Monday, March 26, 2012

High School Students Reading at 5th Grade Level


Ugh.

From a piece in the Huffington Post...


A compilation of the top 40 books teens in grades 9-12 are reading in school shows that the average reading level of that list is 5.3 -- barely above the fifth grade.

"A fifth-grade reading level is obviously not high enough for college-level reading. Nor is it high enough for high school-level reading, either, or for informed citizenship," writes Sandra Stotsky, professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas.

The results come from "What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools," a report by Renaissance Learning, Inc. The data covers book-reading records for the 2010-2011 academic year among 2.6 million students in grades 1-12 from 24,465 schools in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

At the top of the list for high schoolers: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, followed by John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird.

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