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Reading Inspires is Reading Is Fundamental’s new podcast celebrating the power of books and the joy of reading. Each episode invites educators, librarians, families, authors, illustrators, and all who champion children’s literacy to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you? Through engaging conversations and storytelling, Reading Inspires bridges the gap between research and real-world practice—showing what literacy looks and feels like in classrooms, libraries, and homes. Grounded in evidence yet open-ended in approach, this is a space for curiosity and connection. Whether you’re an educator seeking fresh ideas, a parent hoping to spark a love of reading, or simply a lifelong bookworm, you’ll find inspiration, practical insights, and stories that remind us all why reading matters—and how it changes lives.
[00:00:00] Erin: Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading is Fundamental. I'm your host, Dr. Erin Bailey. This podcast celebrates the power of books and the joy of reading. In each episode, we talk with educators, librarians, families, authors, and literacy champions to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you?
[00:00:21] Through stories, research, and real-world experiences from classrooms, libraries, and homes, we explore what literacy looks like and why it matters. Whether you're nurturing young readers, shaping learning spaces, or simply love a good book, we're glad you're here. Be sure to subscribe to get the latest episode.
[00:00:39] Let's get inspired.
[00:00:42] Speaker 9: Welcome. Today on Reading Inspires, we are joined by Dr. Jeffrey Borman, a leading education researcher whose work examines educational equity, school improvement, and the impact of evidence-based interventions on student achievement. Dr. Borman's research has helped us better understand how access to books, particularly for children from under-resourced communities, can influence reading development and academic success. His recent research on the cumulative impact of providing children with books offers compelling evidence for something we believe in deeply at Reading Is Fundamental. When children have access to books they can choose, own, and enjoy, we can help create meaningful opportunities for literacy development. Dr. Borman and I have partnered on a couple of projects together, so I specifically invited him here today to share what research tells us about book ownership, how children's reading experiences outside of the classroom shape their literacy development, and what educators, families, and communities can do to help more children become confident, motivated readers.
[00:01:40] So welcome, Jeffrey. Thanks for coming.
[00:01:42] Speaker 7: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me
[00:01:45] Speaker 9: I'd love to start by learning a little bit about your background. What first inspired you to pursue a career in education research, and then how did that evolve towards literacy development?
[00:01:55] Speaker 7: Well, I grew up in a family of academics, so it was basically predestined. Uh, my, both my mom and dad were, uh, professors and, um, I thought it seemed like a really nice lifestyle, you know? Uh, there, there's this thing called academic freedom, which is kind of a nice thing that, uh, once you get tenure, you can write about whatever inspires you most and, and have that freedom to do so.
[00:02:22] And so that always inspired me, and I always thought that was, um, a great career path for me to take. But more specifically about, um, my interest in literacy, it, um, really was inspired, um, going back to my first academic job at Johns Hopkins University. And, um, fresh out of graduate school, I was always interested in that phenomenon of the summer learning loss or summer learning decay, uh, where students, when they're out of school during the summer months, tend to lose ground academically.
[00:03:00] When we measure them with an achievement test in the spring at the end of the school year and then at the beginning of the next school year in the fall, almost invariably we see these losses, that the score that kids get in the fall tends to be lower than the score they got in the spring, or it doesn't really move that much at all, indicating that there wasn't a whole lot of learning going on during the summer months.
[00:03:27] And just like an athlete or just like a musician, if you go three months, you know, the standard, uh, summer, uh, term, uh, if you go the, those three months without practicing, well, you know, your, your, your, y- your work as a, a musician or an athlete is not gonna look so great, um, after that three-month period.
[00:03:49] And likewise with students, when they're out of school and don't have those regular opportunities to practice, um, academic skills- They lose ground, um, academically as well. And in particular, I noticed that this phenomenon really affected, um, kids from high poverty schools and their reading development, um, specifically.
[00:04:15] So, you know, think about it. So all families are kind of equally devoid of learning opportunities in math. You know, it's not like parents sit around the, the dinner table and, you know, recite math, uh, equations with, with their, their son or daughter or read them, um, math bedtime stories. Uh, but on the other hand, you know, there are a lot of, uh, families that do, um, engage in various literacy activities in the home and shared reading and that sort of thing.
[00:04:49] Problem is, is that kids from high poverty communities and schools often lack the resources to be able to continue, um, that reading during the summer months. And so as a consequence, there's been a lot written about that, but it seems to be that that is kind of the key issue that kids, um, from low income communities and, uh, high poverty schools don't have as many opportunities to continue engaging in reading over the summer months.
