DO THEY REALLY READ DURING SSR?

Stahl also questions whether children in SSR actually engage in reading. He cites his own observations of one pair of children "who were taking turns and turning pages in a shared book, looking as if they were sharing reading. When I came close enough to listen to what they were saying, however, I heard them talking about what they were going to do that weekend" (p. 206).

First, Stahl is discussing shared reading, not sustained silent reading. Second, several studies have shown that if SSR classes are observed in the middle of the school year, about 90% of the students are reading (Von Sprecken and Krashen, 1998; Cohen, 1999; Herda and Ramos, 2001) and the probability of students’ actually reading is increased when several factors are present, e.g. access to interesting reading material, teachers reading while children are reading, etc. (Von Sprecken and Krashen, 1998). Third, Stahl’s conclusion is based on one observation of two children.

TOO EASY, TOO HARD?

Stahl also mentions another "failing" of SSR: " ... I have seen children read books that are very easy or very difficult for them, neither of which would aid in their reading development" (p. 206).

Concerning "easy books": Easy books can do readers a lot of good. First, what looks easy isn’t always so easy. If a reader who reads at the sixth grade level reads a book that is "officially" at the fourth grade level, that book will still contain a substantial amount of language at or above the student’s level. Reading level is an average (thanks to Kathleen Sesplaukis for pointing this out to me).

Second, an easy book can provide the taste and background knowledge that will lead to and facilitate reading other books. Third, readers don’t stick to light and easy reading – their reading tastes gradually develop (LaBrant, 1958). In addition, it has been argued that reading has to feel effortless for it to result in language development; studies indicate that a text needs to be about 98% comprehensible in order for it to help the reader acquire new vocabulary (e.g Hu and Nation, 1995).

Stahl prefers "hard" reading "scaffolded through repeated reading and/or teacher assistance" (p. 207). If that were necessary or even optimal, nobody would ever want to improve in reading. The way all of us improved in reading was extensive reading of texts that did not necessitate strain and suffering, and that were so interesting we were completely absorbed in the message. Delayed gratification is not necessary to learn to read and to improve in reading.

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