Student B reads only 4 minutes a night...or not at all!
Step 1: Multiply minutes a night x 5 times each week.
Student A reads 20 min. x 5 times a week = 100 mins./week
Student B reads 4 minutes x 5 times a week = 20 mins./week
Step 2: Multiply minutes a week x 4 weeks each month
Student A reads 400 minutes a month
Student B reads 80 minutes a month
Step 3: Multiply minutes a month x 9 months/school year
Student A reads 3600 min. in a school year
Student B reads 720 min. in a school year.
Student A practices reading the equivalent of ten school days a year.
Student B gets the equivalent of only two school days of reading practice.
By the end of the sixth grade if Student A and Student B maintain these same reading habits,
Student A will have read the equivalent of 60 whole days.
Student B will have read the equivalent of only 12 days.
One would expect the gap of information retained widened considerably and so, undoubtedly, will performance.
How do you think Student B will feel about him-herself as a student?
Some questions to ponder:
Which student would you expect to read better?
Which student would you expect to know more?
Which student would you expect to write better?
Which student would you expect to have a better vocabulary?
Which student would you expect to be more successful in school....and in life?
Why read 30 minutes a day?
If daily reading begins in infancy, by the time the child is 5 years old, he or she has been fed roughly 900 hours of brain food!
Reduce that experience to just 30 minutes a week and the child's hungry mind loses 770 hours of nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and stories.
A kindergarten student who has not been read aloud to could enter school with less than 60 hours of literacy nutrition. No teacher, no matter how talented, can make up for those lost hours of mental nourishment.
Therefore...
30 minutes daily :900 hours
30 minutes weekly: 130 hours
Less than 30 minutes weekly!: 60 hours
(Source: U.S. Department of Education, America Reads Challenge.(1999) "Start Early, Finish Strong: How to Help Your Child Become a Better Reader." Washington, D.C.)