A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF SUSTAINED SILENT READING ON READING ACHIEVEMENT SCORES OF INNER-CITY MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS

Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) allows students to select books of interest to them, and to read them without interruption. This is done with teachers as role models and in the presence of their peers.^ This study was launched as part of an effort to improve reading and vocabulary development of middle school students in an aging section of a city and thus test the efficacy of Sustained Silent Reading.^ The purpose of this study was to ascertain the results of a treatment using SSR, and thus the efficacy of the approach, through the comparison of reading and vocabulary test score data for the treatment group in the study and a number of comparison groups.^ Analyses are presented for test scores in vocabulary and test scores in total reading for three groups: the treatment groups, an historical group and a succeeding group. The general thrust of the study was to test the efficacy of SSR by comparing the vocabulary and total reading test scores of a seventh grade class which was exposed to the treatment for an academic year with test scores of both a previous (historical) class of seventh graders and a class of seventh grade students who enrolled in the succeeding year.^ The study also attempted to measure any ripple effect which might have accrued from the treatment by comparing test scores of propinquity children, both historical and succeeding who were not afforded the treatment but who interacted with the treatment group on playgrounds and elsewhere.