National Endowment for the Arts

To Read or Not To Read

A Question of National Consequence

Research Report #47
Research Report #47

November 2007

National Endowment for the Arts

1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20506-0001

Telephone: 202-682-5400

Produced by the Office of Research & Analysis

Sunil Iyengar, Director

Staff contributors: Sarah Sullivan, Bonnie Nichols, Tom Bradshaw,

and Kelli Rogowski

Special contributor: Mark Bauerlein

Editorial and publication assistance by Don Ball

Designed by Beth Schlenoff Design

Front Cover Photo: Getty Images

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

To read or not to read : a question of national consequence.

p. cm. — (Research report ; #47)

“Produced by the Office of Research & Analysis, National

Endowment for the Arts, Sunil Iyengar, director; editorial and

publication assistance by Don Ball.”

1. Books and reading—United States. 2.

Literature—Appreciation—United States. I. Iyengar, Sunil, 1973–

II. Ball, Don, 1964– III. National Endowment for the Arts.

Z1003.2.T6 2007

028’.9—dc22

2007042469

202-682-5496 Voice/TTY

(a device for individuals who are deaf or hearing-impaired)

Individuals who do not use conventional print materials

may contact the Arts Endowment’s Office for AccessAbility at

202-682-5532 to obtain this publication in an alternate format.

Lis publication is available free of charge at www.arts.gov,

the Web site of the National Endowment for the Arts.
5 Chairman’s Preface

7 Executive Summary

23 Introduction

SECTION ONE

Youth Voluntary Reading Patterns

27 Chapter One

33 Chapter Two

37 Chapter sree

46 Chapter Four

SECTION TWO

What the Declines Mean for Literacy

55 Chapter Five

63 Chapter Six

68 Chapter Seven

SECTION THREE

Why More than Reading is at Risk

77 Chapter Eight

86 Chapter Nine

94 Conclusion

96 List of Charts and Tables

C
To Read or Not To Read 5

To Read or Not To Read gathers and collates the best national data available to

provide a reliable and comprehensive overview of American reading today.

While it incorporates some statistics from the National Endowment for the

Arts’ 2004 report, Reading at Risk, this new study contains vastly more data from

numerous sources. Although most of this information is publicly available, it has

never been assembled and analyzed as a whole. To our knowledge, To Read or Not

To Read is the most complete and up-to-date report of the nation’s reading trends

and—perhaps most important—their considerable consequences.

To Read or Not To Read relies on the most accurate data available, which consists

of large, national studies conducted on a regular basis by U.S. federal agencies, supplemented by academic, foundation, and business surveys. Reliable national statisticalresearch is expensive and time-consuming to conduct, especially when itrequires

accurate measurements of various subgroups (age or education level, for example)

within the overall population. Likewise,such research demandsformidable resources

and a commitment from an organization to collect the data consistently over many

years, which is the only valid way to measure both short and long-term trends. Few

organizations outside the federal government can manage such a painstaking task.

By comparison, most private-sector or media surveysinvolve quick and isolated polls

conducted with a minimal sample size.

When one assembles data from disparate sources, the results often present contradictions. sis 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.

se story the data tell issimple, 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. sere is a general

decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading

ability and the habit ofregularreading have greatly declined among college graduates.

sese negative trends have more than literary importance. Asthisreport 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. (se shameful fact that nearly one-third of American teenagers drop out ofschool 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.

Strictly understood, the data in this report do not necessarily show cause and

effect. se statistics merely indicate correlations. se habit of daily reading, for

instance, overwhelmingly correlates with better reading skills and higher academic

P

Photo by Vance Jacobs
6 To Read or Not To Read

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

thatsince all the data demonstrate consistent and mostly linearrelationships between

reading and these positive results—and between poorreading 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—factsthat 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. se cold statistics confirm

something that mostreaders know but have mostly been reluctant to declare asfact—

books change lives for the better.

