My Intuition Was Wrong: Independent Reading Doesn't Make You a Stronger Reader

So I was wrong about independent reading.

I just found out today that the intuition I've had all along that if you read a lot you'll get good at reading is kind of backwards and I saw a presentation slide on this on Twitter and then I looked it up found an article from Tim Shanahan from a few years ago that explained that independent reading does not have a strong evidence base as far as making kids better readers and that goes against our intuition based on the observation that strong readers read a lot which is what I see in my kids which is what I saw in my own life that you read a lot you get good at reading and the direction of causality seems clear like reading leads to being a good reader what shanahan says in this article is that if anything the causality goes the other direction that kids who are good at reading read a lot and that matters whenever we're designing some sort of instructional plan or intervention So all of the schools that are doing drop everything and read or sustain silent reading or, you know, some sort of activity where a lot of time during the school day is devoted to independent reading.

Like that means that time is probably not being used very well.

And of course, reading is a good thing.

I certainly don't want to discourage reading in any way, but there's opportunity cost.

And when it comes down to the best use of time for reading, independent reading is not it.

So I'll link to Tim's article that talks about this and that discusses some of the research, which is kind of mixed.

But it makes sense to me that if students are reading independently at a book that they've chosen, they're probably not going to be reading a challenging book most of the time.

They're going to read something that is below their instructional level and at or below their independent reading level because it's independent reading.

And maybe we should be rethinking whether we are spending a lot of time on drop everything and read.

But I think this is a really interesting issue.

because it goes against our vibes right the things that do seem to have research support behind them like choral reading echo reading which i've talked about recently reading aloud as a class having the students repeat like all the things that just don't have a great vibe these days compared to silent reading sustained silent reading like the adult vibe is everybody reads their own book Quietly and it's great.

It feels like what we want as fluent adult readers But that does not necessarily line up with what the evidence says about what actually teaches students to read and this is the same problem we saw with Lucy Calkins and readers workshop that our vibes as Adults do not always align with what works for kids and when there's a discrepancy like that We have got to look at the evidence and we have got to do what actually works not what feels the most intuitive to us so I was guilty of that up to up until today and when I discovered that sustained silent reading does not make you a better reader.

It does not make you more proficient to read just because you've read a lot.

It's the other way around.

So I'm a little bit shaken up by this, but I'm also just reminded of the importance of actually looking at the research.

Let me know what you think.