I popped into Mr. Martin's room this week in time to hear him share with his third and fourth graders why their twenty minutes of reading a night is a big deal, a lesson he discovered when browsing Pinterest at the Perry Lecompton Unified School District's Website. He proceeded to share the difference between students who read twenty minutes a day, five minutes a day, and one minute a day.
The difference in the number of minutes accumulated in a year shocked the class. The difference in the number of words the reading exposed them to blew their minds. Students who hadn't really felt a sense of urgency for this outside reading now had a powerful image to convince them. Fortunately for the students, they have a teacher who knows and loves books, and he is able to hook everyone up with a book that will make twenty minutes of reading feel like five. He is an amazing teacher, and I wish you all had a Mr. Martin next door to you.
Here is a very similar table. This is the one that we share in our trainings. It shows the effect on students when we provide an additional ten minutes of self- selected reading a day in class:
