DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 275 992 CS 008 585

AUTHOR Anderson, R. C.; And Others
TITLE Growth in Reading and How Children Spend Their Time
Outside of School. Technical Report No. 389.
INSTITUTION Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.;
Illinois Univ., Urbana. Center for the Study of
Reading.
SPONS AGENCY National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington, DC.
PUB DATE Sep 86
CONTRACT 400-81-0030
NOTE 53p.
PUB TYPE Reports - Research/Technical (143)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC03 Plus Postage.

DESCRIPTORS Grade 5; Intermediate Grades; *Leisure Time;
Predictor Variables; *Reading Achievement; *Reading
Habits; Reading Improvement; *Reading Research;
Recreational Activities; *Recreational Reading
ABSTRACT
A study examined the relationship between children's
out-of-school activities and their reading achievement. Subjects, 155
fifth graders from a village school and a small city school in
Illinois, recorded on daily activity forms how many minutes they
spent on a wide range of out-of-school activities. Forms were
completed for periods ranging from 8 to 26 weeks. Results showed that
of all the ways children spent their time, reading books was the best
predictor of several measures of reading achievement, including gains
in reading achievement between second and fifth grade. Results also
showed, however, that on most days, most children did little or no
book reading. Findings suggest that teachers and parents need to give
a higher priority to promoting book reading. References, tables and
figures are appended. (HTH)

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 ca./LA..11MM
Office of Educational Research and Improvement
EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION
CENTER (ERIC)
CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF READING r
his document has been reproduced as
eived I rem the person or organization
originating it.
0 Minor changes have been made to improve
reproduction Quahty.

Points of view or opinions stated in Ibis docu-

ment do not necessarily represent official
OERI position or policy.

Technical Report No. 389

GROWTH IN READING AND HOW CHILDREN
SPEND THEIR TIME OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL
R. C. Anderson
Paul T. Wilson
and Linda G. Fielding
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

September 1986

University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc.
51 Gerty Drive 10 Moulton Street
Champaign, Illinois 61820 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238

The work upon which this publication is based was performed pursuant to
Contract No. 400-81-0030 of the National Institute of Education. It
does not, however, necessarily reflect the views of this agency.
 Growth in Reading

Abstract

Few studies have provided precise data on how much reading school

children do. Fewer still have examined the relation between

amount of reading and reading achievement. In the studies

reported here, 155 fifth graders wrote down every day on activity

forms how many minutes they spent on a wide range of out-of-

school activities. Forms were completed for periods ranging from

8 to 26 weeks. The distribution of times for most activities was

positively skewed. Among all the ways children spent their time,

reading books was the best predictor of several measures of

reading achievement, including gains in reading achievement

between second and fifth grade. However, on most days most

children did little or no book reading. An implication of these

facts is that parents and teachers ought to give a higher

priority to promoting book reading.

3
 Growth in Reading

Growth in Reading and

How Children Spend Their Time Outside of School

Every habit and faculty is preserved and increased by

correspondent actions--as the habit of walking, by
walking; or running, by running.

How the semblances of things are

to be combatted.

Epictetus

One of the success stories of the educational research of

the 1970s was to establish that reading achievement depends upon

how children spend their time in school (Denham & Lieberman,

1980; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1984). Much less is known about the

influence of how children spend their time out of school, but it

would be myopic to suppose that it is unimportant.

There is a rather bulky literature on children's outof

school activities. Most previous studies, though, have suffered

from one or more of the following defects: The focus was narrow,

limited, perhaps, to completing homework, watching television, or

reading for pleasure. The method was dubious, depending, for

instance, on parents' answers to a questionnaire. The time

interval probed was brief, as in the single question, answered

once, "How many hours did you spend watching television

yesterday?" Alternatively, the interval probed was indeterminate

and the response options were vague, as in the question, "How

often do you find out about the news from magazines? (Circle

4
 Growth in Reading

one) Never, Several Times a year, Several times a month, Several

times a week, Every day." Only a superficial description of

average trends was provided, with little information about

differences among individur.is or about relationships among

factors, and, typically, no empirically grounded insights into

possible causes and possible effects.

So far as we are aware, the present paper reports the most

intensive study of children's out-of-school activities that has

ever been done. Children completed a daily record of activities

for periods ranging from two to six months. While special

attention was paid to reading, a comprehensive assessment of

children's activities was made. Individual and temporal patterns

of activities were studied in some depth. The relationships

between time spent in activities and several measures of reading

proficiency were examined. The interesting question of whether

out-of-school activities are in the causal nexus that produces

reading growth was explored.

The study closest to the present one in scope and method was

completed by Vincent Greaney of the Educational Research Centre

at St. Patrick's College in Dublin, Ireland (1980). All of the

920 fifth grade pupils in a sample of 31 Irish primary schools,

stratified according to location, completed a diary of out-of-

school activities on three specified days during a one-week

period. Several of Greaney's findings will be discussed in

detail later. In the meantime, briefly, children were found to

5
 Growth in Reading

spend large amounts of leisure time in such activities as play,

outings, hobbies, television viewing, and helping in the home.

Overall, 5.4% of leisure time was spent in reading. Amount of

time spent reading comics and, especially, the amount of time

spent reading books was positively associated with reading

achievement.

Method

Subiects. The subjects were 155 fifth graders, 52 from two

classrooms in a village school and 103 from five classrooms in a

school in a middle class area of a small city. Both communities

are in east central Illinois. There were 85 boys and 70 girls in

the total sample. While there were some blue collar, low income,

and minority children in the sample, these groupE were

underrepresented in terms of their proportions in the nation as a

whole. On a standardized reading comprehension test, the sample

was above the national average but showed a typical spread in

ability (see Table 2).

Activity forms. Based 0 'iscussions with two classes of

fifth graders, an initial "act_ /ity form" was developed that

aimed to divide children's activities into mutually exclusive and

exhaustive categories. The questions on the initial form were

refined on the basis of a tryout and further discussion with the

children.

The final activity form consisted of one side of a single

sheet of paper on which there were questions, such as "I spent

6
 Growth in Reading

minutes listening to music," "I spent

minutes eating dinner." Several questions asked for further

specification of the activity, for instance: "I spent

minutes playing a sport called ," and "I spent

minutes reading a bock. The book was called

. The book was written by

It would hrve been desirable to ask detailed questions about

every type of activity in which children engage, but this was not

feasible. Completing the forms would then have taken too much

time over the rather extended duration of this study, and might

have jeopardized the cooperation of the schools and the children

themselves. Thus, finely-discriminating questions were asked

only about categories that especially interested us, such as

reading and homework, whereas other questions probed activities

lumped together in broader categories.

