Around the world, the catch-all measure used to proxy for parental commitment to education is the number of books in a child‘s household. This measure predicts student educational outcomes better than class sizes, or expenditures per student, the length of the school day or better class monitoring. Hanushek and Woessman have found that among 27 rich countries, the United States sees one of the strongest relationships between parental book ownership and child learning outcomes. In the U.S., kids from homes where there are more than two full bookcases score two and a half grade levels higher than kids from homes with very few books.
Don’t worry, I’m sure we’re cutting all the programs that allow students to pick out and take home their own books!
Do more books make smart homes or do smart homes own more books?
And if all the books are on Mom’s Kindle, do the kids notice?
When children are given their own books to take home, they perform better in school – whether their parents read or not.
I see an awful lot of little kids with iPads or tablets these days. They probably get their own books.