[00:05:24] And so that was really kind of the inspiration to me, where I met these two highly ambitious, um, graduate students at Johns Hopkins who wanted to launch a summer learning program. And so we worked together and, um, did a, uh, my first RCT in, back in 1999 on, um, the impacts of a summer learning program. And, um, that was really what inspired me to look into various ways that we could continue kids' learning opportunities, um, over those summer months
[00:06:04] Speaker 9: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I, I mean, I, I love your example of how most families don't sit around talking about math at the dinner table, but we have a varied, uh, literacy experiences, and I wonder if book access h- plays a critical role in that, and that kind of leads to, um, your n- your current work, which has been on getting books into the hands of, um, children.
[00:06:28] So what does the evidence tell us about the relationship between access to books, book ownership, and children's reading achievement?
[00:06:36] Speaker 7: Yeah. Well, I'm always interested in trying to find, um, kind of the, the low-hanging fruit, if you will. You know, some of the, the easy kinds of tweaks that we can make that really make a strong difference for kids. And that can be something, you know, as easy as providing books for kids to take home and read during the summer months, as opposed to staging an elaborate summer school program, which is much more expensive and difficult to carry out.
[00:07:07] And so that idea of book access really struck me as an idea that could be really powerful, allow kids the opportunity to take home, um, books during the summer months and, um, have access to that reading material and engage in, um, you know, voluntary reading during the summer months that would really inspire and improve their outcomes.
[00:07:32] And so, um, what we do know from the literature on, on reading is that, uh, you know, increased reading volume is really, you know, the key driver to improve literacy outcomes for kids. Uh, very straightforward and simple idea that when kids read more, um, they tend to, uh, start to enjoy reading, um, more, and they start to actually, um, start to perform better on achievement tests.
[00:08:04] And there's this recursive kind of positive cycle that we call Matthew effects, where, um, when kids improve in reading and see the enjoyment that they have in, um, engaging in reading, um, that, that inspires more and more reading and better and better achievement outcomes for kids. And so, um, this whole idea of access to books, um, I thought would be one way that we could really inspire greater opportunities to read at home and greater opportunities to really engage in voluntary reading and, and, and i- in turn inspire better performance on, on achievement tests and greater and greater attachment and engagement in reading as a fun thing to do
[00:08:52] Speaker 9: Yeah, absolutely. It's, it sounds so simple, and I don't think we talk about it enough, is just the fact the more you read, the better you get at reading. And what do you need to be able to read more? You need to have books in your home. And I think especially for us at Reading is Fundamental, choice is also a critical component
[00:09:13] Speaker 7: Yeah
[00:09:13] Speaker 9: if you choose the books, then you're going to want to read them, and then the more you read, the better you get at reading
[00:09:20] Speaker 7: Absolutely. Yeah. Um, the whole a-aspect, I mean, we've been talking more about access to books and, and, in terms of access, well, you know, providing books that kids can take home and create that kind of home library within their home that they can go to and choose from a variety of different books to, um, read, whether it's during the summer months or whether it's during the school year when they're outside of school, um, that can inspire, um, opportunities.
[00:09:52] But also in addition to access, that whole idea of choice, like you mentioned, I think is hugely important, that, um, kids need to be able to sometimes see themselves in the books. Um, and having books become kind of like a mirror where you can see yourself in the characters or maybe even the, in the, in the author, um, of the book, that that can inspire even greater engagement and greater attachment and enjoyment to reading, um, I think.
[00:10:26] And so that's all part of that choice aspect. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about, um, matching, um, student's identity, but that, I think, can be a very strong part of it, where, um, you have more culturally relevant or personally, personally relevant books that can inspire increased, um, subjective task value, to borrow from the kind of motivation literature that, you know, it just further motivates you to really believe in the characters and the authors and the stories that you're reading when you see yourself in the books or when you see even just, you know, um, a, a, a subject that you really enjoy, whether it be, you know, baseball or whether it be, you know, some activity that is really exciting and interesting to you, and you can see those characters and those ideas and stories emerge, definitely is something that I think increases the enjoyment and the value and that continued attachment to reading
[00:11:35] Speaker 9: Yeah, and I think that emphasizes why outside of school reading is so important because, I, I mean, the way school is structured many times, there are not a lot of opportunities for children to choose the books that they read in, in school, and that's for a, a variety of reasons. So having opportunities for children to select books that are re- relevant to them, where it, whether it's a identity that they find relevant or an experience or a, like to your point about sports, a hobby or, or something, um, that typically happens outside of school
[00:12:10] Speaker 7: Right. Right. Yeah, so I, I, I mean, I think that choice is definitely, um, a, a huge, huge issue and something that, um, you know, just handing kids a bunch of books without kind of curating them and understanding what, you know, each child brings to the table in terms of their interests, um, you know, that's selling the, the idea of book ownership short.
