These are definitely reading days.  Don’t believe me?  Check out the front page of today’s Washington Post.  Jay Matthews brings us the latest data from Accelerated Reader, an online reading program from Renaissance Learning.  Looking at its student usage data from more than 63,000 schools nationwide, AR has identified what books today’s students are reading … and how often they are reading them.

The full Matthews story is here — http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/04/ST2008050402168.html?hpid=topnews.  The AR study can be found here — http://www.renlearn.com/whatkidsarereading/ReadingHabits.pdf?sid=ST2008050402168.

The results are both interesting and disturbing.  Some of the top titles are to be expected.  “Green Eggs and Ham” is tops for first graders.  “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” for fourth graders.  “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” was most read for second graders.

All of these are fun, well-written books that can be found in most independent reading collections for those grade levels.  But we’re also seeing a number of “required” reading titles on the list, particularly with the older grades.

“The Outsiders” was tops for seventh and eighth graders.  Eduflack remembers that as required reading in middle school.  And for high schoolers, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was the most-read book.  The Harper Lee classic has long been a mandatory read in ninth or 10th grade classes throughout the country.

Such data is interesting.  The most popular titles today, for the most part, were popular titles when Eduflack was in school decades ago.  What’s disturbing, though, is the amount of reading these students are doing.  We all keep hearing about the Harry Potter effect, and how kids are reading more today than they used to (due, in part, to the tri-wizard champion).  But AR’s data seems to tell a different story.

The average seventh grader is only reading seven books a year.  Take away the required readings like “The Outsiders,” and it is probably safe to say these junior high students are only reading two or three books independently each year.  Even more disturbing are high schoolers.  The average 12th grader is reading four books a year, meaning after books assigned in English class, the only thing seniors are reading is the back of a cereal box.

If we’ve learned anything during the RF era, it is that good reading comes in two parts.  Students need to gain the instructional building blocks identified under the law — phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.  Then they need to practice it.  They need to read in class and outside of it.  They need to continue to develop those skills.  They need to become readers for life.

Reading is like any other skill.  If you want to play golf, you can get instruction on how to tee off, how to chip, and how to putt.  You can learn how to read the greens and choose your clubs.  But if you aren’t out there knocking out a few buckets a week and playing on real courses, you will never be a good golfer (though completing those tasks is no guarantee of success, trust me).  Developing skills requires practice, practice, practice.  And reading skills are no different.

This data also helps us see the need to prioritize independent reading in our schools and homes.  And that is due to the continued importance of statewide assessments.  When it comes to ELA, the assessment is one big independent reading test.  Think about it.  The test may include an excerpt from “Charlotte’s Web,” but it isn’t a test on how much you know about spiders and pigs. Assessments are independent, cold reads.  We test a student’s ability to comprehend what they read. Do they know the vocabulary?  Can they read and process it in the requisite period of time?  Can they reach conclusions based on what they read?

Now, we must see what we can do with this data from AR.  How do we use it to get good books in the hands of good students?  How do we set goals to increase book consumption among students of all ages?  How, exactly, do we build the reading skills of all students?

Lots of questions.  In RF and in successful schools throughout the nation, we can find the answers.  We just need to look.  And we need to know how to read the signs.