Below are interesting studies on two obstacles on the path to college-level reading:

1.     The dumbing down of text books and the related drop in SAT verbal scores; and

2.     The failure of independent reading programs to budge reading comprehension scores.

Read on to see how the boosting your word power with TargetScore! Vocabulary can help increase your reading comprehension skills. can help solve both problems.

How can TargetScore! Vocabulary help improve reading speed and comprehension, while creating lifelong readers? One way is by giving students challenging texts; texts at their vocabulary learning zone that neither frustrate nor bore them; texts that aren't dumbed down!

1. SCHOOLBOOK SIMPLIFICATION

(American Educational Research Journal, Summer,1996 No. 2, pp 489-508, Donald P. Hayes, L.T. Wolfer and M. F. Wolfe) described changes in the LEX levels of American and British schoolbooks used in pre-primary through college level courses.

The analyses showed the extent of simplification in every grade, from primers on. Simplification of schoolbooks had occurred after the American Civil War and again after WW I. The post WW II simplification began in the late 1940s and continued through the 1950s–reducing student access to the depth or breadth of domain knowledge. Substantively, this paper links the nationwide use of simplified texts to the huge decline in mean verbal SAT and ACT scores which began in 1963 and continued declining in each of the next 16 years. In the quarter-century since, schools have tried many means to raise verbal scores, but SAT and NAEP testing fails to find any increase -- whereas mathematics scores have risen modestly. The one thing publishers and educators have not done is raise modern textbook LEXile to its former level in every grade.

2. STUDENTS CHOOSE THE WRONG BOOKS.

Studies show that sustained silent reading does not help reading comprehension (see Voice of Evidence: Shanahan chapter, Edit. McCardle & Chabra, Brookes, 2004). How can that be, you ask, when some schools dedicate 90+ hours a year to schoolwide reading?

The more you read the better you read, right? Wrong. Because students choose the wrong texts: good readers choose easy text so they can relax. Struggling readers choose texts that are too difficult (afraid of appearing dumb) and then pretend to read for 90 hours a year! To get the right kind of reading comprehension practice, adults must guide students to readings at the right level-of-difficulty.
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