[00:12:39] And I think, you know, that idea of choice is, is really fundamental and very important
[00:12:46] Speaker 9: We, we certainly agree.
[00:12:48] Speaker 7: I know you do.
[00:12:49] Speaker 9: um, so walk us through your five-year randomized control trial, uh, that you recently published, and maybe start for viewers who aren't as familiar with research literature, why was it important to do a randomized control trial on book ownership?
[00:13:06] Speaker 7: Well, so, um, some of the past literature, you know, on, um, book ownership suggests kind of two ways of thinking about it. That one way of thinking about it is that, um, it's kind of the sociological perspective. Bourdieu wrote a lot about this idea that having books in the home is kind of a, a, a marker, um, a, uh, a, a kind of idea that, um, the family values culture and that the val- the, the, they, uh, look to establish a scholarly kind of culture within the home.
[00:13:44] Um, it's the same idea of having, you know, for instance, inspiring art, um, hanging on your wall. Um, that books and art, these are artifacts that Bourdieu talks about as, um, being important, um, kind of cultural artifacts that signify and represent important assets that a family and a child has that can inspire academic performance.
[00:14:11] Um, so in fact, there are a lot of economists and sociologists that run these, uh, kind of multiple regression models where they try to see, huh, let's see, what, what are some of the most important family predictors of better achievement outcomes? And so they put a bunch of different variables in these predictive models predicting what, you know, what, what, um, what, what predicts better performance on achievement tests.
[00:14:42] so a lot of economists and, um, sociologists run these regression models with different variables representing assets that the family brings to the home, um, and brings to a child's education, and often one of those variables that's most important is the family's socioeconomic status or how much, um, inc- family income they have, what the, overall education level of the parent is.
[00:15:10] And these things are supposed to then translate into better performance in school of their children. And typically, that's the way that it works out. Um, but one of the other variables that, um, these economists and sociologists often plug into these regression models is the number of books in the home.
[00:15:34] Speaker 9: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:34] Speaker 7: And so, really interestingly, um, a lot of correlational research has suggested that if you have more books in the home, you tend to perform better in school. And in particular, um, there's been some, um, estimates that put that number as kind of like the tipping point at 100 books. And so if you have 100 or more books in the home, that tends to be really, really a good signal that you're gonna do well in school.
[00:16:09] Um, regardless of other kinds of inputs into the home, that marker of having 100 books in the home seems to be really, really important. And so it's kind of abstract and kind of like, you know, these are regression models that we're using. These are kind of fancy predictive statistical models. But what's really going on, you know, um, inside that black box, and what's really, behind this idea of more books in the home being such an important driver of, um, better achievement outcomes for kids, and it's some of the things that we've been talking about.
[00:16:48] That, you know, more books in the home Create, um, more opportunities to also cultivate, um, kind of that scholarly culture within the home. That there are gonna be more opportunities to read, and especially when, um, kids have choice to pick high-interest books that really engage them and really interest them, that that can really strengthen their, um, attachment to the books and their identification with the characters, and just further motivate them to continue reading.
[00:17:21] And with greater access to books, um, reading at home becomes more normalized. Um, home literacy routines, uh, are, are strengthened. Um, and so it really fundamentally kind of changes the whole literacy environment of the home such that, um, sustained access to, um, books can really cause all of these things we've been talking about in terms of just increased engagement and, and, um, consuming of, of, uh, literacy within the home.
[00:17:56] Which in turn improves, um, the, the amount of volume that students are reading, which in turn improves, uh, their literacy achievement. And again, that whole positive cycle of, you know, kids seeing themselves getting better at reading and, you know, understanding, um, literacy and, and, uh, reading better and better, that inspires more and more reading.
[00:18:20] And that kind of cultivates that home literacy environment that can really sustain reading, um, as an important, valued aspect of what we do in this home. Um, and so I think having more books in the home really helps, um, cultivate that kind of scholarly culture, if you will, independent of, you know, how much money your family earns or what the education level of your mom or dad is.