Slightly different versions of the activity form were used

in the two schools. Children in the village school were asked to

make sixteen separate time estimates whereas the children in the

city school were asked to make twenty estimates. Ir three cases

the form used in the city school divided what was a large

category in the village school into two small r ones; therefore,

it was possible to get approximately the same information for the

two schools by combining these smaller categories. The form used

in the city school also included an "Other" category.

7
 Growth in Reading

Reading tests. A battery of three reading tests was given

twice, once at the beginning of the period during which activity

forms were completed and again following this period. The first

test was the reading comprehension test from the Metropolitan

Achievement Tests. The second was a checklist vocabulary test of

the type described by Anderson and Freebody (1983). Subjects

indicated whether they knew the meanin of 97 English words,

representing a wide range of difficulty, intermixed with 66

close-to-English nonwords. A subject's score on the test is the

percentage of words marked as known minus a correction for the

number of nonwords marked as known. The third test was intended

to measure reading speed in words per minute. Subjects read a

lengthy, interesting, grade-appropriate selection for ten

minutes. Every two minutes they made a slash mark in the text at

the point where they were then reading. This was done in the

hope that it would be possible to identify the point, if any,

where a child abandoned close reading and began skimming.

The foregoing tests were administered by one of the

investigators. Also obtained were standardized reading test

results from school files for Grade 2. Total reading scores were

available for most children from the village school on the

Stanford Achievement Test and most children from the city school

on the Metropolitan Achievement Test.

Procedure. One of the investigators explained to each class

how to complete the activity form. The children were encouraged

 Growth in Reading

to think of the nonschool part of each day in terms of regular

mileposts such as getting up, eating breakfast, leaving for

school, getting home from school, participating in regularly

scheduled extracurricular practices or lessons, eating dinner,

watching favorite TV shows, going to bed, and going to sleep.

Children were provided an instruction sheet to which they could

refer that explained the kinds of activities that should be

included under each question. They were urged to become "time

conscious," and to make mental notes of when they started and

stopped doing things. A. considerable period was spent on the

arithmetic of time calculations. When it was discovered that

some children had trouble converting large blocks of time to

minutes, a conversion table was provided that listed hours and

quarters of an hour and the corresponding numbers of minutes.

When it was discovered that some children were underreporting

time, they were urged to make sure that they accounted for at

least 330 minutes on weekdays and 630 minutes on weekends and

holidays. The investigator came back five straight days to

answer questions, discuss problematical cases, and help children

camplete the forms.

Children completed an activity form each school day that

covered out-of-school activities the previous day. In six of the

seven classrooms, completing activity forms was the first task in

the morning when school began. In the remaining classroom, the

forms were usually done right after lunch. Once the children had

9
 Growth in Reading

about a week of experience, it took from five to ten minutes to

complete a form. Following weekends and holidays, children from

the village school were asked to complete forms for these days as

well. Children from the city school had to complete forms

covering these days during free time.

Children from the village school filled out activity forms

in the spring for an eightweek period during March and April.

Compliance was high in this school and was maintained throughout

the study. The ratio of forms actually received to the total

that would have been possible if every child had turned in a form

for every one of the fiftyseven days, expressed as a percentage,

was 91%. Pains were taken to conceal from the children in the

village school that reading was the primary interest of the

investigators.

Children from the city school began filling out forms the

following fall for a twentysix week period beginning in

November. Compliance was lower in the city school, mainly

because classroom time was not provided to complete weekend and

holiday forms and because cooperation which was voluntary, tailed

off toward the end of the study, after about eighteen weeks.

These problems were not unanticipated and an incentive system was

introduced to try to keep the children motivated. Briefly,

points were awarded for completing forms, with extra points given

for weekend and holiday forms. Children who accumulated enough

points received a tshirt, which they had helped design, at the

10
 Growth in Reading

10

end of the study; 43 of the 103 children got a t-shirt. That the

incentive system was not entirely successful is indicated by the

fact that just 48% of the total possible number of forms was

actually received. Children in the city school discovered during

the course of the study that the investigators wel especially

interested in reading.

Approach to analysis. The original plan for this study was

to measure children's competence as readers, to determine their

out-of-school activities for a period of several months, measure

their competence again, and then assay the influence of the

activities on reading growth during the several month period.

This plan had to be abandoned. One problem was that by the date

of the second administration of the tests the children were tired

of the study and many didn't try very hard on the tests. That

this is so is suggested by informal observation and by the fact

that, if one takes the data seriously, the children in both

schools showed negative reading growth, on the average, over the

course of the study.

An even more fundamental problem overlooked in the laitial

plan is that out-of-school activities probably are persistent

behavior patterns. These behavior patterns probably were

established long before we asked children to complete activity

forms and probably continued long afterwards. Moreover, such

proximate influence as individual teachers were able to have on

children's out-of-school activities, because of homework policy,

11
 Growth in Reading

the priority given to independent reading, and the like, already

would have taken hold by the time of our "pretest."

The revised plan, therefore, involved keying on the three

reading tests administered in the middle of the fifth grade just

before the children began completing the activity forms. To

assay the influence of outofschool activities on read-tag

growth, the change from the end of the second grade to the middle

of the fifth grade was examined. Interviews with sixteen

children from the village school, and their parents, suggest that

most children who read frequently in the fifth grade first begin

to do so in the third or fourth grade.

For the sake of clarity and economy of presentation, the

data from the two schools were pooled. Every analysis done with

pooled data was also done with the data from each school

separately. With just a few exceptions, the findings with the

separate data sets were very similar. Nonetheless, pooling the

data from the two schools was not as simple as combining the

data. The reason is that the two sets of data were not quite

commensurate: Notably, the battery of three reading tests was

given for the first time four months earlier in the city school

than in the village school, and the scores pulled from files in

the two schools to estimate reading ability in the second grade

were based on different standardized tests. Including school as

a factor in the analyses precluded artifacts that otherwise would

have arisen because of these differences.

12
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13
 Growth in Reading

13

hook rerding time is slightly higher (mean = 10.4, standard

deviation 17.0) but its correlation with reading comprehension

percentile goes down somewhat. This suggests that constraining

the measure. to instances where the child can state the title or

the author gives a more valid indicator of actual reading.

Most of the time variables were highly skewed, as is

apparent (see Table 1) from the fact that the medians are smaller

than the means and the fact that the standard deviations are

large in relation to the measures of central tendency. A

transformation was sought which would normalize the time

variables and would linearize th,,tr relationships with reading

achievement. The one finally chosen was the logarithm of average

time per day in minutes, m, Plus a small constant: In (m + .5).

This did a good overall job of satisfying both objectives.

Skewness and kurtosis were improved for 11 of the 14 variables;

in most cases, the distribution of transformed times was within

normal bounds. The transformation increased the absolute value

of the correlation between a time variable and Metropolitan

reading comprehension percentile in eight cases and made it

smaller in six cases. In most cases, the change was slight.

However, when regression analyses were done predicting reading

comprehension percentile, percentage of vocabulary known, and

reading speed, in each case more variance was explained when the

transformed time variables were used as predictors instead of the

raw time variables.

14
 Growth in Reading

14

Special attention was paid to amount of time spent reading

books. The transformation, ln (m + .5), made the distribution

almost perfectly normal. Following the transformation, the

correlation with reading comprehension percentile went up

considerably and the residuals were evenly distributed around the

function predicting reading comprehension percentile.

Three variables were not helped by the ln (m + .5)

transformation. In the cases of time spent eating dinner and

time spent going out, the perturbations were minor. In the case

of time spent watching TV, the (negative) correlation with

reading comprehension percentile was reduced quite a bit (i.e.,

moved toward zero), suggesting that the relationship is not

loglinear. Later in this paper, time spent watching TV is given

special treatment. Another factor that had to be given special

treatment was time spent doing homework, for reasons that will be

explained later.

There was reason to worry that the results would be

confounded by variations among the subjects in compliance with

the demands of the study. As already noted, compliance became

quite poor at the city school near the end of the study.

However, the results did not change much when the last eight

weeks of data from the city school were dropped, so all of the

data are included in the analyses reported in this paper. One

measure of compliance is the percentage of days on which a child

returns an activity form. This variable correlated only + .01

15
 Growth in Reading

15

with reading comprehension percentile. Similarly, average total

minutes reported per day correlated + .02 with reading

comprehension percentile. Thus, the fear that low compliance or

variability in compliance would queer the results seems

groundless.

Missing reading proficiency data was a problem that was

solved in a manner that made maximum use of available

information. Missing scores on any of the three reading tests

administered in the middle of the fifth grade (i.e., the tests

given just before the children began the activity forms) were

estimated via a regression equation from scores on the same test

administered at the end of the fifth grade. In this manner, 14

missing reading comprehension scores, 16 missing vocabulary

scores, and 19 missing speed scores were estimated. A simpler

method of estimating missing second grade total reading

percentiles was used. In nine cases, the third grade reading

percentile was used; in six cases, where there was no third grade

score, the fourth grade percentile was used. The ns available

for analyses ranged from 143 to 152. Naturally, these methods of

plugging the holes left by missing data inflate error, but they

introduce less error than the standard practice of plugging holes

with mean scores. And, they are less wasteful than wholesale

discarding of cases, which seems wanton considering that children

contributed as much as twentyfive hours of their time for this

project.

16
 Growth in Reading

16

Results

Table 1 contains the means, medians, and standard deviations

of the time variables, and the means and standard deviations of

the transformed time variables. Included are variables

representing the time children reported spending in fourteen

kinds of activities. These are the activities questioned on the

activity form used in the village school, except for homework.

Three separate homework activities were collapsed into one

category, because analysis suggested that there was no additional

information in the fine subdivisions. Table 2 contains the means

and standard deviations of the reading proficiency measures.

Insert Tables 1 and 2 about here.

Table 3 illustrates the wide variation among children in

amount of reading. The scale is percentile rank on each of

several measures of amount of reading. The figures for average

minutes per day of reading come directly from the activity forms.

The values under Text include time reported reading newspapers

and magazines as well as books. All reading includes comics in

addition to books, magazines, and newspapers, but this category

does not include mail because, unaccountably, there was a

negative relationship between time spent on mail and reading

proficiency. The words per year figures were obtained by

multiplying average minutes per day by words per minute and then

17
 Growth in Reading

1 7

extrapolating to a full year. Words per year from all reading

could not be estimated, because it would not have been reasonable

to assume that children cover the same number of words per minute

while reading comics as they do while reading text.

Insert Table 3 about here.

The estimates of minutes per day of reading shown in Table 3

are quite reliable. For instance, an estimate of the reliability

of minutes of book reading per day was obtained by correlating

the time reported on odd days with the time reported on the even

days during a representative 40 day period when the children were

completing activity forms. Using the Spearman-Brown formula, the

reliability of the measure of amount of book reading over the 57

days that the typical child in the study completed activity forms

was calculated to be .86. The estimates of words read per year

shown in Table 3 are unstable since the error in the constituent

measures is magnified.

Table 4 presents the correlations of the transformed time

variables with the measures of fifth grade reading proficiency.

The effects associated with school have been partialed out,

because, as already explained, the data sets for the two schools

are incommensurate. The columns under the heading, Status,

display correlations with the tests administered during the

middle of the fifth grade just before the children began

18
 Growth in Reading

18

completing the activity forms. The columns under the heading,

Growth, display the correlations of the time variables with the

measures of fifth grade reading proficiency after Grade 2 reading

level has been partialed out. This method of represnting the

influence of outofschool activities on reading growth was

chosen, because, unlike residual gain scores, the influence is

expressed in terms of the readily understandable metrics of the

1
fifth grade tests.

Insert Table 4 about here.

Table 5 presents regression analyses predicting fifth grade

reading comprehension and growth in reading comprehension from

the second to the fifth grade as a function of the transformed

time variables. Variance associated with school was removed

first. In the growth analysis, the variance attributable to

second grade reading level was removed next. Each analysis

terminated when there was no unentered variable that would

account for significant (alpha = .05) additional variance. The

column labeled Final F presents tests of the significance of the

regression coefficients at the step at which the analysis

.-_-rminated. Likewise, the column labeled Final B gives

unstandardized regression coefficients from the last step in the

analysis. Each coefficient expresses the change in reading

comprehension percentile attributable to a one unit change in the

19
 Growth in Reading

19

predictor; in the case of the time variables these are unit

changes on the scale, ln (m + .5). For each variable that did

not enter the analysis, presented are the F value and the sign of

the regression weight which would have been observed if the

variable had entered at the next step.

