Here's some statistics about reading:
Parents are key reading role models. High frequency reading parents are six times more likely to have high frequency reading kids. (2008 Kids & Family Reading Report)
The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family's socio-economic background.
( Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) )
Children who grow up in homes where books are plentiful go further in school than those who don't. Children with low-education families can do as well as children with high-education families if they have access to books at home. (Family scholarly culture and educational success: Books and schooling in 27 nations 2010 )
When children are provided with 10 to 20 self-selected children's books at the end of the regular school year, as many as 50 percent not only maintain their skills, but actually make reading gains. (Bridging the Summer Reading Gap, by Anne McGill-Franzen and Richard Allington)
Students who read widely and frequently are higher achievers than students who read rarely and narrowly. (Scholastic: Classroom Libraries Work!)
Children learn an average of 4,000 to 12,000 new words each year as a result of book reading. (Scholastic: Classroom Libraries Work!)
Children in classrooms without literature collections read 50% less than children in classrooms with such collections. (International Reading Association)
Source: Scholastic Website
