Independent Reading...how effective is it?

How effective is independent reading at actually teaching reading? This is an often asked question and one that seems difficult to actually answer.

In this article, Timothy Shanahan discusses his findings around this topic.

Here are a couple quotes I pulled from the reading:

"No question about it. Reading can lead to learning and that is true if the reading takes place independently, socially, or under the supervision of a teacher. It is true whether the reading is oral or silent, self-selected or assigned, done at home or at school. It is a good idea to require children to read. It is a good idea to encourage children to read on their own."

"Reading on one’s own leads to reading improvement, but not to as much reading improvement as usually results when kids read with a teacher."

Article from Reading Rockets - April 2, 2018