Tables 6 and 7 summarize comparable analyses predicting

fifth grade vocabulary and fifth grade reading speed. The

analysis of vocabulary is identical in conception to the analysis

of comprehension. In the case of speed, six orthogonal contrasts

coding classroom were entered instead of school. This was done

because the speed measure was quite labile, probably because

performance was influenced by the classroom climate during the

administration of the test.

Insert Tables 5, 6, and 7 about here.

In the analyses predicting comprehension, vocabulary, and

speed, all of the possible interactions of children's sex and

second grade reading level with the time they allocated to the

various out-of-school activities were explored. None was

significant.

Finally, Table 8 summarizes an analysis of time spent

reading books as a function of teacher, second grade reading

level, sex, and the amount of time reported in other out-of-

school activities. The most newsworthy finding is that the

20
 Growth in Reading

20

teacher has a significant influence on the amount of book reading

children do out of school. The influence is substantial; the

class that read the most averaged 16.5 minutes per day while the

class that read the least averaged only 4.1 minutes per day.

The fact that the teacher is a major influence on children's

reading means that, because of the way this study was done, the

analyses presented so far give a conservative view relationship

between amouot of book reading and reading proficiency. The

reason is that the practices of a fifth grade teacher will have

had only a limited opportunity to fmfluence reading proficiency

by the middle of the year. In fact, when the influence of the

teacher is partialed out, the correlation of amount of book

reading with reading comprehension rises from + .39 to + .41 and

the correlation with vocabulary rises from + .32 to + .36. (The

influence of the teacher has already been discounted in the

analysis of reading speed shown in Table 7.)

One purpose of the analysis Summarized in Table 8 was to see

whether other activities compete with book reading. Although

watching television had a nearly significant negative relationship,

there was no strong evidence that any out-of-school activity

interfered with book reading. In fact, small but significant

positive associations were uncovered between amount of book

reading and doing chores, doing homework, and reading comic

books. Children who were good readers in the second grade did

more reading in the fifth grade. Girls read more than boys.

21
 Growth in Reading

21

There were no effects on book rending from interactions between

activities and second grade reading level or sex.

Insert Table 8 about here.

Discussion

Reading books was the out-of-school activity that proved to

have the strongest association with reading proficiency. Tine

spent reading books was fairly strongly associated with the

measures of a child's status as a reader in the fifth grade.

More interesting, and important, is the fact that time spent

reading books was the best predictor of a child's growth as a

reader from the second to the fifth grade. After accounting for

the child's second grade reading level, each log unit increase in

book reading time reported in the fifth grade led to a 4.9

percentile gain in reading comprehension, a 2.6% gain in

vocabulary words known, and a 12 word per minute gain in reading

speed.

The study revealed truly staggering differences among

children in amount of out-of-school reading. The wide variation

is evident on every measure summarized in Table 3. Notice that

most children do little reading, while successive groups of

children read for increasingly long periods of time and cover

increasingly large numbers of words. For instance, the child who

is at the 90th percentile in amount of book reading spends nearly

22
 Growth in Reading

22

five times as many minutes per day reading books as the child at

the 50th percentile and over two hundred times as many minutes

per day rcading books as the child at the 10th percentile.

The study suggested that teachers have an important

influence 3n how much time children spend reading books. The

class that did the most reading read 3.6 times as much on the

average as the class that did the least reading, after

discounting differences in second grade reading level and

nroportions of boys and girls. Among the things teachers do to

promote reading are assuring access to interesting books at a

suitable level of difficulty, using incentives to increase

motivation for reading, reading aloud to children, and providing

time for reading during the school day (for a more extended

discussion, see Fielding, Wilson, & Anderson, 1986).

The relationship between fifth grade reading comprehension

and amount of time spent reading books is graphed in Figure 1.

The figure shows that reading comprehension rises sharply between

0 and about 10 minutes a day of book reading and then levels off.

It might be supposed that the interpretation of this fact is that

those who can read do, those who can't don't. However, this

interpretation provides a poor account of the data; a model in

which children who did any book reading at all were coded '1'

(Readers) and those who did no book reading were coded '0'

(Nonreaders) explained relatively littl2 variance in reading

comprehension. Significantly more variance was explained when a

23
 Growth in Reading

13

straight line was fit through the full range of reading times.

This means that gradations in amount of book reading (beyond no

reading at all) make a difference in reading proficiency.

Further, the log function pictured in Figure 1 explained

significantly more variance than a straight line. This means

that additional time invested in reading books yields diminishing

returns in reading proficiency.

Insert Figure 1 about here.

The findings of this investigation with respect to book

reading are comparable to the findings of other investigations

(e.g., Long & Henderson, 1973; Greaney & Hegarty, n.d.).

Notably, the findings are similar to those of two recent

investigations with large samples and complete descriptions of

methods and data.

The first is the study by Greaney (1980), who also reported

that the distribution of book reading time is highly skewed.

Fully 44% of the Irish school children he studied did not read

books on any of the three days they completed diaries. At the

other extreme, 6.4% of the pupils devoted at least an hour a day

of their leisure time to book reading. Greaney applied a

logarithmic transformation to the time variables. Presumably

this normalized the distributions of times and linearized the

relationships with reading achievement, but no corroborating

24
 Growth in Reading

2 4

evidence that this was so was provided. Greaney reported a

correlation of + .31 between the logarithm of book reading time

and a measure of reading ar-.hievement.

The findings of the investigation described in this paper

are also similar to those of Walberg and Tsai (1984), who

analyzed data from a stratified, nationwide sample of 2,890

American 13-year-olds who participated in the 1979-80 National

Assessment of Educational Progress. These students answered two

==
multiple-choice questions about leisure reading, "How often do

you read for enjoyment during spare time?", for which the

response options were "Never, Less than once a week, Once or

twice a week, and Almost every day;" and, "Amount of time spent

reading for enjoyment yesterday?", for which the response options

ranged from none, an hour or less, to six or more hours in one

hour increments. On the latter question, 44% marked "none"

whereas only 5% indicated three hours or more; thus, the

distribution was very skewed. Walberg and Tsai found that the

answers to both questions had logarithmic relationships to

reading achievement. The correlations of the logarithm of

reading time with reading achievement were + .18 and + .10 for

the general and the specific question, respectively.

