Nathaniel shares:
Jim Trelease has been advocating pleasure reading and read-aloud for some 30 years. Check his website.
Rigor has to do with higher levels of thinking skills and deeper levels of study in a single topic, author, character, theme, etc.
Reading fluency in L1 comes from easy/pleasure reading. The search for research is sometimes a side-stepping of common sense. Which students move to higher thinking skills? Readers or non-readers? Higher vocabulary control? Readers or vocabulary memorizers? Deeper sense of language structure? Readers or grammar memorizers? Keener sense of expression in writing? Readers or non-readers? People with access to books or people who have no books? People who have heard others read aloud to them or people who were made to figure it all out on their own? Reading is a form of sustained focus that leads to higher levels of thinking. And we do need people like Trelease, because, after 30 years, we are still looking for the magical alternative to enjoying good books together and discussing them, or just enjoying good books on our own.
[Ed. note: For more on Rigor, the reader is invited to peruse the articles in the Primers section on the hard link above.]