Some people will inevitably criticize To Read or Not To Read as a negative report—

understating the good works ofschools, colleges, libraries, and publishers. Certainly,

the trendsreported here are negative.sere is, alas, no factual case to support general

growth in reading or reading comprehension in America. But there is another way

of viewing this data that is hardly negative about reading.

To Read or Not To Read confirms—without any serious qualification—the central

importance of reading for a prosperous, free society. se data here demonstrate that

reading is an irreplaceable activity in developing productive and active adults as well

as healthy communities. Whatever the benefits of newer electronic media, they provide no measurable substitute forthe intellectual and personal development initiated

and sustained by frequent reading.

To Read or Not To Read is not an elegy for the bygone days of print culture, but

instead is a call to action—not only for parents, teachers, librarians, writers, and publishers, but also for politicians, businessleaders, economists, and social activists. se

general decline in reading is not merely a cultural issue, though it has enormous consequences for literature and the other arts. It is a serious national problem. If, at the

current pace, America continues to lose the habit of regular reading, the nation will

suffer substantial economic, social, and civic setbacks.

As with Reading at Risk, we issue this report not to dictate any specific remedial

policies, but to initiate a serious discussion. It is no longer reasonable to debate

whether the problem exists. It is now time to become more committed to solving it

or face the consequences. se nation needs to focus more attention and resources

on an activity both fundamental and irreplaceable for democracy.

Dana Gioia

Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts
To Read or Not To Read 7

I

n 2004, the National Endowment forthe Arts published Reading at Risk: A Survey

of Literary Reading in America. sis detailed study showed that Americans in

almost every demographic group were reading fiction, poetry, and drama—and

booksin general—atsignificantly lowerratesthan 10 or 20 years earlier. se declines

were steepest among young adults.

More recent findings attest to the diminished role of voluntary reading in American life. sese new statistics come from a variety of reliable sources, including large,

nationally representative studies conducted by other federal agencies. Brought

together here for the first time, the data prompt three unsettling conclusions:

• Americans are spending less time reading.

• Reading comprehension skills are eroding.

• These declines have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications.

A. A A R L

Teens and young adults read less often and for shorter amounts of time when compared with other age groups and with Americans of the past.

1. Young adults are reading fewer books in general.

• Nearly half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure.

• se percentage of 18- to 44-year-olds who read a book fell 7 points from 1992

to 2002.

2. Reading is declining as an activity among teenagers.

• Less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers.

• se percentage of 17-year-olds who read nothing at all for pleasure has

doubled over a 20-year period. Yet the amount they read for school or homework (15 or fewer pages daily for 62% of students) has stayed the same.

E S

Percentage of Young Americans Who Read a Book Not Required for Work or School

Age group 1992 2002 Change Rate of decline

18–24 59% 52% -7 pp -12%

25–34 64% 59% -5 pp -8%

35–44 66% 59% -7 pp -11%

All adults (18 and over) 61% 57% -4 pp -7%

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts
8 To Read or Not To Read

• Voluntary reading rates diminish from childhood to late adolescence.

3. College attendance no longer guarantees active reading habits.

• Although reading tracks closely with education level, the percentage of college

graduates who read literature has declined.

• 65% of college freshmen read for pleasure for less than an hour per week or not

at all.

• se percentage of non-readers among these students has nearly doubled—

climbing 18 points since they graduated from high school.

Percentage of Students Reading for Fun

Age 13 Age 17

Reading frequency 1984 2004 Change 1984 2004 Change

Never or hardly ever read 8% 13% +5 pp 9% 19% +10 pp

Read almost every day 35% 30% -5 pp 31% 22% -9 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage Who Read Almost Every Day for Fun

1984 1999 2004

9-year-olds 53% 54% 54%

13-year-olds 35% 28% 30%

17-year-olds 31% 25% 22%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage Who Read a Book the Previous Day (Outside School or Work)

In 2004

For at least 5 minutes For at least 30 minutes

8- to 10-year-olds 63% 40%

11- to 14-year-olds 44% 27%

15- to 18-year-olds 34% 26%

Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year-Olds (#7251), 2005

Percentage of Literary Readers Among College Graduates

Change Rate of decline

1982 1992 2002 1982–2002 1982–2002

82% 75% 67% -15 pp -18%

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts
To Read or Not To Read 9

• By the time they become college seniors, one in three students read nothing at

all for pleasure in a given week.