Most of the variability among these studies in the size of

the correlation found between time spent reading books and

reading proficiency is probably attributable to differences in

reliability of measurement. The most reliable measurement of

25
 Growth in Reading

2 5

reading time was obtained in the present study, in which children

filled in activity forms for a median of 57 days. Neyt most

reliable was the Greaney measure. Based on the intercorrelations

(furnished by Greaney in a personal communication) among the book

reading times reported on the three days children completed

diaries, the estimated reliability of his measure is .68. As

noted in the previous section, this compares with an estimated

reliability of .86 for the measure of book reading time obtained

in the present study. If the correlations of book reading time

with reading proficiency observed in the two studies are

corrected for attenuation due to unreliability of the measures of

book reading time, the figures for the two studies are quite

close, + .42 for the present study and + .38 for Greaney's study.

Much less reliable, presumably, were the answers to the

single questionnaire items analyzed by Walberg and Tsai. While

we don't know what these re/iabilities actually were, it is

plausible to suppose that the corrected coefficients would be in

the vicinity of the ones obtained in the present study and the

Greaney study. Hence, the evidence appears to converge and the

following conclusion seems warranted: There is a moderately

strong association between outofschool reading and reading

achievement, a relationship of about the same magnitude as the

strongest relationships reported with inschool use of time (Barr

& Dreeben, 1983; Rosenshine & Stevens, 1984).

26
 ..,,ete et
.,1

0,11,.....ea nI 4 r tesaLT.4 e*r1", iqv 111c tTpic41

.'11 4 10%. 1 t 416,44 14,41. air let *a-14 ¶ 'Se af ,p1 1,, a e ritsj ref Iv('
4.0riststass %.elvps0,1 !pieties" Ilftt% 404 neventh g.T4401q of
1. stymies. kithat if am, aet.41 14f4 " I I capt holoplh, t

P c011.44 tat *Al ;*%11 it w w *ate; to( tort int f frt. once tn the
'est 4.4 teq VIP* St ^:44'1 at atnt tat. the 4414nner in which
t I "-qt.* wet a, elk t **awl isttei 11t0 itannet in which 4444 wort,
loos*: tit

-.***rte* rat aor*:. realiettnir 4r inn) 111100,c4 Ii4t4iinda Ingether

pyf fterwepsroers Intr> * wop4f*Io eatri(OVI irhereaq

.ovntive. on4 imoym4 **assn.(' with nev4p4per4.

4,4r 14.~14 4o , *1111441 404 414"04 sk*Pe , tho ne4n r e ad ing time
csepo :itsips,01/.0 0NOT I. IR.: *flIstra pot 44,41 4n4 the ne4n from

7
. 0 1,4141. I. ;401 aloft.* pair 441.. lut iltute reflects lust the

411, ohuffs fh. hilefron roported thy author, title, nr--

flm 1140 c0414: of 444481/10. 444 nowelOsPore--tho t'lpic of the

)460n ell reading of hooks, naaatines, 4nd newspapers

I. losehlog, se*ain rivaling tie. per dor riots to 15.5. Greaney's

osisq:s (01* twasontativ. of Irish chool children whereas our

cow,. ye* 600.(shat shav. tv.raa. for American school children.

ficutintnoots. Grose., found * swan of R.2 ninutes per day reading

emogf ihoota Ishii* me found only Z.l sinutes. Therefore, it does

oplwar %tat eh* typical Irish child in the middle grades may

4f0 time reeding than the comparable American child.

27
 Growth in Reading

27

On the general question examined by Walberg and Tsai, the

median child reported reading about one day out of five, an

outcome similar to ours. However, considering Walberg and Tsai's

specific question, if one leans on the assumption that the

distribution underlying the answers was log normal, then it would

be estimated that the median child in their sample read 7.2

minutes per day. This compares with the higher median in the

present study of 11.1 minutes for all out-of-school reading (see

Table 3). The apparent difference between the two studies may be

attributed to the fact that Walberg and Tsai's sample was less

able (but more representative) than ours or that their question

was restricted to reading for enjoyment, whereas ours included

all reading, whether done for enjoyment or not. Perhaps most

important, Walberg and Tsai's questions did not specify the types

of reading material that were to be considered; it is possible

that some of the respondents did not include time spent reading

magazines, newspapers, and, espectally, comics. On the other

hand, we counted only reports of reading when the child listed

the author, title, or topic.

Hence, a close reconciliation of the data from the three

studies on the absolute amount of reading is not possible.

Nonetheless, it can be confidently concluded that the typical

child in the middle grades reads less than 30 minutes a day out

of school. The amount appears to be considerably less than this

in the United States, maybe as little as 8-12 minutes per day

28
 Growth in Reading

28

when all types of reading material are included, and maybe as

little as 4-5 minutes a day when only books are counted. Tne

amount of reading is almost certainly much lower than many have

supposed (e.g., Feeley, 1973; Heyns, 1978; Medrich, Roizen,

Rubin, & Buckley, 1982; Witty, 1965).

Does reading, particularly book reading, cause growth in

reading proficiency? The fact that book reading was a

significant predictor of growth suggests that the answer is yes.

Notice, that if anything, it could be argued that the present

investigation underestimates the causal force of out-of-school

reading, because time devoted to reading was assessed after the

period during which the growth occurred. It stands to reason

that if time devoted to reading had been assessed throughout the

period of growth, its association with growth in proficiency

would have been stronger.

A causal attribution that depends upon correlational

analysis, as does the present one; is never completely

trustworthy. One worry is that the second grade reading

proficiency measure was less reliable than the fifth grade

measure. If this were so, the role of amount of book reading in

reading growth would have been exaggerated.

According to the usual ways of reckoning, a factor such as

amount of book reading would be given credit as a causal force

only to the extent that it explained unique variance in the

criterion measure. In the present case, before considering other

29
 Growth in Reading

29

factors, amount of book reading explains 14.4% of the variance in

fifth grade reading comprehension. However, 7.8% is covariance

shared with second grade reading level, a figure that might rise

if the possibly lesser reliability of the second grade measure

could be considered. Thus, at most, 6.6% of the variance in

fifth grade reading comprehension is uniquely explainable in

terms of amount of reading.

However, in this case, we are inclined to reject the usual

assumptions of causal modeling founded on intercorrelations.

Giving priority to second grade reading level when attempting to

explain fifth.grade reading level is like treating the child's

mind as a ballistic missile, set into motion by the genes and

early childhood experience, whose trajectory is unaffected by

later experience. More reasonable is the assumption that second

grade level gets translated into fifth grade level through a

cascade of intervening events, including the reading a child

does. In other words, engaging in the act of reading should be

regarded as a proximate cause of growth in reading ability, and

it ought to have a claim to the covariance shared with distal

causes such as second grade level.

