Report - To Read or Not To Read

National Endowment for the Arts, November 2007 report
To Read or Not To Read
A Question of National Consequence

This report contains disturbing conclusions about a general decline in reading amongst Americans, and particularly in teenagers. It also shows some clear links between reading for pleasure and reading proficiency, and between reading proficiency and success in life.

Below are some parts of the executive summary. I have concentrated on the sections which have international implications, rather than the specifics of American statistics.

From the executive summary:

Reading for pleasure correlates strongly with academic achievement.
• Voluntary readers are better readers and writers than non-readers.
• Children and teenagers who read for pleasure on a daily or weekly basis score
better on reading tests than infrequent readers.
• Frequent readers also score better on writing tests than non-readers or
infrequent readers.
(Executive summary, p. 12)

Good readers generally have more financially rewarding jobs.
•More than 60% of employed Proficient readers have jobs in management, or in
the business, financial, professional, and related sectors.
• Only 18% of Basic readers are employed in those fields.
• Proficient readers are 2.5 times as likely as Basic readers to be earning $850 or
more a week. (executive summary, p. 15)

Good readers play a crucial role in enriching our cultural and civic life.
• Literary readers are more than 3 times as likely as non-readers to visit
museums, attend plays or concerts, and create artworks of their own.
•They are also more likely to play sports, attend sporting events, or do outdoor
activities.
• 18- to 34-year-olds, whose reading rates are the lowest for any adult age group
under 65, show declines in cultural and civic participation. (executive summary, p. 16)

Deficient readers are far more likely than skilled readers to be high school
dropouts.
• Half of America’s Below-Basic readers failed to complete high school—a
percentage gain of 5 points since 1992.
• One-third of readers at the Basic level dropped out of high school. (executive summary, p. 17)

Deficient readers are more likely than skilled readers to be out of the workforce.
•More than half of Below-Basic readers are not in the workforce.
• 44% of Basic readers lack a full-time or part-time job—twice the percentage of
Proficient readers in that category. (executive summary, p. 18)

Poor reading skills are endemic in the prison population.
• 56% of adult prisoners read at or below the Basic level.
• Adult prisoners have an average prose reading score of 257—18 points lower
than non-prisoners.
• Only 3% of adult prisoners read at a Proficient level.
• Low reading scores persist in prisoners nearing the end of their term, when
they are expected to return to family, society, and a more productive life.xii
(executive summary, p. 18)

Conclusion
Self-reported data on individual behavioral patterns, combined with national test scores from the Department of Education and other sources, suggest three distinct trends: a historical decline in voluntary reading rates among teenagers and young adults; a gradual worsening of reading skills among older teens; and declining proficiency in adult readers. ie Department of Education’s extensive data on voluntary reading patterns and prose reading scores yield a fourth observation: frequency of reading for pleasure correlates strongly with better test scores in reading and writing. Frequent readers are thus more likely than infrequent or non-readers to demonstrate academic achievement in those subjects.
(executive summary, p. 19)

From the Prefix

"When one assembles data from disparate sources, the results often present contradictions. This is not the case with To Read or Not To Read. Here the results are startling in their consistency. All of the data combine to tell the same story about American reading. The story the data tell is simple, consistent, and alarming. Although there has been measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the elementary school level, all progress appears to halt as children enter their teenage years. There is a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates. These negative trends have more than literary importance. As this report makes clear, the declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications.

How does one summarize this disturbing story? As Americans, especially younger Americans, read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they have lower levels of academic achievement. (The shameful fact that nearly one-third of American teenagers drop out of school is deeply connected to declining literacy and reading comprehension.) With lower levels of reading and writing ability, people do less well in the job market. Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement. Significantly worse reading skills are found among prisoners than in the general adult population. And deficient readers are less likely to become active in civic and cultural life, most notably in volunteerism and voting.

The habit of daily reading overwhelmingly correlates with better reading skills and higher academic achievement. On the other hand, poor reading skills correlate with lower levels of financial and job success. At the risk of being criticized by social scientists, I suggest that since all the data demonstrate consistent and mostly linear relationships between reading and these positive results — and between poor reading and negative results — reading has played a decisive factor. Whether or not people read, and indeed how much and how often they read, affects their lives in crucial ways.

All of the data suggest how powerfully reading transforms the lives of individuals — whatever their social circumstances. Regular reading not only boosts the likelihood of an individual’s academic and economic success—facts that are not especially surprising—but it also seems to awaken a person’s social and civic sense. Reading correlates with almost every measurement of positive personal and social behavior surveyed. It is reassuring, though hardly amazing, that readers attend more concerts and theater than non-readers, but it is surprising that they exercise more and play more sports — no matter what their educational level. ie cold statistics confirm something that most readers know but have mostly been reluctant to declare as fact—
books change lives for the better."
from Prefix, p 3-4, by Dana Gioia, Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts