[Krashen] To raise NAEP scores ... (published in Education Week)

[Stephen Krashen's Mailing List]

 Published: January 25, 2006
 Letter -  Education Week

To Raise NAEP Scores, Improve Access to Books

To the Editor:

You report that comparing 2005 National Assessment of
Educational Progress scores from 11 cities is not
beneficial in determining the effectiveness of reading
approaches("NAEP Results Offer Scant Insight Into Best
Reading Strategies," Jan. 11, 2006.) . But NAEP has
taught us a great deal: NAEP results consistently
confirm that children with more access to reading
material read better, and that children who read more
likewise read better.

NAEP itself has reported a positive relationship
between the amount of reading children do and how well
they perform on its reading test. Also, NAEP analyses
have shown that scores are higher when teachers give
students more time to read books of their own
choosing.

In an analysis of NAEP scores in 41 states, Jeff
McQuillan, in his book The Literacy Crisis: False
Claims, Real Solutions, reported a strong relationship
between performance on the NAEP test and the quality
of children’s overall print environment (books
available at home, school libraries, and public
libraries). This relationship remained when the effect
of poverty was controlled.

We should also consider the interesting case of
California. That state’s extremely low score on NAEP
in 1992 was blamed on whole-language reading
instruction. Yet, despite the purge of whole language
from California schools and the introduction of
intensive, systematic phonics, there has been no
significant improvement in California’s NAEP scores:
The state still ranks near the bottom among states
that took the national assessment, tied for next to
last in 2005. California has the worst school
libraries in the nation and among the worst public
libraries. This was true in 1992 and remains so today.

These results suggest that the way to get higher NAEP
scores is to improve children’s access to books, and
the most obvious way for schools to do this is to
improve their libraries. Studies show that when
interesting and comprehensible reading materials are
available, children do in fact read. Perhaps NAEP
scores have “stagnated” because we have not considered
this easily discerned way of improving reading.
 Stephen Krashen
 Professor Emeritus
 University of Southern California
 Los Angeles, Calif.