Experimental evidence on the value of reading books, which,

of course, when it is feasible, is the best way to establish that

one factor is a cause of another, comes from evaluations of so-

called "book floods." Striking evidence was obtained by Elley

and Mangubhai (1983) who placed libraries of English storybooks

30
 Growth in Reading

30

in the classrooms of Fiji children. The children made much

larger gains on achievement tests than children in comparison

classrooms, an advantage that continued to appear on several

measures over a period of years. These findings might be

discounted, though, on the grounds that the children, who were

not native speakers of English, and who were being taught by the

notorious audio-lingual method, otherwise wculd have had almost

no opportunity to hear and read interestin;s, c..?tural English. A

book flood with native English speaking children produced

positive but less dramatic results (Ingham, 1981).

Other approaches intended to increase amount of book reading

have had mixed results. The trend in the United States has been

to follow McCracken's (1971) model of Sustained Silent Reading.

Gambrell (1978) and Hong (1981) present two of the several good

practical papers on how to implement sustained silent reading in

the classroom. Most of the literature, in fact, has been

practical. Moore, Jones, and Miller (1980) lament the lack of

persuasive research on sustained silent reading. They conclude

in their review that the practice tends to improve student and

teacher attitudes; hoTgever, they also find that the evidence of

any influence on student achievement is thin.

Among the studies of sustained silent reading that appear to

have been well designed and executed is one by Cline and Kretke

(1980), who evaluated a three-year-long junior high school

program in Boulder, Colorado. The students in the school with

 Growth in Reading

31

the reading program had significantly more positive attitudes

about reading books of their own choice, going to the library,

and the importance of reading. Collins (1980) reported an

experiment with matched classrooms from the second through sixth

grade. The students who did sustained silent reading moved

faster through their basal readers. Furthermore, they showed no

decline in spelling and English test scores even though they gave

up as much as a half an hour per day of instruction in spelling

and English for silent reading. Manning and Manning (1984), in

the only study to compare different approaches for increasing

children's amount of readiug, carried out a year-long project

with 24 fourth grade classes. They found that approaches that

emphasized peer interaction and individual teacher-student

conferences produced significantly better attitudes than the

control condition and the traditional sustained silent reading

approach. In addition, the peer interaction approach produced

significant gains on a reading achievement test.

Thus, interventions to increase amount of book reading often

have desirable effects, but studies of these interventions are

not completely convincing. One general observation can be made

about almost all of this research: Nobody measures the amount of

reading, even at the group level, nor does anyone explicitly

relate amount of reading to changes in reading achievement at the

individual level. Hence, the really penetrating research remains

to be done. Our conjecture is that well-designed evaluations of

32
 Growth in Reading

3 2

sensible interventions to increase amount of book reading would

consistently show fairly strong results.

Turning now to other out-of-school activities, time spent

eating dinner had positive relationships with reading status in

the fifth grade and growth in reading proficiency from the setond

to the fifth grade. One explanation for this fact is functional:

Dinner time provides occasions for discussions with parents and

others, and thereby promotes language development. Another

possible explanation is that time eating dinner is a social

indicator: Spending more time eating dinner may mean a greater

likelihood of a two-parent family, greater family stability, or a

stronger commitment to joint family activities. There are no

clues in the present data that suggest a choice between these

explanations.

Some sort of social-indicator explanation provides the most

plausible account of the negative relationships between time

spent doing chores and the measures of reading proficiency.

Maybe the child from a single-parent family more often is called

upon to look after younger brothers and sisters, or possibly the

poor child more often has to deliver newspapers or do farm

chores. This picture is blurred by the fact that time spent

doing chores had a significant positive relationship with amount

of book reading.

Listening to music was another negative predictor of reading

proficiency. Probably it is the passive child who spends mind-

 Growth in Reading

33

numbing amounts of time listening to music. Contrary to popular

opinion, "book worms" tend to be active children. They do not,

in Greaney's (1980) picturesque phrase, spend much time "lying

about." Greaney found a significant negative relationship

between empty hours and amount of reading.

Watching television had small negative relationships with

measures of reading proficiency in the present study. Williams,

Haertel, Haertel, and Walberg (1982) did a comprehensive

synthesis of the research on television viewing and school

achievement. They found that achievement rises slightly UD tO

about ten hours a week of viewing, then falls sharply, and

finally levels off, as the number of hours per week of viewing

increases. We took their finding as a warrant to fit a third-

degree polynomial to our TV viewing and reading comprehension

0

data. This is the simplest function that could reproduce the

Williams et al. finding, though it should be cautioned that only

the linear component accounted for significant variance. Figure

2 shows the result. As can be seen, the results are in close

agreement with the finding. The one difference is that the

function fit to the data from this study did not level off as the

number of hours a week of viewing became extreme, but only 10% of

the children from this study watched as much as 25 hours of TV a

week.

34
 Growth in Reading

34

Insert Figure 2 about here.

In the analyses reported so far, doing homework has shown

small, nonsignificant relationships with the measures of reading

proficiency. But these analyses underestimate the value of

homework, because there is wide variation among classes in the

average amount of homework reported, ranging from 12.9 to 32.6

minutes per day. Presumably this variation is attributable to

such factors as the amount of homework teachers assign, the

perceived interest and value of the assignments, and the

perceived consequences of not completing assignments. Notice,

however, that homework being done in the fifth gradt could have

only a limited opportunity to influence performance on tests

given in the middle of the fifth grade or, particularly, growth

from the second to the fifth grade. Therefore, variation among

fifth grade classes in amount of time being spent on homework

could obscure persisting benefits from homework. In fact, when

between-class variation is removed, amount of time spent on

homework then has a significant influence on growth in reading

comprehension from the second to the fifth grade. Homework

enters the equation after book reading and listening to music,

Final F = 5.07, Final B = + 3.48, p < .05, % Var = 1.8. When the

data are analyzed in this way, doing homework is being treated as

a persistent behavior tendency which depends, no doubt, on the

35
 Growth in Reading

3 5

motivation and discipline of the child, the press of the home,

and the cumulative influence of previous teachers.

In sum, the principal conclusion of this study is that the

amount of time a child spends reading books is related to the

child's reading level in the fifth grade and growth in reading

proficiency from the second to the fifth grade. The case can be

made that reading books is a cause, not merely a reflection, of

reading proficiency. While this case falls short of being

conclusive, it is as strong as the case for any other practice in

the field of reading, in or out of school.

