This club is a fantastic idea. I hope it gets more kids interested in reading in their spare time! Here are my predictions:
A) While the kids are attending reading club, their hours spent reading per week will go up to 3 or 4.
B) After the club is finished, about half the kids will keep reading for 3 or 4 hours a week on their own. The other half will start reading only 1 hour a week.
This is awesome, looking forward to seeing the results.
My prediction:
The 20+ kids in the club will read 2.5 hours a week outside of school during the club existence.
Afterwards in January, I’m thinking half of them maintain a 2.5 hour a week habit, whereas the others drop down to a 1 hour a week reading schedule.
Question, are you counting every sort of outside of school reading (including sports news online, random articles, stories etc.) or is it strictly books?
Also, 49ers are gonna be in the Super Bowl this year.
Awesome! I predict that reading during the book club will definitely increase to at least 3 hours/week. At this age, the pleasure of reading on a kindle alone I think will keep the kids engaged and pumped.
After book club has ended, I would expect the amount of reading time per week to be half of what it was during the book club. However, like others have already said here, with the proper motivation from teachers and tutors, and an effort to keep a sustained interest in pleasure reading, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the number could stay as high as 3 hours/week.
My prediction is that students will increase their reading to 1.5-2 hours/week. It would be interesting to survey them on whether they wish they could read more, but I think so many of these kids have homework demands that prevent them from reading as much as they might like to.
I think that if they have adults around them that continue to support their reading after the book club ends, the students will continue to read just as much, maybe a little bit less.
Predictions & a Suggestion:
I think the amount of independent reading the middle school students will do, both during the test and after the test, will be connected to:
a) whether the students started a series they will want to continue reading after the book club ends (like the Hunger Games!)
b) if there are any built-in incentives and/or structures for pleasure reading during the typical school day, and
c) how much actual homework the students are already dealing with. As a Match Corps member, I know I don’t have a lot of time to read things outside of my Match work – I’d imagine it’s a similar situation for our students!
And a suggestion:
I wonder – if students were ever allowed to take the Kindles home – if there would be a way to program them so that you could reliably monitor the number of pages they turned per week, or the amount of time they spent reading or the number of books they read. That way, “self-reporting” might not be as much of an issue.
Good stuff!
My prediction:
First 8 weeks- 2 hrs
January- 1 hr
I’m really excited to hear and see how this works out at school.
I predict the kids reading will jump up to a 2 hours outside of school and the club. The kids don’t really have that much time out of school, and they have a decent amount of homework each night.
I think it will go back down to about 1.5 hours after the intervention is over. Hopefully the tutors will begin to teach the kids how to select books they are interested in from summaries, titles, genres etc. so the students are able to facilitate these selections themselves after the club is over.
Predictions: Go Cards! UofL will finish top 20. (Professional sports are for the birds.)
a.) 2 hours/week
b.) 1 hour/week
Awesome Mike, love the approach. I do think that this will have a significant impact on the amount of time our students spend reading for pleasure. My prediction is that a substantial minority of the students will make significant progress towards becoming avid readers as a result of this program. Many others will likely settle back down near the baseline due to the endless list of distractions.
For numbers, I’ll say a 200% increase in reading time during the intervention.
Best of luck!
Because two of my tutees were randomly selected to participate in this study, I am very curious to see how it will turn out. With that said, I know that they are both super pumped that they will be able to read on/hold/look at things via a kindle (that was half of the idea behind this, right?), not necessarily that they will get to read. With that said, both of my students are eager 6th graders who are motivated, hardworking, and want to be successful (relatively speaking). With students similar to them, I can see this being very successful and effective. On the flip side, I think that the awe of the kindle will only reel in those students who have no desire or like for reading for so long, but will eventually lose its appeal.
I am excited to see how it will turn out and what the study will actually reveal!
I predict that we will have 5 days of snow that makes Boston turn into a crying, screaming, horrible baby.
Also, I think that the kids will make a bump to 3 hours. Have you seen Middle Schoolers and their techie-geek outs?
After January, I think it will drop down to 1.5. Kids need incentive beyond techie-geek outs. They need people telling them why and how it’s going to make them better.
1 (my longshot prediction): The Panthers win the Super Bowl.
2. Reading goes up to 2.5 to 3 on average a week. More for a few students. I say this because while self-reporting numbers were <50 minutes, you still had 70+ students interested in your club.
