Children should read independently for information and enjoyment.

Reading well is the key to learning across nearly all subjects in school.  Reading aloud is highly beneficial and many children have this type of reading homework from school, but it’s absolutely crucial that they also read independently, inside their head.  Read on to find a few of the benefits of independent reading.

1.    Independent reading improves comprehension

If children read a lot, their reading comprehension is better.  Students who have low recognition of author’s names tend to have lower comprehension scores.  Conversely, students who have higher recognition of author names perform better in comprehension tasks.   This suggests that your child should read widely – and read books by many different authors. ¹

2.  Frequent independent reading improves vocabulary and reading speed

In 1988, Anderson, Wilson and Fielding ² found that the number of books children read is the best predictor for reading speed, vocabulary and (again) comprehension.

A varied reading diet improves vocabulary, reading speed and comprehension.

3.  Timing matters

For students in low reading ability groups, 15 minutes of independent silent reading appears to be more beneficial than 40 minutes for improving skills such as reading speed and comprehension. However, for the same students 40 minutes of independent silent reading appears to improve word recognition skills more effectively. For the high ability readers, 40 minutes of independent silent reading has the most beneficial effects for developing comprehension skills. ³

4.  Different types of book offer different benefits

There are two types of reading: reading for enjoyment and reading for information. Reading for enjoyment is the kind of reading in which you can fall into a book or a magazine and lose yourself in it for a while.  You can lose track of time as you find yourself gripped by a thrilling plot, unable to stop turning the pages.  Reading poetry or novels would fall into the ‘reading for enjoyment’ category (reading guru Louise Rosenblatt called this ‘aesthetic’ reading).  Reading for information (‘efferential’ reading) can be reading instructions for a game or reading a train time table.

Although there is often an overlap between the two types of reading (e.g. a novel could contain factual information which you absorb as your read the story), Rosenblatt said that the two types of reading were at opposite ends of a reading spectrum and that the benefits of each type were quite different.  Children who practise both types of reading develop their reading skills more effectively than those who don’t.  This means that your child should read efferently (for information) and aesthetically (for enjoyment).

How to encourage independent reading

Read tomorrow’s blog post to find out the best ways to encourage independent reading.  If you’d like to talk to a teacher about this, call me – Christine McLaughlin – on 0161 748 3912, and book a free assessment at our Urmston tuition centre.

¹ Reference: Stanovich, West, Cunnigham, Cipielewski, and Siddiqui (1996)

² Anderson, Wilson and Fielding, 1988

³ S. Jay Samuels Yi-Chen Wu, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota http://www.tc.umn.edu/~samue001/web%20pdf/manuscript%20277-04.pdf