There is a considerable amount of research to demonstrate that children
and adolescents who engage more often in reading activities have better
literacy skills (Anderson, Wilson & Fielding, 1988; Cunningham &
Stanovich, 1991; Leppanen, Aunola & Nurmi, 2005; Mol & Bus, 2011). In addition, frequency of reading has been
associated with the development of other abilities such as general knowledge,
oral language, spelling, vocabulary and verbal fluency (Cunningham &
Stanovich, 1991; Echols, West, Stanovich & Zehr, 1996; Senechal &
Cornell, 1993; Senechal, LaFevre, Hudson & Lawson, 1996). Therefore encouraging children to read is
advantageous to both reading and language outcomes.
That said, some types of reading activities have been more consistently
associated with reading skill than others.
For example, Anderson et al. (1988) reported that time spent reading
books was more strongly associated with reading comprehension and reading speed
than other text types (e.g., comics, newspapers and magazines). Similarly, Spear-Swerling, Brucker and Alfano
(2010) found that fiction book reading was more closely associated with various
reading-related skills (i.e., word reading, oral comprehension, vocabulary and
reading comprehension) compared to other reading habits.
Therefore book reading, but particularly fiction book reading, does
appear to be a stronger correlate with reading outcomes compared to shorter
paper based texts. It is possible that
the composition and extended nature of these text types, in addition to the
wider and more varied vocabulary that books introduce children and adolescents
to, means that this type of reading activity is more closely associated with
positive reading outcomes.
However, over the last decade or so, there
has been a steep and steady increase in the diversity of text types available
to children and adolescents, more specifically, an increase in the availability
and ubiquity of digital texts (e.g., text messages, emails, websites, ebooks,
blogs, facebook, etc). These text types
are as varied (or arguably more varied) than their paper based equivalents and
children and adolescents now have opportunities to engage in a much wider range
of reading activities than ever before.
Large scale research by Clark (2011) shows that digital texts are among
children’s and adolescents’ most popular reading activities, highlighting a
need to understand more about the relationship between these different reading
activities and reading outcomes.
In a recent research study (McGeown et al., 2015),
we examined the extent to which adolescents’ reported time spent engaging with different
text types: fiction book reading, factual book reading, school book reading,
short traditional texts (comprising of: magazine, comic, newspaper, song
lyrics, instructions/manual, poetry) and short
digital texts (comprising of: text messages/email, social networking
site, computer game, factual website, Twitter)
predicted a number of reading outcomes (word reading, reading comprehension,
reading summarisation skills and reading fluency).
We found that fiction book reading was the only
consistent positive predictor of all reading outcomes (even after controlling
for other variables). In additional statistical
analyses (not included in the paper), we examined the relationship between each
of the text types in turn. As expected,
fiction book reading was the most consistent and strongest correlate with all
reading outcomes. The second most
consistent and strongest correlate was time reported using Twitter; this
statistically inversely related with most reading outcomes (i.e., greater use
of Twitter was associated with poorer reading scores).
However, we need to consider that the association between reading skills
and choice of reading material is likely to be reciprocal -although different text types may differ in their ability to develop reading skills, children and
adolescents’ choice of text types is also likely to be influenced by their
reading skills; students with better reading skills may be more likely to seek
out more difficult texts (e.g. books), thereby further developing their reading
skills. That said, the research to
date suggests that encouraging children and adolescents to spend more time
reading books (but particularly fiction books) is the safest advice to promote reading
development.
References
Anderson,
R. C., Wilson, P. T., & Fielding, L. G.
(1988). Growth in reading and how
children
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(2011). Setting the Baseline. The
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into
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