A r c h i v e d I n f o r m a t i o n

             FOR RELEASE                  Contact:  David Thomas             March 7, 1996                          (202) 401-1579

Riley Touts National Reading, Writing Partnership as Reading Report Card is Issued

U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley today renewed his call for much greater attention to the essential skill of reading following the release of a final report confirming that American students' reading skills are not improving quickly enough.

In his recent State of American Education address, Riley called teaching our children good reading habits "our most urgent task" and announced the formation of a new national reading and writing partnership with such diverse members as the American Library Association, AMC Theaters, the Library of Congress Center for the Book, the Girl Scouts of America and Pizza Hut. The partnership soon will announce an expansion of Read*Write*Now, a summer reading program begun last year.

"Our first challenge is to get America reading again," Riley said. "This new partnership is going to put the spotlight on literacy. We are going to take our case to the American people and tell them that reading is where it all begins.

"A young person who cannot read is placed at an extraordinary disadvantage. And in far too many cases, these are the very young people who start down the road to truancy, giving up and eventually dropping out."

The 1994 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading Report Card for the Nation and the States, released today by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, confirms a preliminary report issued last April. The findings indicate that students at all grade levels perform better if they have additional reading material at home.

"If all parents in America made it their patriotic duty to find an extra thirty minutes to help their children learn more -- each and every day -- it would revolutionize American education," Riley said.

The NAEP assessment, which measures students against high standards, reports national reading and comprehension achievement of 4th, 8th and 12th graders between 1992 and 1994 in 41 states and jurisdictions.

The findings show that reading achievements at all grade levels are associated with home support for literacy. For instance, students who more frequently read for fun on their own time had higher average reading proficiency. And students at all grade levels who had several types of literacy materials at home had higher average reading scores; when home reading material declined, so did reading ability. Students who watched the most television per day also had lower average reading proficiency.

Riley said the most disappointing finding of the assessment is that 12th graders' reading proficiency declined significantly in public and private schools in all three assessed purposes for reading: for literary experience; to gain information; and to perform a task. A fourth of all high school seniors scored below the most basic level.

Among other findings in the final reading report:

across all grades, students who read five or fewer pages daily for school and homework had the lowest scores;
students whose parents had more education scored higher;
students across all grades who had more frequent home discussions about their studies had higher reading proficiency;
8th and 12th graders whose teachers asked them daily or weekly to explain or support their understanding of what they read had higher scores than students who were asked to do less;
the decline in reading scores for 12th graders was apparent only at the bottom end of the scale; students at the 75th and 90th percentiles, for example did not show a statistically significant decline.

Acting NCES Commissioner Jeanne E. Griffith cautioned that additional assessments will be necessary to substantiate a trend of declining performance by 12th graders or the reasons for their lower scores. Two years of NAEP assessments do not provide enough evidence, she said.

"The data from this report need to be watched carefully to determine if further evidence from other sources corroborates them -- for example the 1996 NAEP long-term trend and the 1998 main reading assessment," Griffith said.

The framework on which the NAEP test was based was developed by the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) through a national consensus process. It measures students' performance in situations that involve reading different kinds of materials for different purposes.

The framework was designed to measure: reading for literary experience (e.g.: what is the plot? describe the main character); reading to gain information (e.g.; what does this article tell you? what could be added to improve the author's argument?); and, at the 8th and 12th grades only, reading to perform a task (e.g.; what is this supposed to help you do? what should you do next?).

The test expands -- from 60 percent in 1992 to 70 percent in 1994 -- the proportion of questions in which students must construct a response instead of selecting an answer from the traditional multiple choice format.

NAEP has monitored trends in academic achievement since the 1970s and is the only continuing, nationally representative assessment of academic performance.