Snow Day Heaven!

The best snow day ever? Building the "perfect" snow fort, starting a snowball fight with the neighborhood kids, retreating (thank goodness for the snow fort), sledding until the sun sets, coming inside to warm up with hot chocolate and, finally, after an exhausting day, snuggling up with a good book by the fireplace.  We hope you make the most of the holiday break: relax, play, enjoy family and friends, but don't forget to explore some good books as well.

Did you know that research overwhelmingly supports the idea that the amount of time that a student spends reading makes a big difference?  The more reading and being read to, the better.  This doesn't come as a big surprise, but to see the data spelled out is compelling.

If a child reads for 65 minutes a day, after a year's time they've read over 4,350,000 words, but the child averaging 1 minute per day has only read 106,000 words. 

Average Minutes of Reading Per Day	Baseline - Words read per year
65	4,358,000
21	1,823,000
14.2	1,146,000
9.6	622,000
3.2	200,000
1.8	106,000

You may ask, 'So what? Does this increase in volume affect comprehension?'  You bet it does!  On average those students who read more do better and those who read less struggle more.

National Percentile Rank	Average Minutes of Reading Per Day	Baseline - Words read per year
98	65	4,358,000
90	21	1,823,000
80	14.2	1,146,000
70	9.6	622,000
40	3.2	200,000
30	1.8	106,000

 So, pile it on and discover some great books over the break.