The National Center for Learning Disabilities (1/20/12) reports:
A recent study published in the journal Child Development shed some light on the which comes first (as in “chicken or egg”) debate about reading, looking specifically at elementary school-age children and investigating whether reading achievement at age 10 predicted independent reading behavior at age 11. (Read an abstract of “Associations Between Reading Achievement and Independent Reading in Early Elementary School: A Genetically Informative Cross-Lagged Study.”)
Parents and educators have long emphasized the importance of independent reading for fun or leisure, assuming that getting kids to read more on their own will lead to improvements in their reading scores. The researchers involved in this study wanted to know whether reading for fun leads to increased reading achievement, or whether children who are better at reading simply read more.
Read the rest of Sheldon H. Horowitz’s article HERE