[00:18:49] That it's still that access to books and having more books in the home independent of all of those kinds of markers of socioeconomic status that Bourdieu and the sociologists talk about, that those are kind of some of the most, most important things that drive better performance and, and better reading outcomes.
[00:19:12] Speaker 9: And to clarify too, the 100 book tipping point, that's just total books in the home, right? Not specifically children's books.
[00:19:20] Speaker 7: That's right
[00:19:21] Speaker 9: it's, about children also seeing their families value books and value reading, and I'm assuming, you know, children growing up watching family members read, outside of just children reading physical books themselves and practicing reading
[00:19:38] Speaker 7: Yeah, that's, that's absolutely right. And, um, you're right, some of those measures have been a little bit, um, esoteric in terms of, you know, not identifying whether they're truly children's books that would motivate the actual reading of children or kind of more the idea that you're talking about, where you see a lot of books in the homes.
[00:20:02] Maybe they're books for grownups, but that inspires this idea that, hey, you know, reading is really valued in this home and by my parents, and so maybe that's something that I should, um, think about and, and value as well
[00:20:15] Speaker 9: Which kind of goes back to your background of you s- grew up with
[00:20:18] Speaker 7: Yeah.
[00:20:19] Speaker 9: who are academics, and it
[00:20:21] Speaker 7: True.
[00:20:22] Speaker 9: to go into academia. But okay, so then here
[00:20:25] Speaker 7: Yeah. Yeah
[00:20:26] Speaker 9: you actually designed an intervention. Okay, if books in the home are a predictor of not just reading achievement, but overall academic success, what if, as an intervention, which is what Reading Is Fundamental does as well, we give children books for home ownership?
[00:20:43] And what happened in that research?
[00:20:46] Speaker 7: That's right. So yeah, there, so there had never been, um, a true experimental study, kind of like, you know, the, the, the typical medical studies where, um, a group of patients, um, consults with their physician, and we're looking at some new experimental drug, for instance, and, um, the physician randomly assigns half of the patients to receive that new efficacious, um, drug, and the other half to, um, not receive, um, that new medical treatment.
[00:21:22] And, um, then we measure, you know, at the end of that medical trial, did the patients who received that new, um, treatment fare better, um, health-wise than the patients who did not receive that new, um, experimental, um, drug treatment? Well, here we're doing the same sort of thing, um, but with books. And so what we did was, um, involved a total of 60, um, elementary schools in Milwaukee And within, um, half of those elementary schools, 30 of the elementary schools, um, all of the kids, um, in all the grade levels received, um, free books each year, um, for a p- a period of, um, five years we measured their achievement growth.
[00:22:12] And, um, during four of those years, they received the book distributions. Um, and at the end of the study measured, um, whether those kids who were randomly assigned to receive the books, um, whether they performed better in school than the kids in the schools who did not receive, um, the books. Now, these were all very high poverty, um, communities and schools.
[00:22:39] Um, the, uh, free or reduced price lunch participation rate among students participating in this study, uh, was about 90%. Um, these were all also students of color. About 90% of the students were, Black or, uh, Latino kids. Um, so these were, uh, kids who, um, due to their, their poverty level of the schools and of their homes did not have, um, the same sort of access to books as more middle class or upper class kids might enjoy.
[00:23:13] And so we measured, um, on real assessments that were valued by the, the state and by the district, the, the Wisconsin Forward, uh, reading exam, how the, the distribution of these books, um, improved their achievement outcomes at the end of the five-year study and found, um, a very significant impact where kids receiving all of the book distributions outgained, um, their control school counterparts, um, by about two-thirds of a full school year.
[00:23:49] Um, so they were ahead by about two-thirds of a grade level, um, at the end of the study versus those kids who had not received the books. Now, all told, um, the treatment kids didn't receive 100 books, um, but they received 34 books. And so it still significantly moved the needle, um, in terms of their achievement outcomes on these rather broad-based achievement tests that are not specifically measuring kind of reading comprehension or more specific kinds of reading skills, but more just general, um, reading, uh, skills as measured by a broad-based state test.
[00:24:29] And so I think the fact that we moved the needle on, on such a, a, a more blunt instrument, if you will, um, like a, a big state test like that, is all the more important that, um, it, it, it affected a broad range of literacy, outcomes for kids and showed up on, on this test.
[00:24:50] Speaker 9: It, it's an incredible study. I'll be sure to link it for everyone in the show notes, and compelling results. S- and I think to your point that you made earlier in the show, is a relatively affordable
[00:25:03] Speaker 7: Yeah
[00:25:04] Speaker 9: and low-lift intervention when you compare it to, let's say, high-dosage tutoring or some of the other literacy interventions, yet there's still that impact
[00:25:15] Speaker 7: That's right. That's right. I saw, um, a recent estimate, um, there, you know, measuring how much, tutoring costs, uh, can, you know, it, it, it, it can be a, a little bit, uh, difficult to really get a firm number attached to that. But a really high quality, um, estimate I saw recently put that number at about $4,800, um, per year to provide a single child with high-dosage tutoring.
[00:25:47] And so when you contrast that with, um, the cost of, uh, receiving the free books, which we're estimating was somewhere in the range of about, um, you know, $68, about $2 per book, um, is what it essentially costs to provide these books to kids. Um, now, I think that's probably a pretty low estimate, that it doesn't necessarily factor into that number.
[00:26:16] For instance, volunteer time, um, that is essentially free, but economists would say that that volunteer time has a cost associated with it, so therefore we should raise that number a little bit. But hey, we're splitting hairs here, you know. Um, ultimately $4,800 versus somewhere around $68 is a, is a pretty huge contrast.
[00:26:38] And, um, high-dosage tutoring impacts are basically equivalent to, you know, some of the impacts that we're seeing from this study. Um, so very, very powerful stuff, I think, in terms of, you know, a- again, like I said, I'm always interested in, in ways that we can really, um, impact kids' school success in ways that, um, are, are cost-effective and ways that are scalable and ways that, um, are, are not something that, um, is kind of pie in the sky and something that would be really difficult to scale up to serve, you know, thousands, millions of, of kids
[00:27:20] Speaker 9: Yeah. And something I'm wondering now too is, I'm assuming a lot of these children have siblings as well, right? So
[00:27:27] Speaker 7: Yeah
[00:27:28] Speaker 9: books actually perhaps go further than just the individual child if they're taking them home, sharing them with their siblings, sharing them with their, uh, you know, cousins. And anecdotally from our own work at Reading is Fundamental, we, we hear that that's something that happens with these books, um, when they go home.
[00:27:47] Speaker 7: Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, that, that's, uh, that's a really good point as well. And, um, it just-- it, it does kind of, bring to mind one of the limitations of this study in that I really wish we could have gotten better measures, better indicators of what was going on within the home, you know, with regard to these books and, and how did it actually change that home literacy environment, um, that we've been talking about.
[00:28:19] Those are things that, unfortunately, um, just in the context of this study, we were unable to, to do, um, with the thousands of kids participating, um, in the study. It was just one, one, one thing that just we couldn't do, but I'd love to do, um, in future research just to understand a little bit more about what exactly is going on within the home when kids bring these books home.
[00:28:44] Speaker 9: You read my mind, 'cause that was gonna be my next question, was what do we want... So we know that having books for home ownership does improve reading achievement. It feels so good after, like you said, decades of predictive analysis telling us that, that we can concretely say that based on your research. what's next? Because I always like to say good research doesn't just answer a question, it leads to more questions. So what questions do you have about what happens when the books go home?
[00:29:16] Speaker 7: Yeah
[00:29:16] So I, I, I would love to get some better measures. I mean, for instance, we, we really don't know from, um, the prior study, um, how much students actually engaged in reading, um, within the home. We're assuming that it inspired, you know, some differences in terms of reading, um, because these, uh, treatment, uh, kids, the kids who received, um, the free books, they obviously performed better in school, and their test scores certainly reflect that.
[00:29:51] But, um, yeah, I'd just like to get some better indicators of, uh, just simple things of, you know, how, how, how much did this add to kids' libraries? It could be that maybe in those, um, households where these 34 books, for instance, help kids get to that tipping point of 100 books, you know, maybe they had 60 or, uh, so odd books, and these 34 just put them over the top in terms of that, you know, magical 100 mark.
[00:30:22] Um, that could have been something, too, that, you know, if we had better measures of how many books, um, kids had in the home to begin with, um, that could have, uh, helped us more carefully examine that question, for instance. But also, yeah, you know, how much, um- Uh, does this motivate shared reading between parents and children?
[00:30:44] How much does this, motivate, you know, how much extra time are kids spending on reading? To what extent does this actually improve, um, their enjoyment of, of reading? These are all measures that, um, I would love to try to, um, obtain in, in future studies. In addition to these kinds of, you know, um, general impact estimates and of how books in the home translate into better reading performance.
