Does merely having access to an enriched environment with many books improve reading outcomes in the early grades?

The Information Book Flood: Is Additional Exposure Enough to Support Early Literacy Development?

News Summary: Over the past twenty years many reading interventions have been proposed. One of these, “Book Flooding”, proposes that providing an enriched environment in which books are present and readily available can improve reading. Much of the research on this topic has focused on exposing children in the early grades to storybooks. Given the greater importance on reading complex text in meeting new reading standards, this study examines the impact of book flooding of books that stress academic words and technical terms. This quasi-experimental study examines the influence of a book distribution program targeted at enhancing children’s exposure to information books. The research examined whether a flood of information books in early childhood settings could affect growth in language, content-related vocabulary, and concepts of comprehending information text. The study concludes there were no significant effects on student outcomes and that book distribution programs on their own need to be reevaluated if they are to improved student reading performance.

Citation: Neuman, S. B. (2017). The Information Book Flood: Is Additional Exposure Enough to Support Early Literacy Development?. The Elementary School Journal, 118(1), 1-27.

Link: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdfplus/10.1086/692913