Achievement in Silent Reading in an Elementary School

Abstract

The results of studies inquiring into achievements in reading at every school level confirm the general observation that our schools have not de veloped satisfactory reading skills in a large number of elementary and high school pupils. We still find teachers who utterly fail to understand the individual differences of children and to meet their separate needs. The limited capacities of some children may account for their failure of retarda tion in reading. In most schools, however, the lack of adjusting the teaching program to the abilities and needs of each child from the time he enters school produces many cases of reading deficiencies which, with proper teaching technique, could have been prevented. The study reported here was undertaken to determine the achievement in reading of the pupils of a parochial elementary school, to demonstrate to the teachers the necessity of better individualized instruction, and to enlist the cooperation of the Parent-Teacher Association of the community in pro viding funds for supplying each grade with reading material of varying difficulty and of a wide variety of interests. The data of the study are derived from measuring achievements in reading of the pupils of an elementary school in a University city of the Midwest. Being parochial in character, this school draws the majority of its pupils from the Catholic people of the city who represent all classes? professional, industrial, merchant, artisan, and laborer. The community has a preponderance of well-to-do families. Accumulated records of the pupils furnished data concerning the socio-economic status and the mental ability of the subjects of our study. Regarding the former, scores obtained on the Sims Score Card for Measurement of Socio-Economic Status indicate that the great majority of the subjects of investigation live in desirable environ mental circumstances. When treated statistically, scores derived from the Otis Self-Administering Test of Mental Ability, Forms A and B, admin istered to the pupils of Grade IV through VIII, the Otis Primary Test, ad 594