Study: Better teachers help children read faster
Genetics play the biggest role in determining how fast a child learns to read, but a good teacher can make a measurable difference as well, according to a study released Thursday.
Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE —
Genetics play the biggest role in determining how fast a child learns to read, but a good teacher can make a measurable difference as well, according to a study released Thursday.
Florida State University used twins assigned to different classrooms to develop the conclusions.
Researchers studied more than 550 first- and second-grade classrooms with at least one identical twin and more than 1,000 classes with at least one fraternal twin.
Among the identical twins, 42 pairs out of 280 pairs showed significant differences in reading improvement during the year studied, said lead researcher Jeanette Taylor, an associate professor of psychology at Florida State.
In each case, the teachers also had significantly different quality scores. Twins with similarly good teachers got similar scores.
"If you have identical twins, they should do very similarly in school," Taylor said.
Teachers whose students showed the greatest average one-year improvement in the number of words they could read out loud in one minute were considered the best teachers for the purpose of the study.
The study published in the journal Science was paid for by the National Institute of Child Health and Human