A swath from the NYT follows:
In his preface to the new 99-page report Dana Gioia, chairman of the endowment, described the data as “simple, consistent and alarming.”I thought the economic information was the most surprising part of this simply due to the magnitude of such a correlation, rather than the relationship per se. I wish that I had a longer life to live, so that I could read more. Approximately 100 million adults in the US are either illiterate, functionally illiterate, or alliterate people (someone who can read but never does), according to peer-reviewed research. Only 1/2 of Americans are currently reading anything at all. Apparently, none of them are on Facebook and MySpace, because everyone on those sites list lots of books that they've read. Or do they do it to appear and feel more intelligent?
Among the findings is that although reading scores among elementary school students have been improving, scores are flat among middle school students and slightly declining among high school seniors. These trends are concurrent with a falloff in daily pleasure reading among young people as they progress from elementary to high school, a drop that appears to continue once they enter college. The data also showed that students who read for fun nearly every day performed better on reading tests than those who reported reading never or hardly at all.
The study also examined results from reading tests administered to adults and found a similar trend: The percentage of adults who are proficient in reading prose has fallen at the same time that the proportion of people who read regularly for pleasure has declined.
Three years ago “Reading at Risk,” which was based on a study by the Census Bureau in 2002, provoked a debate among academics, publishers and others, some of whom argued that the report defined reading too narrowly by focusing on fiction, poetry and drama. Others argued that there had not been as much of a decline in reading as the report suggested.
This time the endowment did not limit its analysis to so-called literary reading. It selected studies that asked questions about “reading for fun” or “time spent reading for pleasure,” saying that this could refer to a range of reading materials.
“It’s no longer reasonable to debate whether the problem exists,” said Sunil Iyengar, director of research and analysis for the endowment. “Let’s not nitpick or wrangle over to what extent is reading in decline.”
In an interview Mr. Gioia said that the statistics could not explain why reading had declined, but he pointed to several commonly accepted culprits, including the proliferation of digital diversions on the Internet and other gadgets, and the failure of schools and colleges to develop a culture of daily reading habits. In addition, Mr. Gioia said, “we live in a society where the media does not recognize, celebrate or discuss reading, literature and authors.”
In seeking to detail the consequences of a decline in reading, the study showed that reading appeared to correlate with other academic achievement. In examining the average 2005 math scores of 12th graders who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books, an analysis of federal Education Department statistics found that those students scored much lower than those who lived in homes with more than 100 books. Although some of those results could be attributed to income gaps, Mr. Iyengar noted that students who lived in homes with more than 100 books but whose parents only completed high school scored higher on math tests than those students whose parents held college degrees (and were therefore likely to earn higher incomes) but who lived in homes with fewer than 10 books.
The new report also looked at data from the workplace, including a survey that showed nearly three-quarters of employers who were polled rated “reading comprehension” as “very important” for workers with two-year college degrees, and nearly 90 percent of employers said so for graduates of four-year colleges. Better reading skills were also correlated with higher income.
In an analysis of Education Department statistics looking at eight weekly income brackets, the data showed that 7 percent of full-time workers who scored at levels deemed “below basic” on reading tests earned $850 to $1,149 a week, the fourth-highest income bracket, while 20 percent of workers who had scored at reading levels deemed “proficient” earned such wages.
...When asked how much they enjoy reading, some Americans succumb to the temptation to give a socially desirable response. Hence, the Times Mirror data from 1994 and 1995 are probably inflated...One may find reading a chore and still do it out of a sense of obligation, a realization of its utilitarian value, or habit. Nevertheless, if it is true that people are much more likely to engage in activities they enjoy and eschew behavior from which they get little or no satisfaction, the Times Mirror Center data are grounds for concern. Approximately two fifths of adult Americans today tell pollsters they do not regard reading as a particularly enjoyable activity. More ominously, less than half of Americans aged 18–29 (47%) say they enjoy reading “a lot,” compared to 57% of persons aged 30–44, 60% of people between 45 and 64, and 63% of those 65 and older. (Source)No great surprise to me.
