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Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#151

Post by bigger_cheese »

StillBored wrote: post #112

I wonder how outdated/lagging these studies are. When I was a kid I was reading nearly every waking moment between say 3rd grade and 9th because It was the only form of entertainment I had (until I got a computer). That is because my parents thought that TV rotted a child's brain and didn't have one in the house until after I left. Today, my kids read, but they have phones, TV's, computers, and a ton of other distrac…

I grew up in similar environment my parents restricted how much TV my sisters and I were allowed to watch. We were given a certain number of hours of TV a week that they would let us watch (something like 3 hours per week) and as punishment for failing to do chores or similar we would have some tv time taken away.

As a result we read a lot of books. I also spent a lot of time playing with things like Lego and as I got older I was into Meccano and building Model aircraft/cars etc.

Eventually I got into Computers. In my mid teens I bought a second hand computer (a 386) from street market. It wasn't working so I read up on how it all worked tracked down spare parts etc and once I got it booting I spent hours everyday on the thing.

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#152

Post by Aeolun »

snowwrestler wrote: post #135
TallGuyShort wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet standardized test writers seem to think they understand those choices better than the authors themselves.

Critics have an opportunity to understand those choices better than the authors themselves because critics have the opportunity to look at the work from a different perspective. Just because every bit of writing is a choice, that doesn't mean the author him- or herself fully understood why they made that choice. We're all shaped by our own life experiences, our family, the time in which we grew up, etc. Often, it's e…

If I do not understand why I write something, then some critic that cannot see into my mind is hardly going to make a better effort. Anything they said would be mostly speculation.

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#153

Post by davchana »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #86
fhood wrote: post #2

I grew up in a household that had passed that 350 book mark, and beyond all of the actual meaningful improvements it has made to my life, it also meant that reading comprehension on standardized testing was laughably easy. So teach your kids to love books, and enjoy reading. It doesn't have to be high-brow intellectually challenging shit, just make sure that they associate books with fun.

>> it also meant that reading comprehension on standardized testing was laughably easy I'm actually curious to hear how various HNers have done on on standardized reading comprehension tests. I grew up with massive bookcases in the house, I've now populated my own, I read a lot, get a lot out of it, and enjoy it. On the ACT I had perfect scores on every category but a literal 0 on reading comprehension. As far as I'm…

I started reading from a very young age, as a hobby & used to read any & every book available around me. So much that had been termed as bookworm by siblings or people around me.

At age of 28 I took IELTS test or International English Language Testing System, which has four modules Reading Writing Speaking Listening. I always scored full bands on Reading & I believe its because of all those years of me reading & loving enjoying the process of it. Reading module for me felt like always too easy & simple, whereas others used to dread it. Although at same time, I was terrible at explaining the same module to others that why I think x is the answer to y question.

I read a lot of hindi comic books & literally used to feel like watching a movie with all those sound effects of punches flights laughs etc instead of just reading.

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#154

Post by AllegedAlec »

Insanity wrote: post #3
fhood wrote: post #2

I grew up in a household that had passed that 350 book mark, and beyond all of the actual meaningful improvements it has made to my life, it also meant that reading comprehension on standardized testing was laughably easy. So teach your kids to love books, and enjoy reading. It doesn't have to be high-brow intellectually challenging shit, just make sure that they associate books with fun.

I think that last part is especially true. Due to school and forced reading assingments, reading gets associated too often with work or boring assignments.

What I really hated in primary school was that when you finished your homework, you were allowed to read a book. However, all the books were pretty dated and not all that interesting. Furthermore, when you'd finished it, you'd have to write a report on it. One year, I got sick of this system, so I found one book I enjoyed and basically read that one a couple dozen times over the rest of the year.

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#155

Post by simplemts »

JamesBarney wrote: post #113
fhood wrote: post #2

I grew up in a household that had passed that 350 book mark, and beyond all of the actual meaningful improvements it has made to my life, it also meant that reading comprehension on standardized testing was laughably easy. So teach your kids to love books, and enjoy reading. It doesn't have to be high-brow intellectually challenging shit, just make sure that they associate books with fun.

I think most parents with large household libraries are probably pretty bright. And most kids from pretty bright parents are pretty bright too. You could fill a library with all the studies that tried to improve people's lives through increased reading. And none of them replicated in large way.

You should check out '30 million words'. It's a book about the importance of spoken language on young minds, and books may be a means. Fascinating data in it.

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#156

Post by im3w1l »

ip26 wrote: post #97
TallGuyShort wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it also meant that reading comprehension on standardized testing was laughably easy I'm actually curious to hear how various HNers have done on on standardized reading comprehension tests. I grew up with massive bookcases in the house, I've now populated my own, I read a lot, get a lot out of it, and enjoy it. On the ACT I had perfect scores on every category but a literal 0 on reading comprehension. As far as I'm…

I read a ton as a kid, and I always struggled a bit on reading comprehension tests. To me it generally seemed like the "reading comprehension" questions would focus on minutia I didn't consider important, and simply didn't bother to remember. It's been a long time since then, but I want to say I'd read a story about a kid sledding on a hill with his friends, and then later to test your reading comprehension they'd as…

You aren't supposed to read the text and then answer the questions from memory.

You are supposed to look at the question and then find the answer in the text.

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#157

Post by bobcostas55 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #131
cm2012 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I usually love your moderation, dang, and agree with you 99.99% of the time. But I think the parent here's criticism of the article does add something - the idea of genetics as a powerful confounding variable. He could have expanded on it, but it didn't add nothing.

"Accounting for genetic confounds" is extremely difficult--so difficult that no one in the world knows how to do it reliably--for basically any aspect of human behavior. So the dismissal reads like "there's no excuse for not doing an extremely difficult thing that no one knows how to do reliably." I don't find that to be a useful or informative comment, so I agree with dang's approach here.

There's a gazillion twin studies out there. There are huge databases of twins to facilitate their creation. It's really not that difficult. They might be imperfect but I would not call them unreliable.

We already know from earlier twin studies that genetics play a large role in literacy and numeracy.[0][1] So it's not like this is a shot in the dark, everyone already knows it's a confounder that must be taken into account.

[0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1469-7610.... [1] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797613486982

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#158

Post by toomuchtodo »

simplemts wrote: post #155
JamesBarney wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most parents with large household libraries are probably pretty bright. And most kids from pretty bright parents are pretty bright too. You could fill a library with all the studies that tried to improve people's lives through increased reading. And none of them replicated in large way.

You should check out '30 million words'. It's a book about the importance of spoken language on young minds, and books may be a means. Fascinating data in it.

https://smile.amazon.com/Thirty-Million-Words-Building-Child...

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#159

Post by RugnirViking »

iopuy wrote: post #54
izzydata wrote: post #18

I grew up in a house that had a library with 1000+ books. Unfortunately I didn't read much of any of them. Nobody ever tried to get me to read them. However, I blame myself for not reading much as a kid. My point being that the mere presence of books is not enough.

I read an average amount as a child and frankly I found books such as "The Count of Monte Cristo", "The Red Badge of Courage", "Great Expectations", etc to be absolutely mind-numbingly boring and would have to force myself to finish them. As a young adult I actually picked up some books I found interesting (i.e. nonfiction) and became a voracious reader. It was like an entire new world had opened up that wasn't const…

I mean those books you listed as examples are not aimed at children at all and indeed in the modern era are not really particularly good in a modern cultural context. That does not mean that they are not worth reading, but if they were the things that you thought most worth reading as a child it's not a surprise you were dissapointed.

Re: Large home libraries may have a long-term impact on proficiency: study

#160

Post by JamesBarney »

simplemts wrote: post #155
JamesBarney wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most parents with large household libraries are probably pretty bright. And most kids from pretty bright parents are pretty bright too. You could fill a library with all the studies that tried to improve people's lives through increased reading. And none of them replicated in large way.

You should check out '30 million words'. It's a book about the importance of spoken language on young minds, and books may be a means. Fascinating data in it.

Before I invest the time.and money in buying a book. How did they deal with the confounds? And was there a study on the intervention you could point me to?

Reading the summary of the book on Amazon, the experiments looked pretty confounded and it didn't mention any successful interventions.

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