3. I can definitely see the number leveling off to 2 hours or so a week, if not staying consistent. I agree with Reuben and Adelaide in their emphasis on teachers following up with students—making recommendations, checking in with what new books are being read.
I’ve seen a club of this sort work well with a middle school population, and am excited to see how it works at the Match MS. I think a key factor is the level of individuality placed into each book choice. Students are far more likely, in my opinion, to read a book that a respected teacher or tutor recommends than they are to finish a book they picked up simply because they liked the pictures on the cover.
1. Because of the level of accountability involved in a reading club, I do believe the student reading level will increase to 3.5 or 4 hours during the club (I’m optimistic!)
2. I think the level of downfall in terms of the students’ reading participation levels depends on a few key factors. a) Are students still given books to read by tutors or teachers they respect and love OR b) are students simply left to their own devices, and not encouraged to continue reading?
In light of these variables, I’ll keep my hopes high and say the hours of outside reading in January will fluctuate between 2 and 2.5 hours a week–fingers crossed!
It seems like this could break down two ways – the novelty of technology could wear off, or the change in availability could be effective enough to win over more reading. This seems like a smart question to gain some information on regardless of the outcome, so I’m a big fan of the attempt. I bet you discover a double digit number of student who, given greater access, will read more with the device continuously, but I also think the majority of students will lose interest as the program continues. Big kudos for reaching out, using technology in an interesting way, and changing some minds.
This is a really interesting intervention. I’m gonna be generous with my answer and say that students will read for 45 minutes a day at home; but, part of me feels like reading in school comes much more naturally to most kids than reading for fun at home (hopefully I’m wrong!).
I second Chelsea’s comments: 2 hours per week as the median during the club seems reasonable, with a dip to an hour to an hour and a half once the club is over.
Would students keep the Kindles once the book club is over? I think that as long as students learn how to “borrow” books and not have to buy each one at retail price they have the potential to bump the times up and keep them up longer since they are so fun to use!
As someone who loves books and stories of every kind, I very much appreciate this experiment and its goals, so thank you!
I predict that outside reading time will go up to between 2-3 hours. Ideally, if students find a book they love, they’ll get hooked, and work through them the way most of us work through seasons of new, hilarious TV shows.
If they don’t latch onto a genre they love, I still think that during book club, their outside reading time will at least go up to two hours. After book club ends, it will probably drop down again. For those who get hooked onto a certain author or genre, hopefully their outside reading time will remain high and even increase! That said, the older they get, the more homework they’ll have, and their pleasure reading may decrease in order to try and keep up with the demands of school.
Good luck with the study!
I think that the positive peer pressure / reinforcement of the group will encourage kids to read a lot more while the group is going on. The kids have a lot of other things going on, though . . . they are in school for long days and have quite a bit of homework, so I would guess that those gains will drop off when the regular group and its positive reinforcement ends.
I predict that the kids will report 3 hours of reading/week during the intervention, and 1 hour/week after. That would still be a good result, since that positive reinforcement could be re-introduced any time.
I’m concerned, like Ray, about the possibility of different biases in self-reporting, especially if the intervention signals to kids that Match wants them to read more and that somehow incentivizes them to overreport *more* in the post report than they did in the pre report. :-/ I’m hoping this won’t be a huge issue and/or the gains in reading will be so big that we have some buffer that lets us plausibly believe that at least some of the gain was not self-reporting inflation.
Anyway, I’m working with the chillens after school to help them find books, and some of them seem really psyched. Given that experience, and the fact that everyone likes positive attention, plus the fact that Ray emphasized that we (the tutors) would be checking in next week on how much they read, I’d expect some increase in IR among those students who remain in the club, maybe up to 1.5-2.5 hours (based, VERY loosely, on my own little sisters’ reading times). I’m not really sure about expected attrition rate, though… if it’s high that could obviously dramatically lower the effect of the “intention to treat”… I’m thinking that the social aspect of it, plus encouragement from Ray and the tutors, plus the “nudge” that gets students to take the 5 minutes to sample a book… will all help. Fingers crossed.
I think that the kids’ reading will increase to 2.5 hours. Putting the right book in their hands is key and tutors are able to offer guidance on this subject. However, after the intervention, reading will decrease to 1-1.5 hours. There’s a lot of extrinsic motivational factors in the club that aren’t building the intrinsic motivation kids will need to continue reading after the club is over.
