| What Have We Learned from the NAEP results?
Ed Week maintains that a comparison of scores in 11
cities shows that “NAEP results offer scant insight
into best reading strategies” (January 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 read better.
NAEP itself has reported a positive relationship
between the amount of reading children do and how well
they do on the NAEP reading test. Also, NAEP analyses
have shown that NAEP 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 and Real Solutions (Heinenann, 1998), reported
a strong relationship between performance on the NAEP
and the quality of the overall print environment
(books available at home, school libraries and public
libraries), and this relationship remained substantial
when the effect of poverty was controlled.
We should also consider the interesting case of
California and the NAEP. California’s extremely low
score on the NAEP in 1992 was blamed on whole
language. 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: California
still ranks near the bottom among the states that took
the NAEP, tied for next to last in 2005. California
has the worst school libraries in the US, among the
worst public libraries, and a high level of poverty
among families with children in school. This was true
in 1992 and remains true today.
These results suggest that the way to get higher NAEP
scores is to improve access to books, and the most
obvious way for schools to do this is to improve
school libraries. Studies show that when interesting
and comprehensible reading is available, children do
in fact read. Also a massive amount of research has
been published using measures other than NAEP showing
that reading itself results in considerable literacy
development.
Perhaps NAEP scores have “stagnated” because we have
not considered the most obvious way of improving
reading.
Stephen Krashen
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