National Endowment for the Arts Announces New Reading Study
Sat, Jan 26th, 2008
Chief finding in the study: people aren’t reading like they used to. The biggest declines come with the younger readers, with Americans aged 15-24 spending just 7 minutes daily reading, on average. Related to this decline are piss-poor results for reading scores. According to the report, “reading scores for 12th-grade readers fell significantly from 1992 to 2005, with the sharpest declines among lower-level readers.” (I have often thought that my students are generally not as capable readers as I remember having been, and as I remember many of my peers having been in college.)
The worrying thing about this for me has nothing to do with the bottom-line of being an author, though of course, one always hopes for an audience for what one writes. No, what worries me more than anything is that books can be transformative, not only for individuals, but for societies. If I were not an avid reader, I’d not be vegan, I’d never have thought about the structure of power and control in our world, I’d never have considered many of the alternatives for living my life as I do. I might have come to these ideas in other ways, but books have always opened up new lines of possibility and thought for me, they’ve entertained me, and been some of the best company I’ve ever had. In short, books have made me not only who I am today, they’ve made me a better and smarter me.
How many people are foregoing improving themselves and their societies because they’re foregoing reading?
Addendum, 28 January: I forgot to provide a link to the original report.
# Comment by Nick on Sun, Jan 27th, 2008 at 12:36 am:
Do you know if the study included reading websites and other electronic formats of reading, or if it was just paper books?
# Comment by Luke on Sun, Jan 27th, 2008 at 9:53 am:
With regard to the transformative power of books, I certainly agree. It’s been a steady domino effect of progressively broader thinking and reading for me ever since a family friend gave me Chomsky’s “Understanding Power” on a whim a few years back. I’m quite indebted to that family friend.
There’s an interesting piece that I read (via RSS) in the New Yorker last month that covers a lot of ground on this topic. It looks at reading trends both in the US and abroad as well as to a scientific basis for diminished capacity in a number of fields — too much TV is, in a fashion, killing brain cells.
@Nick: I’d be interested to know this also. I might do some googling around to find out when I get a chance.
Just skimming back over the aforementioned article, it notes that:
# Comment by Tony on Sun, Jan 27th, 2008 at 12:05 pm:
I remember being amazed when I was graduate assistant while getting my MBA. I worked with a professor who taught senior-level classes that relied solely on case study. Five-page papers were the standard assignment. The number of poorly written papers shocked me. With only 18 students in the class, I returned 6 without grading and demanded the student give an iota of care for the English language. I had to tell one student to write in complete sentences by including verbs. I told another that 2 inch margins were not acceptable.
I was only a couple years older, so nothing had declined across years. I just wonder how much any of those students read beyond required class work, if they read that much. I know my verbal and written skills improved when I started reading for pleasure. I was always able to write well enough before reading for fun, but it’s unimaginable that a student could get through almost four years of college and not understand that a sentence requires a verb. But that student barely stood out from the other poor writing in the class.
Like you, I’m a different, and I believe better, person today because I’ve learned new ideas from reading. I’ve discovered and questioned. It’s strange that so many shun that.
# Comment by Bob Torres on Mon, Jan 28th, 2008 at 4:11 pm:
All: I added a link to the original study so you can see for yourself. I can’t believe I left this out yesterday! D’oh. Too much TV viewing on my part, perhaps?
@Nick: I didn’t read the entire study, but the parts I did focus on books primarily, and even examine other kinds of media competing with reading, among those, the web. I think this is sound. Reading on the web is inherently different than reading a book, given the structure of arguments and the overall length.
@Luke: I can see how the Internet might increase literacy, but I have my doubts after teaching in universities in the US for the last 7 years. If anything, I teach students who are of the socioeconomic status to have ample Internet access and access to computers. I have not seen their literacy improve, nor have I seen writing get any better (if anything, it gets worse year to year). Many of them become adept at a small subset of technologies, mostly around IM/SMS, MySpace/Facebook, and the like, and become almost chronically ignorant about the rest.
@Tony: I share your pain, man! I got a paper with 2-inch margins in 16 point Courier not long ago. Once I stopped laughing, I put a zero on the paper.
# Comment by SallyT on Fri, Feb 15th, 2008 at 8:48 pm:
When I was a graduate student, a professor in a class required for graduation told us that we could not expect him to pass us in order to graduate. We had a group project on which grades were given by the other members of the group. We had one member who could not write a complete sentence. The rest of the group gave the guy an “F.” The prof passed him any way.