I am not a pleasure reader myself. Or I hadn’t been. Hunger Games changed my life. Literally. Which is sort of sad in a way…but it was the first book I ever “inhaled” (as I keep calling it). After that, I wanted to keep going. I found books that came close, and I went through them pretty quickly, but then my effort faded, and I haven’t read for pleasure in a while (with all that free time I have I know it’s pretty crazy!)
ANYWAY – I guess what I’m saying is that in terms of question 1, I predict that the reading will go to as much as an hour a day, maybe more on reading days. When you’re in a book, I mean really IN it, there’s no putting it down. I do wonder if this would promote homework completion or decrease it, however. Would the kids feel that they are fulflilling their academic responsibilities for a day since they are spending so much time reading? I don’t know.
Question 2 – I would say it depends on how effectively the tutors were able to “expand the horizons” during the club time. Are the kids leaving with a wider sense of books they are interested in, material they want to learn more about, authors they like, and genres that really grab them? Or have they taken a chance on a few books and REALLY only enjoyed one? It’s hard to say…I would say, as much as a tutor was able to successfully diversify the selection of books, the better chance a student would continue to read for pleasure in the future. They really need to feel that they have ownership of their reading, that it’s something they want to do for THEM, because THEY like it.
I think this is a awesome idea and I predict it that reading with book club will increase 2 hours/week. I do see these numbers falling once the intervention comes to an end. One would hope that it would not be a dramatic drop. The hope is that the habit will be planted.
During the 8 weeks of book club, I think student reading will be at 2.5-3 hours a week. The fact that kindles are provided saves the student the need to go to the library and pick out a book and omits any logistical excuses they’ve had for not reading in the past. Plus it will be new and exciting to have their own personal kindle. I think that long after the book club as ended, reading might go down to 1 or 2 hours a week because there is no one checking in or holding the students accountable for their reading in the absence of the book club.
Great idea!
I think the reading will increase to 2 hours a week. Unfortunately, I think this number will decrease to 1 hour after January. A lot of reading after the club will depend on the resources provided outside of school. Maybe the students can tour a local library and be shown how to find books that fit their interest on their own.
Great idea for a club!
1) I predict that students in the club will bump their reading time up to 2.5-3 hours a week.
2) After the club ends, I predict that some students (maybe 1/4 of the students) will maintain their interest, dropping only to about 2 hrs/week, although most students will inevitably drop off more, as low as 1 hr/week. I would also be curious to see how their interest would be affected if they were required to check in with their tutors on a weekly basis, although they wouldn’t have to read with them .
And as for REAL football – Manchester City to repeat as EPL champions. CTID
I believe that the student reading times will increase to about 2 hours/week. With the joy of a new kindle and the fact that they will be able to choose the books they can read, I think there will be an initial increase, then maybe return to the baseline of 50 mins/ week.
I think the average of 50 minutes will increase to 1.5(ish) average hours per student.
Seems like a lot of students don’t like reading because “it’s too hard” or they perceive themselves to not be good at it. Even if kids are reading what they want to read, their inability to get through the pages as quickly as they want to will discourage some of them. Also, I think that students who are already positive about reading will probably increase at least, if not more, than 3x their baseline because the access they have to what they want to read is increased.
1. I think that MMS students pleasure reading probably varies with their transportation options and propensity for carsickness
The average is going to be misleading – of those who read there’s probably about 1.75 hours of reading (think 15 minutes in bed each night) per week. Others might not read at all.
2. a. I think that those 20-odd kids might see a small misleading drop in pleasure reading outside of school because of the time they spend in class. There really isn’t much time for those kiddos to do much and they may “allot” that club time as their reading time. Maybe an hour?
b. If we look at those kids in January, I think they’ll read more. They’ll have had a vacation to read over and will probably have more books as a result – say 2 hours.
I’m really excited about this little experiment. I know that my pleasure reading time went up a lot when I got a Kindle and I was pretty anti-Kindle for a while. (Hey, I’m old-fashioned.) It’s just so convenient on public transportation and I’m envisioning that if these students really like what they’re reading, they’ll continue to read post-book club, on the commute home.
SO, I think student reading will increase by about 3 hours a week while the experiment is going on. I’m going to be positive and say that it only drops by 1 hour per week after the experiment is over. Good luck!
