{"id":8102,"date":"2025-03-16T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/?p=8102"},"modified":"2025-05-21T07:12:39","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T12:12:39","slug":"enjoyment-or-skill-the-case-of-reading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.learningandthebrain.com\/blog\/enjoyment-or-skill-the-case-of-reading\/","title":{"rendered":"Enjoyment or Skill? The Case of Reading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do we want our students to ENJOY math, or to BE SKILLED AT math?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At first, this question sounds like a false choice. Obviously, we want BOTH.<\/p>\n

As an English teacher, I want my students to have fun analyzing the books we read…and I want their analyses to have heft, merit, and substance.<\/p>\n

I suspect that most teachers, no matter the subject\u00a0 — Math, English, Chemistry, Religion, Pickleball — want our students to revel in core ideas and<\/strong> arrive at correct answers.<\/p>\n

At some times, alas, we probably need to prioritize one or the other. Especially at the beginning of a unit, should I focus on …<\/p>\n

… ensuring that my students like this stuff (even if they don’t immediately understand it)<\/i>, or on<\/p>\n

… ensuring they understand the stuff (even if they don’t immediately like<\/em> it)<\/em>?<\/p>\n

In teaching as in life: if I try to accomplish both goals simultaneously, I’m likely to accomplish neither.<\/p>\n

Reading Research<\/h2>\n

I’m not surprised to discover in a recent study<\/a> that students’\u00a0enjoyment<\/em> of reading correlates with their\u00a0skill<\/em> at reading.<\/p>\n

That is: students who get high scores on various reading tests report enjoying reading more than their low-test-scoring peers.<\/p>\n

Of course, correlation<\/em> (say it with me) isn’t causation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Does the enjoyment lead to the skill<\/strong>? The skill lead to the enjoyment<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

Both?<\/p>\n

Neither?<\/p>\n

To answer these questions, Elsje van Bergen’s research team looked at twins in Finland — more than 3500 of them.<\/p>\n

In theory, if we ask all the right questions, gather the right data, and run the right calculations, we should glean insight into the correlation\/causation question.<\/p>\n

So: what did Team van Bergen find?<\/p>\n

But First…<\/h2>\n

Before you read the answers to that question, you might pause to make a committment. Try to decide NOW if you’re inclined to trust this methodology.<\/p>\n

That is:<\/p>\n

a) you think well-done twin studies are likely to be a good way to answer this question. For that reason, you will be inclined to accept this answer\u00a0even if you initially disagree with it.<\/em><\/p>\n

or<\/p>\n

b) you think twin studies can’t answer questions about skill and enjoyment. Thus, you will not cite this study to support your beliefs\u00a0even if it aligns with those beliefs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

If we’re going to use research to make decisions about education, we should be scrupulous about doing so\u00a0even when research contradicts the conclusions we had initially held<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Answers, and Questions<\/h2>\n

Now, back to this post’s main narrative…<\/p>\n

Unlike many studies, this one can be summarized in a few pithy sentences.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Based on the twin data they analyzed, van Bergen’s team concludes that:<\/p>\n