The policy implication is clear. In the words of Becoming a

Nation of Readers (Anderson, Hiebert, Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985,

pp. 77-78):

Increasing the amount of time children read ought to be

a priority for both parents and teachers. Reading

books . . . is probably a major source of knowledge

about sentence structure, text structure, literary

forms, and topics ranging from the Bible to current

events. Independent reading is probably a major source

of vocabulary growth . . . [and] a major source of

reading fluency.

36
 Growth in Reading

36

References

Anderson, R. C., Hiebert, E. H., Scott, J. A., & Wilkinson, I. A. G.

(1985). Becoming a nation of readers: The report of the

Commission on Reading. Champaign, IL: Center for the Study

of Reading.

Anderson, R. C., Pichert, J., & Shirey, L. (1983). Effects of the

reader's schema at different points in time. Journal of

Educational Psychology, 75, 271-279.

Barr, R., & Dreeben, R. (1983). How schools work. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.

Cline, R. K., & Kretke, G. L. (1980). An evaluation of long-term

sustained silent reading in the junior high school. Journal

of Reading, 23, 503-506.

Collins, C. (1980). Sustained silent reading periods: Effect on

teachers' behaviors and students' achievement. Elementary

School Journal, 81, 108-114.

Denham, C., & Lieberman, A. (Eds.) (1980). Time to learn.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Elley, W. B., & Mangubhai, F. (1983). The impact of reading on

second language learning. Reading Research Quarterly, 19,

53-67.

Feeley, J. T. (1973). Television and children's reading.

Elementary English, 50, 141-148.

37
 Growth in Reading

37

Fielding, L. G., Wilson, P. T., & Anderson, R. C. (1986). A new

focus on free reading: The role of tradebooks in reading

instruction. In T. Raphael (Ed.), The contexts of school-

based literacy. New York: Random House.

Gambrell, L. B. (1978). Getting started with sustained silent

reading and keeping it going. Reading Teacher, 32, 328-331.

Greaney, V. (1980). Factors related to amount and type of leisure

time reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 337-357.

Greaney, V., & Hegarty, M. (n.d.). Correlates of leisure-time

reading. Unpublished manuscript, Educational Research

Centre, St. Patrick's College, Dublin.

Heyns, B. (1978). Summer learning and the effects of schooling.

New York: Academic Press.

Hong, L. K. (1981). Modifying sustained silent reading for

beginning readers. Reading Teacher, 34, 888-891.

Ingham, J. (1981). Books and reading development. London:

Heinemann.

Long, H., & Henderson, Z. H. (1973). Children's use of time:

Some personal and social correlates. Elementary School

Journal, 73, 193-199.

Manning, G. L., & Manning, M. (1984). What models of recreational

reading make a difference? Reading World, 23, 375-380.

McCracken, R. A. (1971). Initiating sustained silent reading.

Journal of Reading, 14, 521-524, 582-583.

38
 Growth in Reading

38

Medrich, E. A., Roizen, J., Rubin, V., & Buckley, S. (1982). The

serious business of growing up: A study of children's lives

outside school. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Moore, J. C., Jones, C. J., & Miller, D. C. (1980). What we know

after a decade of sustained silent reading. Reading

Teacher, 33, 445-450.

Rosenshim.t, B., & Stevens, R. (1984). Classroom instruction in

reading. In P. D. Pearson (Ed.), Handbook of reading

research (pp. 745-798). New York: Longman.

Walberg, H. J., & Tsai, S. (1984). Reading achievement and

diminishing returns to time. Journal of Educational

Psychology, 76, 442-451.

Williams, P. A., Haertel, E. H., Haertel, G. D., & Walberg, H. J.

(1982). The impact of leisure-time television on school

learning: A research synthesis. American Educational

Research Journal, 19, 19-50.

Witty, P. (1965). A 1964 study of TV: Comparisons and comments.

Elementary English, 42, 134-141.

 Growth in Reading

39

Footnotes
1
Note, though, that correlations of time variables with

residual gain scores are larger than correlations of time

variables with posttest scores after pretest scores have been

partialed out, even though essentially the same relationship is

being expressed. For instance, in this study the correlation of

the log of book reading time with second to fifth grade residual

gain in reading comprehension is + .38. The comparable partial

correlation (see Table 4) is + .28.

2
Means, rather than medians, which would have been

preferred, are used in comparing Greanev's data with ours,

because medians are not additive, and Greaney did not provide

medians for all of the aggregates that need to be compared.

40
 70.1a 1

*1,4
-
'-'!2r"-44t4 ?:!movtattrolo ( !iOgi) of minute* per day Out-of-
t 4-0 rz, ri 1 Lit t C.'

Logarithm of Minutes

Minute* per day per day +.5

&el It r mean Median SD Mean SD
41:

,%01,tele
11.1 10.7 14.5 2.2 1.2
tolsorroof* 111.9 14.i 17.3 2.6 1.0

tAlt'# 411,,,*t 16.9 10.2 3.2 .4

0.,14 98.6 93.7 58.2 4.4 .8

«letditif *yet( 30.8 18.0 46.1 2.8 1.2

nor,t/4 t*Olee 17.1 10.3 21.7 2.2 1.2

rt*xItt;p41 13.7 9.0 15.1 1.9 1.5

thse41114 Nook* 10.1 4.6 16.8 1.5 1.3

04#441int (*Well 1.1 .2 4.4 .18 1.1

4.4114 1.4 .4 2.6 .16 .8

404,41ftg *ew*papers

4 fif*stiatt 4.4 2.0 6.8 .97 1.2

tfikift* of, phoof 8.1 4.3 9.7 1.5 1.2

Witchlims

televialon 131.1 Ii1.0 88.4 4.6 .7

Moffitt* on V%obby 10.9 3.3 19.9 1.4 1.5

41
Table 2

Means and Standard Deviations (SDs) on Measures of Reading Proficiency

Measure Scale Mean SD

Second grade total

reading Percentile rank 70.2 24.8

Fifth grade reading

comprehension Percentile rank 62.9 25.6

Fifth grade vocabulary Percentage known 64.4 20.9

Fifth grade reading

speed Words per minute 179.2 59.7

42
Table 3

Variation in Amount of Independent Reading

Percentile Minutes of reading per day Words read per year

Rank Books Text All reading Books Text

98 65.0 67.3 71.1 4,358,000 4,733,000

90 21.2 33.4 37.8 1,823,000 2,357,000
80 14.2 24.6 27.9 1,146,000 1,697,000
70 9.6 16.9 19.5 622,000 1,168,000
60 6.5 13.1 15.1 432,000 722,000
50 4.6 9.2 11.1 282,000 601,000
40 3.2 6.2 7.1 200,000 421,000
30 1.8 4.3 5.3 106,000 251,000
20 .7 2.4 2.4 21,000 134,000
10 .1 1.0 1.1 8,000 51,000
2 0 0 0 0 8,000