4.Teens and young adults spend less time reading than people of other age groups.

• Americans between 15 and 34 years of age devote less leisure time than older

age groups to reading anything at all.

• 15- to 24-year-olds spend only 7–10 minutes per day on voluntary reading—

about 60% less time than the average American.

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

21%

39% 

26% 26%

Total

None

Less than 1 hour

As high school seniors 

in 2004

As college freshmen

in 2005

Reading per week:

Percentage of U.S. College Freshmen Who Read Little or Nothing for Pleasure

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

21%

35% 

28% 28%

Total

None

Less than 1 hour 

As high school seniors

(mainly pre-2002)

As college seniors 

in 2005

Reading per week:

Percentage of U.S. College Seniors Who Read Little or Nothing for Pleasure

Source: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute

Source: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute
10 To Read or Not To Read

• By contrast, 15- to 24-year-olds spend 2 to 21⁄2 hours per day watching TV. sis

activity consumes the most leisure time for men and women of all ages.

• Literary reading declined significantly in a period of rising Internet use. From

1997–2003, home Internet use soared 53 percentage points among 18- to 24-

year-olds. By another estimate, the percentage of 18- to 29-year-olds with a

home broadband connection climbed 25 points from 2005 to 2007.

i

5. Even when reading does occur, it competes with other media. ?is multitasking suggests less focused engagement with a text.

• 58% of middle and high school students use other media while reading.

• Students report using media during 35% of their weekly reading time.

• 20% of their reading time is shared by TV-watching, video/computer gameplaying, instant messaging, e-mailing or Web surfing.

i U.S. Census Bureau, Computer

and Internet Use in the United

States, 1997 and 2003, and

Pew/Internet & American Life

Project, Home Broadband

Adoption 2007.

Percentage Using Other Media While Reading

7th-12th Graders in 2003–2004

% who use other media while reading

Most of the time 28%

Some of the time 30%

Most/some 58%

Little of the time 26%

Never 16%

Little/never 42%

Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Media Multitasking Among Youth: Prevalence, Predictors

and Pairings (# 7592), 2006

Average Time Spent Reading in 2006

Hours/minutes spent reading

Weekdays Weekends

and holidays

Total, 15 years and over :20 :26

15 to 24 years :07 :10

25 to 34 years :09 :11

35 to 44 years :12 :16

45 to 54 years :17 :24

55 to 64 years :30 :39

65 years and over :50 1:07

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Percentage of 18- to 24-Year-Olds Reading Literature

1982 1992 2002

Percentage reading literature 60% 53% 43%

Change from 1982 # -7 pp -17 pp

Rate of decline from 1982 # -12% -28%

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts
To Read or Not To Read 11

6. American families are spending less on books than at almost any other time

in the past two decades.

• Although nominal spending on books grew from 1985 to 2005, average annual

household spending on books dropped 14% when adjusted for inflation.

ii

• Over the same period, spending on reading materials dipped 7 percentage

points as a share of average household entertainment spending.

• Amid year-to-year fluctuations, consumer book sales peaked at 1.6 billion

units sold in 2000. From 2000 to 2006, however, they declined by 6%, or

100 million units.

iii

• se number of books in a home is a significant predictor of academic

achievement.

ii For the purpose of this analysis,

“family” or “household” is used

instead of the Bureau of Labor

Statistics’ technical term “consumer unit.” In addition to families

and households, a consumer unit

may describe “a person living

alone or sharing a household with

others or living as a roomer in a

private home or lodging house or

in permanent living quarters in a

hotel or motel, but who is financially independent.”

iii Albert N. Greco and Robert M.

