Findings from the National Literacy Trust’s 2012 annual literacy survey on reading enjoyment, reading behaviour outside class and reading attitudes. Children and young
people who used Accelerated Reader (AR)
in 2012 tend to enjoy reading more, read more often, read a greater variety
of fiction texts and think more positively about reading than their peers who
do not use AR.
This
report explores the differences, if any, between children and young
people who use AR and those who do not, in terms of their reading enjoyment
and reading attitudes. The report uses data from our third annual literacy
survey, conducted in November / December 2012, in which 34,910 eight to
16-year-olds participated.
A wealth of data is
routinely collected by AR about children’s reading skills to monitor and help
manage their independent reading. However, no information is collected on the
‘softer’ reading outcomes, such as reading enjoyment and attitudes towards
reading. We were therefore commissioned by Renaissance Learning to help plug
that gap.
While
the data from our survey showed differences between AR users, we ought to keep
in mind that this is not a controlled experiment that manipulated AR usage. In
order to help tease out the real impact of AR on reading enjoyment, reading
behaviour outside class and attitudes towards reading a longitudinal study is
needed that follows children and young people from before they start AR to see
whether their attitudes and wider reading behaviour change as a result.