43
Table 4

Correlations of Log Minutes per Day Spent in Out-of-School Activities with

Measures of Reading Proficiency

Reading
Activity Comprehension Vocabulary Reading Speed
Status Growth Status Growth Status Growth

Second grade

reading .76 -- .67 .41 --

Doing chores -.05 -.07 -.11 -.12 -.08 -.07
Doing homework .14 .19 .02 .01 -.03 -.04
Eating dinner .22 .14 .22 .15 .06 -.01
Going out .31 .15 .27 .12 .12 -.01

Listening to music -.22 -.13 -.21 -.06 -.15 -.03

Playing games .21 .14 .24 .20 .13 .09

Practicing .29 .14 .30 .17 .19 .07

Reading books .39 .29 .32 .17 .33 .23

Reading comics .10 .19 .13 .18 .13 .16

Reading mail -.15 -.09 -.17 -.06 .08 .17

Reading newspapers

and magazines -.06 .07 .00 .14 .13 .23

Talking on phone -.13 .01 -.10 .03 -.15 -.07

Watching television -.12 -.17 -.05 -.06 .06 .06

Working on hobby .06 .05 .06 .08 .12 .14

44
Table 5

Regression of Fifth Grade Reading Comprehension on Log Minutes per Day Spent in

Out-of-School Activities

Fifth Grade Status Second/Fifth Growth

Variable Order of Percent Final Final Order of Percent Final Final

Entry Variance Entry Variance

School 1 .2 4.76 + 7.6 .0 16.4

1 +11.6
Second gr.
reading 2 58.4 137.32 + .7

Doing chores 2.99 - 6 1.1 4.42 - 2.4

Doing homewk. 2.22 + 3.38 +

Eating
dinner 5 4.3 10.84 +14.1 5 1.4 7.56 + 9.2
Going out 4 6.2 5.99 + 5.1 3.24 +

Listening
to music 3 7.4 11.94 - 5.3 4 1.4 6.54 - 3.0
Playing games 2.41 + 2.59 +

Practicing 7 3.3 7.98 + 3.3 +

2.03
Reading books 2 15.6 37.64 + 8.1 3 3.4 20.9 + 5.1
Reading comics 1.00 + 3.56 +
Reading mail 6 3.3 7.07 5.7 2.35 -
Reading news-
papers & mags. .49 - .03 +

Talking on
phone 8 1.7 4.25 - 3.0 .14 -

Watching
television 2.18 - 2.27 -

Working on
hobby .47 + .49 +

Constant -16.3 -27.7

Multiple R .65 .81
Total
variance
explained 42% 66%

45
Table 6

Regression of Fifth Grade Vocabulary on Log Minutes per Day Spent in out-of-

School Activities

Fifth Grade Status Second/Fifth Growth

Variable Order of Percent Final Final Order of Percent Final Final

Entry Variance F B Entry Variance

School 1 4.0 2.33 -4.5 1 4.5 .02 - .4

Second gr.
reading 2 43.4 119.16 + .6

Doing chores 8 2.1 4.93 -2.9 2.26

Doing homewk. .11 - .21 +

Eating
dinner 5 4.5 +13.5 13.4 3.22 +

Going out 1.99 + 1.34 +

Listening
to music 4 6.4 13.5 -4.9 1.05 -

Playing games 7 2.3 5.11 +2.8 3.33 +

Practicing 3 5.2 7.7 +2.9 2.71 +

Reading books 2 10.0 17.97 +4.9 2.75 +

Reading comics 1.86 + 3 1.8 4.87 +2.7

Reading mail 6 4.5 7.69 -5.0 2.71

Reading news-
papers & mags. 1.02 + .81 +
Talking on
phone 1.72 - .10 +

Watching
television 1.66 - .45 -

Working on
hobby 1.17 + .11 +

Constant 30.1 25.1

Multiple R .63 .71
Total
variance
explained 34.1% 49.7%
46
Table 7

Regression of Fifth Grade Reading Speed on Log Minutes per Day Spent in Out-of-

School Activities

Fifth Grade Status Second/Fifth Growth

Variable Order of Percent Final Final Order of Percent Final Final

Entry Variance F B Entry Variance

Teacher 1 19.5 1 19.7

Second gr.
reading 2 13.5 19.57 + .8

Doing chores 2.92 - 5 2.0 4.37 -8.1

Doing homewk. .86 - 1.55

Eating
dinner 1.58 + .92

Going out 1.31 + .56 -

Listening
to music .71 - .73 -

Playing games 1.87 + .29 +

Practicing 3.25 + .74 +

Reading books 2 8.8 20.68 +15.8 4 2.3 6.92 +9.9

Reading comics .67 + .41 +

Reading mail 1.24 + .66

Reading news-
papers & mags. 3.21 + 3 3.6 z5 +10.5

Talking on
phone 3 3.2 6.47 -9.1 3.25 -

Watching
television 1.66 + 1.11 +

Working on
hobby 1.18 + .44 +

Constant 166.1 114.8

Multiple R .56 .64
Total
variance
explained 31.6% 41.1%
47
Table 8

Regression of Log Minutes Per Day Spent Reading Books on Log Minutes Per Day

Spent in Other OutofSchool Activities

Order of Percent
Variable Entry Variance Final F Final B

Teacher 1 11.1 6.81

Second grade reading 2 8.9 16.65 +.02

Sex 3 3.5 4.46 .41

Doing chores 4 5.7 7.89 +.23

Doing homework 5 3.7 8.51 +.29

Eating dinner 1.64

Going out .15

Listening to music .16 +

Playing games .77 +
Practicing .63 +

Reading comics 6 3.4 7.02 +.24

Reading mail .45 +

Reading newspapers
and magazines .50 +
Talking on phone 1.82 +

Watching television 3.20

Working on hobby .70 +

Constant .12
Multiple R .60

Total variance
explained 36%

48
 Figure Captions

Figure 1. Reading comprehension percentile as a function of

minutes per day reading books.

Figure 2. Reading comprehension percentile as a function of

hours per week watching television.

 85

80

75

i
u

50

45

40
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Minutes book reading per day

0
51
 70

60

w
'2 50

10

10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Hours TV per week

52 93