A Response to the National Reading Panel

Although there is correlational evidence showing that students who read more have higher achievement, the National Reading Panel stated there was no experimental study showing practice effects of how time spent reading affects achievement. To provide experimental evidence that more time spent reading produces higher achievement, this study was addressed to test the effects of allowing more versus less time for independent reading for students who differed in reading ability. The design was a 2 (Time) × 2 (Grade) × 2 (reading level) factorial. The participants were grades 3 and 5. This quasi-experimental design was used to test how time spent in independent reading affects reading achievement. In this study, all students read books matched to their reading ability, and after reading a book took a quiz that provided immediate feedback. The control group spent 15 minutes per day reading books and the experimental group spent 40 minutes per day reading books. This study lasted six months. With the exception of the time spent in independent reading, all other factors such as quality of the teachers and type of reading program were the same. Pretest and posttest data were collected from al