Better readers get better test scores

I came across a report entitled The Data Are In:
Teaching Reading Prepares Students for Standardized Tests.

The report analyzes data from tests taken from New York's ELA in November 2008, March 2009, and June 2009 involving data from 50,000 students. Students were in 3rd through 8th grades. The study found the following trends.

• As reading levels increase, percentages of students passing the state exam increase.
• As reading levels increase, scale scores increase.
• The increase in percentages of students passing and scores rising, taken together, creates a precise pattern that is repeated over and over in each grade and time frame of the year.
• Benchmarks are sometimes wider, sometimes narrower, and often higher than we previously thought.
• Benchmarks also sometimes show slippage from one grade to the next, particularly from 5th to 6th and from 6th to 7th.

Might be a good time to read that order that subscription to Science Magazine after all...