Set Our Teachers FREE!

The New York Times released the results of a study completed by the National Endowment for the Arts. The study was based on the results of data analysis from over two dozen government studies, as well as several academic, foundation and business surveys.

And the 99-page report shows that the news is NOT good. In fact, the chairman is quoted as describing the data as

“simple, consistent and alarming”

It seems that even with the increase in reading of the Harry Potter series, James Patterson’s numerous best sellers, and Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club, Americans, especially American youth are reading less than ever, even for fun.

Especially notable among the findings is that as reading declines, other academic disciplines, including math, science and basic writing skills decline also. Results shown:

“. . . reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college.”

So I guess there is no surprise in the findings that

“. . . students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.”

Duh! Ya’ think?

We must nurture a love of learning in our students, not bore them into tuning out and dropping-out.

In “Set Our Teachers FREE! A Plan to Save Public Education”, the author Don Kingsland shares some techniques he used to get his remedial students to enjoy reading and then excel. We need to be implementing the guidelines in The Kingsland Plan to get children reading well, and comprehending what they read early in their education. When children learn to enjoy and understand what they read, then they are much more eager to spend the time doing it.

Rather than just sending our children through the motions and the routines, we need to inspire them to thrive and become Education Superstars. Join the fight to help our children excel.

Let’s start getting some good results in all these studies instead!

Brennan

Filed under: Education News