I find this graphic fascinating and enlightening. I showed it to Sirah today to encourage her to keep up the good progress she has recently made in reading. Our children have to read an hour a day from the time they are good independent readers, usually first or second grade. So if the student who reads 20 minutes a day during the school year reads 1,800,000 words by the end of sixth grade by my calculations (according to their standards) our kids will have read somewhere around 5,400,000 words by the end of sixth grade. It really goes to show you how the numbers add up. I am not sure exactly how accurate their numbers are but I recently did a quick calculation for Sirah as she reads Andrew Clements novels. It appears she reads at a rate of about 33-40 words per minute. Going with the lower number 722,700 words per year for about 5 years would be 3,613,500 and the higher speed an hour a day adds up to 876,000 words per year and 4,380,000 words between second and sixth grade. So the study numbers are not that far off as I imagine the rate per minute would only increase. I have not timed Maria recently but I can not even hazard a guess at how many words she reads over the course of a year and over the course of her education.
Sirah and I talked about how these numbers can be applied to different skill sets and educational goals. She loves art and swimming and we talked about what these numbers mean for practicing both art and swimming strokes. It was a great conversation starter. Do you encourage your kids to read every day? If not, why not? Do you read every day? If not, why not? Even 20 minutes a day makes a huge difference and you and your kids can start right now.
Hug those babies
Tenniel
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