Findings from a
new federal study suggest that U.S. schoolchildren may not improve their reading
skills until they have a better grasp of basic vocabulary.
The study, out
Thursday from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education
Statistics, looks at the vocabulary skills of students nationwide and finds that
they closely track students' reading comprehension levels. For fourth-graders,
for instance, the top 25% of readers turned in an average 255-point vocabulary
score on a 500-point scale; meanwhile, the weakest 25% of readers scored only
177 points.
The findings
represent the first time that the federal government has analyzed vocabulary in
isolation, and the results show that students have a long way to go: The average
fourth-grader scored 218 points in 2011, essentially unchanged from 2009. The
average eighth-grader scored 265, also unchanged from 2009. Twelfth-graders'
results for 2009 averaged 296 points, but the test wasn't repeated in
2011.
The results come
from the biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), commonly
called The Nation's Report Card.
Francie
Alexander of the children's publishing house Scholastic said the results show
that developing a rich vocabulary "can become a huge task for students," one
that schools must take on "beginning in the earliest grades and continuing
through high school." Alexander is also a former member of the National
Assessment Governing Board, which oversees NAEP testing. USA
Today
AHT/ARA
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