I think that not only the SUPER cool technological advice will encourage kids to read but the fact that they will have tutors working with them to find books that are of interest to them will definitely make a huge difference in the amount of hours spent out of school reading. If their tutors work with them to find their interests, recommend books, and then have the kids preview these books and read the first few pages of the chapter before we purchase the book for them I believe reading time will go up to around 3.5-4 hours per week (assuming they are totally hooked on this book). After the intervention I think the reading will probably go down to around 3-3.5 hours per week but hopefully the kids will have learned the skill of previewing a book and thus picking books that truly are of interest to them. Perhaps the recommendations of the tutors will help some students fall in love with the work of some really awesome writers that they hope to read more of.
1. I think that students while in the club will increase the hours of reading between 1 to 2 hours per week because they will be held accountable by their peers and tutors to read the book in order to be prepared for discussion when they meet
2. Once the club is over, I believe, that the majority of students’ average reading time per week will return to their own personal baseline
granted – if there is an influential way to incorporate independent learning and ownership of one’s education into the club, then maybe there’s a chance where students will want to read more often than before. Without the competitive component
I predict that the time spent reading will go up to 2 hours, but will drop back to 1 hour after the club has ended. I can’t wait to see the results!
“If you give a child a book…”
I think the amount of time spent reading outside of school and the book club may increase between 1-1.5 hours but only if some things are held constant. For example, the student finds a book or book series that they seriously enjoy, provided that they have access to these books via library, friend, etc.
Understanding that students who love to read may not have a personal library at home, the likelihood of their reading time outside of school and the book club may not increase.
How does book selection work on a Kindle? I know we all say “don’t judge a book by its cover” but you know that’s why some kids pick up books. If they can’t see the covers, how do the decide what to read next (especially after the intervention). Oh, and beware games on the Kindle…
I predict a gain in reading while the club is going on. Perhaps up to two hours per week depending on if a student finds a book that they get hooked to or not. After the club is over and as we approach the January survey I believe the reading times will have decreased and there will be some seriously different data. I predict winter weather to be a part of this decrease.
I recall reading years ago an alarming Newsweek article detailing the decline of student creativity. I’m assuming a bombarding of societal stimuli targeted towards today’s youth stifles these creative capabilities. As a child where my childhood neighborhood was the background setting to my many imaginative adventures with other neighborhood kids, it was a disheartening piece to read. Could technology be a symptom of this decline and pleasure reading a seeming casualty?
However, I wonder if the introduction of this technology will harness a perception of “coolness” among tweens/teens connecting them to one another as experienced with the conspicuous use of cell phones and text messaging among tweens/teens after cell phones gained popularity in this age group. I wonder if the introduction of the Kindle for youth pleasure reading will improve tween/teen connections, and as a result, influence their peers to accept not only the behavior of pleasure reading but also adopt this method to continue to read as well.
So in response to your pondering proposals:
1) Taking into consideration the varying reading speeds, I would hope students engage in at least 5-10 minutes per evening of pleasure reading of some sort (i.e. novels, any magazines, teen/tween high glossy, newsletters, comic books, cartoon comic strips, etc.). Thus, my weekly average would be about 30-60 minutes of active pleasure reading (forgiving of time on the weekend for other recreational play).
2a) I would guess about 80 minutes per week or 15 minutes per evening (inclusive of weekends).
2b) By January, I’d think the numbers could grow to 100 minutes weekly.
Maybe reaching students via a medium they accept as a “social norm”, i.e. technological handheld devices like the Kindle, versus an option they consider a “scholastic norm” like paper novels will resonate with them. Hopefully, this will ignite not only a youth’s pleasure of reading but also their creative and imaginative spirit.
Is it possible to increase a 12 year olds reading pleasure? I think so. As a student who struggled learning how to read I hated reading for pleasure until the summer between my first year of college and my sophomore year. What got me hooked on books? Reading books I liked. That related to my life or that totally took me into a life I wanted to be living. I think if we can find books these 12 year old like. That fulfill “something” that they are looking for in their lives. I think it will happen. These students will become hooked on books.
I predict that patriot fans will continue to be upset about the fact that we Giants fans live among them.
Also, I predict that:
a. During the 8 weeks, student self-reported reading will increase to 2.5-3 hrs per week
b. After reading club ends the reading will decrease back down to 1.25-1.5 hrs.
I think a CRUCIAL part of this study is the tutor picking books out for the students and a way to increase the reading time after the club is to teach students how/where to find books they might enjoy.
Here’s a great half step towards getting kids interested in reading more. Audiobooks. Not quite as good as actual reading, but it’s a step in the right direction. There’s lots of sites where you can download them for free. Here’s one that we use a lot. http://www.twirlygirlshop.com/stories-for-kids