Accountability

In most sustained silent reading (SSR) studies reported in the research literature, no accountability was used; subjects simply read for pleasure and were not required to do any sort of book report. In the series of studies reported here, there was some accountability, but it was not excessive: readers were required to read, to report on what they read, and had incentives (course credit and grades).

Our results thus suggest that the positive effects of SSR can be maintained even when some of the conditions are slightly weakened. There appears, however, to be a limit on just how far one can go. Carver and Liebert (1995) reported no gain in vocabulary knowledge for elementary school students after a six-week (24 hr) extensive reading program. Carver and Liebert clearly departed from SSR too much; there was heavy use of extrinsic motivators, their subjects were restricted to "easy" books, at or below their reading level, and had to take multiple choice test on the books they read. In addition, reading time was heavily concentrated, with students reading in two-hour blocks, with breaks, a procedure that also departs from usual SSR practice.

Our data do not provide us with any way of determining whether accountability was necessary for the success of extensive reading, but it is clear from other studies that free reading can work without it. It remains to be determined (1) whether the "light" accountability used in this study was helpful, (2) if it was helful, what level of accountability is optimal, and (3) whether accountability is more effective in some situations than others (e.g. EFL vs ESL; children vs adults).

The role of output

Study 3 attempted to determine whether the fact that students wrote their summaries in English had any impact on their progress. While the results of one comparison supported the output hypothesis, most of the data did not. In fact, those who wrote summaries in their first language made superior gains in writing and reading speed.

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