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Dan Willingham: For the Love of Reading (extract)

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:13 am
by debbie
http://www.aft.org/ae/spring2015/willingham
Engaging Students in a Lifelong Pursuit

By Daniel T. Willingham

How should American teens spend their leisure time? I recently asked* American adults this question, after explaining that the typical teen enjoys approximately five hours of leisure time each weekday.1 The activity with the highest response, irrespective of race, education, and other demographic factors, was reading. Adults thought teens ought to spend about an hour and 15 minutes reading for pleasure each day.

How much time do teens actually spend reading? On average, six minutes.2

- See more at: http://www.aft.org/ae/spring2015/willin ... hxjps.dpuf
Daniel Willingham is held in high esteem and his writing is always worth reading.

There was a little concern, however, over some of his explanations about phonics as outlined on the message forum of the Reading Reform Foundation here - scroll to read John Walker's comments in particular with which I agreed:

http://rrf.org.uk/messageforum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6103