Arguably the biggest debate in elementary reading instruction involves independent reading. The central tension can be summarized this way:
Increasing a student's volume of reading is proven to improve reading outcomes. Some have used this research to argue that we should build independent reading time into the school day. Balanced Literacy curricula embraced this thinking, designing independent reading, with books of a student's own choosing, into the English Language Arts block.
Yet researchers haven't been able to find support for this approach. Incorporating independent reading into the school day hasn’t been shown to improve outcomes. Why might this be the case – that increasing volume of reading improves reading skill, but independent reading during the school day does not?
Christopher Such - author of The Art and Science of Teaching Primary Reading - wrote a Twitter thread that captured the reasons – and also the nuances – beautifully. He was kind enough to turn it into a post, and we think it’s important reading.
Should we include independent reading in our classroom timetable? It’s complicated.
At the start of my career in education, I was a teaching assistant. This entailed all the usual responsibilities: helping in class, running interventions, hearing pupils read on a one-to-one basis, etc. One of the perks of this role was that it provided an insight into aspects of teaching that I otherwise might have missed. Classroom teachers - wrapped up with the challenge of maximising learning across the entire class - inevitably have fewer opportunities than teaching assistants to covertly observe the actions of individual pupils. And it was these observations that led me to question a practice that is common to many classrooms: independent reading.
During the part of the school day dedicated to independent reading, I watched as a significant proportion of the pupils in the classroom did everything they could to avoid actually reading. Some of this group spent most of the time choosing a new book, something they did every day. Others sneakily used their book to hide the piece of paper they were doodling on. But most simply pretended to read, staring down at the pages, but never focusing on the words. (Some pupils were more convincing than others: on more than one occasion, I noticed a pupil holding their books upside down.) Almost all of these pupils were readers that I knew to be relatively dysfluent. In effect, each day they were asked to sit in front of a book they had chosen and to churn through words that would be recognised too slowly for any hope of meaningful comprehension. I can only guess at the impact that this had on these pupils’ attitudes towards reading over the long term, but I strongly suspect that it was detrimental. In short, my experience suggested that asking relatively dysfluent readers to read independently doesn’t provide worthwhile practice and embeds negative attitudes towards reading, reducing pupils’ sense of self-efficacy.
I’m not the only one to question the value of independent reading in the classroom. Professor Timothy Shanahan (2019) points out that devoting curriculum time to it is almost certainly less productive than using that time to teach reading in a way that allows the teacher to guide pupils’ understanding. He is right that there is little research that we can point to that suggests that including independent reading in our timetable is a good idea. So does this mean that we can dismiss this practice entirely? Not necessarily. Classrooms are complicated places, and research provides principles that can guide us, rather than definitive answers for all contexts. There are a number of reasons why we might continue to include some independent reading in our curricula:
First, it is almost certainly true that encouraging pupils to read independently outside of school is beneficial. Admittedly, we only have correlations to rely on that suggest a relationship between time spent reading independently and reading capability. But it would be a surprise to learn that reading was the only capability known to humankind that wasn’t improved through practice and experience. One might argue that we have no evidence to suggest that independent reading in the classroom encourages pupils to read beyond the school gates. However, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the independent reading habits we build in the classroom can transfer to reading outside of it, despite the lack of evidence to shed light on this subject.
Second, independent reading in the classroom can afford teachers opportunities to support struggling readers. While fluent readers in the classroom read silently, the teacher can undertake small-group instruction with those who need support with initial decoding or fluency. In this way, classroom time devoted to independent reading can close the gap between struggling readers and their peers, rather than widen it. This also means that struggling readers are supported by a qualified teacher rather than a teaching assistant to overcome barriers to reading development, and this can be achieved without them missing out on lessons across the wider curriculum.
Third, it’s important to remember the limitations of research. To quote Rose and Eriksson-Lee (2017, p.5), “Evidence in education acts more like a compass: Once we know where we want to go, it can help point us in the right direction for getting there – but it cannot tell us where we’re trying to go in the first place.” Ensuring that we maximise the chances that pupils become capable readers is obviously a central goal of education, but it is not the only goal. It is perfectly reasonable for a school to decide that they think every pupil is entitled to some time each day to choose from a wide selection of books and read in a peaceful setting. Such a choice might be especially understandable in schools where some pupils do not have such opportunities outside of the classroom. We have to remember that we are not only setting pupils up for the rest of their lives. We have a responsibility to consider pupils’ day-to-day experiences of childhood as well.
None of this is to suggest that independent reading should have lots of time dedicated to it in every school. And independent reading certainly should not displace reading instruction in which the teacher takes an active role in guiding pupils. If a choice has to be made between reading instruction and independent reading, the former is always preferable. But on the assumption that relatively dysfluent readers are not left to struggle on their own and the trade-offs have been considered, independent reading in the classroom might deserve its place in a school’s curriculum.
References:
Rose, N. & Eriksson-Lee, S. (2017) Putting Evidence to Work: How Can We Help New Teachers to Use Research Evidence to Inform Their Teaching? https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/sites/default/files/2017-10/Putting_Evidence_to_work_2017.pdf
Shanahan, T. (2019) Isn’t Independent Reading a Research-Based Practice https://www.shanahanonliteracy.com/blog/isnt-independent-reading-a-research-based-practice
Closing reflections from the Curriculum Insight Project team:
Soon, we’ll debut our criteria for curriculum quality in elementary ELA. Inclusion of independent reading will not be on our list, since the practice lacks a clear evidence base. Also, we have seen the “fake reading” behaviors described by Such firsthand, when students are told to read independently before they have become skilled readers.
That doesn’t mean independent reading is absent from our classrooms. In some of our curricula, independent reading opportunities for skilled readers fit nicely within small group time. Independent reading is our Go To when we have unexpectedly free windows in the day.
We appreciate Such’s nuance in this post. Especially in the smartphone era, when we know students are reading less outside of school, we should be looking for opportunities to maximize student reading volume – without shortchanging the dosage of essential reading and writing instruction.
This is a thoughtful and careful discussion, and I benefitted from reading it. Thanks!
However, I think you're making a fundamental mistake throughout the entire article. For instance, you state:
"First, it is almost certainly true that encouraging pupils to read independently outside of school is beneficial. Admittedly, we only have correlations to rely on that suggest a relationship between time spent reading independently and reading capability. But it would be a surprise to learn that reading was the only capability known to humankind that wasn’t improved through practice and experience."
I don't doubt that there is an association between reading independently and reading capability. But you then make the leap that reading independently will improve reading capability, and that's not justified. Instead, think of the association in reverse: it's much more plausible that students who have strong reading skills are more likely to read independently, and that's the source of the observed association. Remember, statistical associations are symmetric in the sense that if A is associated with B then B is also associated with A, and to the exact same degree. So when I read your discussion of all the ways that weak readers don't benefit from independent reading, I don't think, "The weak students don't read well because they don't have more practice in independent reading". No! I think, "The weak students don't engage with independent reading because they aren't good at reading."
I see this all the time in educational discussions -- there's an assumption that interventions operate universally across all students. But in my experience that's not the case. There are lots of excellent teaching techniques that work well with strong students, but are ineffective with weak students. If weak students don't engage and instead doodle or hold the book upside down, then it doesn't matter how awesome the intervention works with strong students.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the article, and look forward to reading more from you!
My view, if children are learning they should be supported and guided. For skill progression, books at their grade level or frustration level should be read with the support of a teacher. Another option could be PAL strategy with a peer through alternate oral reading of text. Unmonitored, left alone, silent reading, should only be with familiar books at or below a child’s instructional level with high interest books to build fluency, confidence and just a love for reading.