The Deseret News asks a question in a May 12 op-ed: “Standardized tests are failing students. What can we do about it?”
Researchers Stanovich and Cunningham, in a study published back in 1993, reported that college students’ familiarity with popular fiction and magazines was strongly related to performance on tests covering the subjects we would like high school students to know, including science, social studies and practical technology.
High school grade point average was not significantly related to test performance.
Reading interesting books might be a better way of doing “test preparation” than studying.
Stephen Krashen
Los Angeles, California