Among the "more you can do" is arithmetic and mathematics. A student needs to be able to read directions, example text, and word problems to move ahead in math; and longitudinal data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) indicate an almost perfect relationship between math and reading scores. It is a fallacy that students can be proficient in math even if their reading skills are low. Rather, a student with math scores that are disproportionately higher than his/her reading scores is the exception, and represents an infinitesimally small percentage of the student population.
On another note, my granddaughter is involved in TTRR (which is a program discussed in this government post), or a very similar program, and reads well over 100 grade-level-and-above books per year. Although she complains that one of her friends attains higher numbers by reading “easy” books, she still feels an incredible sense of accomplishment each year. My only critique of the TTRR program is that it still tends to leave low SES kids in the dust. And now that RIF (Reading is Fundamental) has lost funding to give needy kids their own reading books, my fear is that the academic achievement gap between poor and middle-class kids will become even wider each year.
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