[00:31:14] Um, that's definitely one thing we need to know more about. What's going on within this black box, if you will, you know, between delivering the books to the kids and the reading outcomes that we see at the end of the study. There's something going on in that black box that we'd like to more carefully measure and understand.
[00:31:34] Um, but I think the other question is, you know, let's get more evidence about how well this replicates. Um, you know, the, I, I really highly doubt this is just a one-off thing. That just in Milwaukee, it happened to have this, um, strong effect on students' performance. Um, let's see if in other communities and other school districts, um, if we can find the same sort of effects.
[00:32:04] And that just-- There, there's been a, a, a, a history in the social sciences and in education of, um, failures to replicate, various findings that we find, um, in the literature. And so I think it's really important to do, um, really rigorous replications to understand, um, does this replicate? Do we find the same sort of results, um, in other communities?
[00:32:32] I would bet we would. But, um, it, you know, uh, it, it-- For instance, there could be differences in terms of, um, perhaps more, um, communities where, um, English is not typically the language spoken within the home, um, and providing, um, different language, uh, books, whether it be Spanish language books, et cetera. Um, perhaps that contextual difference, um, within the community and within the schools might, um, you know, uh, drive even stronger impacts.
[00:33:03] Um, but these are all questions that, you know, we can't understand without replication and without more careful analysis of, of, like I mentioned, what's going on inside that black box. So those are definitely things on my radar of, of things I'd like to see happen in the future.
[00:33:23] Speaker 9: Yeah. I, I mean, I'm very excited for these, um, future endeavors as well. Um, one thing that I'm also really passionate about is really translating research findings into meaningful action and meaningful change. So based on your findings, what should schools, nonprofits, like Reading Is Fundamental, and policymakers, um, be thinking about when investing in children's literacy?
[00:33:48] Speaker 7: Well, I think the two most important things we found is that, um, the number of books matters and, um, multi-year distribution of books matters. We really didn't start seeing strong effects until well into the study. Um, it wasn't until kids had received a, a relatively large number of books over multiple years that we really started seeing, um, the, the strong benefits.
[00:34:20] So, um, a one-off program, for instance, that only provides a small number of books isn't likely to produce strong outcomes in terms of achievement. It could inspire, um, you know, strong, um, proximal impacts, like a greater interest in reading, and
[00:34:41] Speaker 9: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:41] Speaker 7: maybe it would inspire kids to go check out more li- uh, books from the library, for instance.
[00:34:46] Um, but, um, I think those are kind of two of the key things that it's that multi-year distribution and receiving a large enough number of books that kids really grow, um, a, a diverse and, um, a large, uh, home library that they continue to go to and continue to inspire them to, uh, read more at home
[00:35:13] Speaker 9: Yeah. Um, well speaking of inspiring, I always end Dr. Borman by asking what does reading inspire for you?
[00:35:21] Speaker 7: Oh, gosh. Well, you know, I mean, most of my reading is around, you know, things that interest me a- as an academic and as a scholar. So it always inspires curiosity for me about what the next research question is going to be or, um, you know, what, what I really wanna discover next, um, in terms of what we can do to improve outcomes, um, particularly reading outcomes.
[00:35:51] Um, and particularly reading outcomes for, um, kids from families that don't necessarily have, um, the same sort of resources that middle class and, upper class kids might routinely be exposed to. So that's what inspire... I, yeah, honestly, I, I, I don't get to, um, read for enjoyment as much as I, I, I like because I'm always consumed with reading the next academic journal or book.
[00:36:17] Um, so, uh, uh, I sh- I should pick up a, a, a few other, uh, opportunities to read for fun, um, I think.
[00:36:28] Speaker 9: I did make it a New Year's resolution this year that I was gonna read one kind of for fun book for every more academic book that I was, that I was reading,
[00:36:39] Speaker 7: Yeah
[00:36:40] Speaker 9: Um, well thank you so much, uh, Dr. Borman, for sharing your research with us. I hope that everyone listening got a lot out of this, and spread the word.
[00:36:48] And thanks for joining
[00:36:50] Speaker 7: Thank you
[00:36:53] Speaker 17: Thank you for listening to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental. I hope today's conversation sparked new ideas, meaningful connections, and a renewed love of reading. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, share it with a fellow literacy champion, and join us next time as we continue exploring what reading inspires.