krashen
the singapore study very similar gains it was published journal called language learning considered one of the top journals in the world in second-language acquisition so this was very public places the results were nearly as impressive they were very strong from the Singapore study. the interesting thing about the Singapore paper was It had a long section in a discussion with some of the reactions were from the adults connected to the program from teachers parents administrators. there were two major concerns concern
number 1, the major concern everybody has. the children are reading but how will they do on the test look at the data they do fine on the test they do better on the tests than children who do skill-building. they do better on the test than children who do grammar exercises and test preparation. they do better run grammar test and students who study grammar now why did they do better I think it's because they can't help it. if you read a lot the conventions of language, the grammar, the punctuation all that the spelling it's acquired it's a becomes part of you it's deep store deep in your central nervous system you have no choice but to write well let's say they're 211 people and let's say I asked you all to write something. let's say I asked everybody to write 2 paraghraps and then we traded papers, it would be 211 good papers there wouldn't be a bad one in the room you know why, because you've read so much you have no choice. when you write everything comes out okay. you have no choice it's automatic. you cannot right poorly you don't even know how. the only way you can right poorly is if you just read a pile of student papers. it shows the importance of reading. You go to someone's house there are books everywhere you would be amazed to see a sample of their writing with serious mistakes it's extremely rare. the other problem people have with this is they say things like the children in the reading group seemed to be having a good time but we can't have that. we're not living in an age of tough love it has to be difficult. no it isn't, if you're looking for pain and suffering you've come to the wrong place. and you know people in spirituality talk about the path of pleasure in the path of pain and the path of pleasure in spirituality with meditation and said it is very nice but it's slow and the path of a pain on my gosh it's very quick. if you go to work shops and leader ask people, why did you come here? why are you having a spiritual crisis? why do you want this education? it's usually because of some tragedy something horrible has happened. you woken up, what is the meaning of life, not so in literacy development. In literacy development there is only the path of pleasure let me stay this conservatively I am not saying everything Pleasant is good for you. I'm not saying if it feels good it's good for you. we said that in the sixties. sometimes it was true sometimes it wasn't, we had a lot of fun finding out bu still what I'm saying is more conservative. if it's good for you it should feel good in literacy development. students and teachers will enjoy it if it's painful something is seriously wrong. my Triumph of excel is the next Chart here I wrote a paper in 2007 and I'm happy to say the paper is already very absolute. because new evidence has come and I need to update it. this is the study of high school and University level only, English as a foreign language not in English speaking countries not Esl but Efl. and I thought this was a good laboratory because many many students in Efl, the class is the only place they have to get English okay. so this is a good place to look at it the First Column here of the studies and in every study there was a comparison group with traditional instruction and there was an experimental group where there was some sustained silent reading, some free voluntary reading. look down at the last two columns and you'll see the results of the each study. Two kinds of tests clothes test and reading comprehension test, the ES means affects size and here's today's statistic lesson if you don't know what this is. If the effect size is positive the number is positive it means the readers did better. the readers are better in every single study. in other words it worked in every single one and effect size of about point two is a low effects size. 0.5, 0.6 is modest 7 8 9 is pretty good.