Interesting Facts About Reading

I found these facts posted on the First Lady of Tennessee's webpage, they were interesting enough to share.

 Did You Know? 

If a child reads for 20 minutes every day, they are exposed to about 1.8 million words of text every year. 1  That is 137 new words per minute! If families read together for 20 minutes a day, 7 days a week, they get more than 121 hours of bonding time every year! Many states use 3rd grade reading scores to predict the number of jail cells they might need in the future. 2

(About 3 out of 5 prisoners in America are illiterate.) 3

 For every year you read with your child, average lifetime earnings increase by $50,000. You make a $250,000 gift to your child from birth to age five by reading aloud, just 20 minutes a day! 4 

Children who have not developed some basic literacy skills by the time they enter school are 3 - 4 times more likely to drop out in later years. 5

 1 Anderson, R.C., Wilson, P.T., Fielding, L.G. (1988). “Growth in Reading and How Children    Spend Their Time Outside of School,” Reading Research Quarterly, 23(3), pp. 285–303.
2 National Institute for Literacy, 1998. [(Arizona Republic (9-15-2004)].
3 U.S. Department of Education.
4 http://www.readingfoundation.org/parents.jsp
5 National Adult Literacy Survey, (1002) NCES, U.S. Department of Education