Category Archives: Research

Reading Research

Digital Practices for Reading Study

 Researchers “used an academic resilience framework to explore how adolescents from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds overcame adversity and achieved high levels of reading proficiency. Our main aim was to investigate whether digital reading practices and reading engagement (reading motivation and metacognitive strategies) could act as protective factors, individually and collectively, promoting academic resilience among students with low SES. Digital reading was related to reading motivation, and then to better awareness of metacognitive strategies, which in turn was shown to be linked to increased reading achievement for all students.

Jang, E., Seo, Y., & Brutt-Griffler, J. (2022). Building Academic Resilience in Literacy: Digital Reading Practices and Motivational and Cognitive Engagement. Reading Research Quarterly.

https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.486 

Reading Intervention Programs Literature Review

 Noticing that most scholarly efforts to examine the efficacy of reading intervention (RI) programs reviewed quantitative analyses of changes in reading tests, investigators reviewed 20 years of research, specifically examining two key facets of RI: placement and curriculum. What they discovered was a perpetuating cycle of instruction that keeps students trapped in intervention programs.

Learned, J., Frankel, K, & Brooks, M. (2022). Disrupting Secondary Reading Intervention: A Review of Qualitative Research and a Call to Action. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 65(6), 507-517. https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.1234

Secondary School Reading Study in England

A recent study of reading achievement of students in England’s secondary schools revealed several factors that predicted reading gains: leadership of reading such as a deputy head of literacy lead, regular assessment to accurately determine students’ reading needs, training staff on emerging reading strategies, highly skilled librarians to select and promote appropriate books, adequate funding to support reader needs, and staff awareness of students’ reading levels and needs.

‘Now the whole school is reading’: Supporting struggling readers in secondary schools. (2022, Oct.). Ofstead.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/now-the-whole-school-is-reading-supporting-struggling-readers-in-secondary-school/now-the-whole-school-is-reading-supporting-struggling-readers-in-secondary-school#monitoring-the-impact-of-additional-teaching-and-knowing-what-works

Print books preference study

An Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study across approximately 30 countries found that teens who said they most often read paper books scored considerably higher on a 2018 reading test taken by 15-year-olds compared to teens who said they rarely or never read books. Even among students of similar socioeconomic backgrounds, those who read books in a paper format scored a whopping 49 points higher on the Program for International Student Assessment, known as PISA. That’s equal to almost 2.5 years of learning. By comparison, students who tended to read books more often on digital devices scored only 15 points higher than students who rarely read  – a difference of less than a year’s worth of learning.

Ikeda, M. and G. Rech (2022), “Does the digital world open up an increasing divide in access to print books?”, PISA in Focus, No. 118, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/54f9d8f7-en.

Print and Reading Study

Teenagers who say they most often read paper books scored higher on reading tests than their peers who rarely or never read, according to a study of students in about 30 countries by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Findings showed that students who read physical books also outpaced students who read digital books. 

OECD. (2022). Does the digital world open up an increasing divide in access to print books? (2022). OECD. https://doi.org/10.1787/22260919

International Literacy Association Report about School Librarians

The International Literacy Association published a new report about the leadership of school librarians, which may be access at https://www.literacyworldwide.org/docs/default-source/where-we-stand/the-essential-leadership-of-school-librarians.pdf?sfvrsn=f80c5216_6&fbclid=IwAR1BakLc6z83Q4PUXkHTsufjc9OAPym4BxY6nxXMKOSDHhbUWp3Ba9-6-z4

Impact of low literacy levels among U.S. adults

“A new study by Gallup on behalf of the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy finds that low levels of adult literacy could be costing the U.S. as much $2.2 trillion a year.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old – about 130 million people – lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. That’s a shocking number for several reasons, and its dollars and cents implications are enormous because literacy is correlated with several important outcomes such as personal income, employment levels, health, and overall economic growth.

Commenting on the significance of the study, British A. Robinson, president and CEO of the Barbara Bush Foundation, said, ‘America’s low literacy crisis is largely ignored, historically underfunded and woefully under-researched, despite being one of the great solvable problems of our time. We’re proud to enrich the collective knowledge base with this first-of-its-kind study, documenting literacy’s key role in equity and economic mobility in families, communities and our nation as a whole.’”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=1ebea3624c90