Wharton, Book Industry TRENDS

2007 (New York, N.Y.: Book

Industry Study Group, 2007),

various pages.

$26

$28

$30

$32

$34

$36

1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005

Average Annual Spending on Books, by Consumer Unit

Adjusted for Inflation

The Consumer Price Index, 1982–1984 (less food and energy), was used to adjust for inflation.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Percentage of Time Spent Reading While Using Other Media

7th- to 12th-Graders in 2003–2004

Percentage of reading time

Reading while:

Watching TV 11%

Listening to music 10%

Doing homework on the computer 3%

Playing videogames 3%

Playing computer games 2%

Using the computer (other) 2%

Instant messaging 2%

E-mailing 1%

Surfing websites 1%

Using any of the above media 35%

Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Media Multitasking Among Youth: Prevalence, Predictors

and Pairings (# 7592), 2006
12 To Read or Not To Read

B. A A R L W

As Americans read less, their reading skills worsen, especially among teenagers and

young males. By contrast, the average reading score of 9-year-olds has improved.

1. Reading scores for 17-year-olds are down.

• 17-year-old average reading scores began a slow downward trend in 1992.

• For more than 30 years, this age group has failed to sustain improvements in

reading scores.

• Reading test scores for 9-year-olds—who show no declines in voluntary

reading—are at an all-time high.

• se disparity in reading skills improvement between 9-year-olds and 17-yearolds may reflect broader differences in the academic and social climate of

those age groups.

Average Test Scores by Number of Household Books, Grade 12 (2005–2006)

Average Average Average

science score civics score history score*

Reported number of

books at home

More than 100 161 167 305

26–100 147 150 289

11–25 132 134 275

0–10 122 123 265

* Science and civics scores range from 0 to 300. History scores range from 0 to 500.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

10

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1999 2004

Reported as differences from 1984 reading scores.

Age 17

Age 9

Trend in Average Reading Scores for Students Ages 17 and 9

Test years occurred at irregular intervals.

Trend analysis based on data from the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
To Read or Not To Read 13

2. Among high school seniors, the average score has declined for virtually all

levels of reading.

• Little more than one-third of high school seniors now read proficiently.

iv

• From 1992 to 2005, the average score declined for the bottom 90% of readers.

Only for the very best readers of 2005, the score held steady.

• se reading gap is widening between males and females.

iv For 12th-graders, “Proficient”

corresponds with a reading score

of 302 or greater (out of 500).

Average 12th-Grade Reading Scores by Gender

1992 2005

Female 297 292

Male 287 279

Male-female gap -10 -13

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Change in 12th-Grade Reading Scores, by Percentile: 1992 and 2005

Percentile 1992 2005 Change

90th 333 333 0

75th 315 313 -2

50th 294 288 -6

25th 271 262 -9

10th 249 235 -14

All score changes from 1992 are statistically significant.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage of 12th-Graders Reading at or Above the Proficient Level

1992 2005 Change Rate of decline

40% 35% -5 pp -13%

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
14 To Read or Not To Read

3. Reading proficiency rates are stagnant or declining in adults of both genders

and all education levels.

• se percentage of men who read at a Proficient level has declined. For women,

the share of Proficient readers has stayed the same.

v

• Average reading scores have declined in adults of virtually all education levels.

vi

• Even among college graduates, reading proficiency has declined at a 20%–23%

rate.

4. 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.

v For adults, “Proficient” corresponds with a prose literacy score

of 340 or greater (out of 500).

vi Exceptions are adults still in

high school and those with a GED

or high school equivalency. In

both cases, score changes from

1992 to 2003 were not statistically

significant.

Percentage of Adults Proficient in Reading Prose, by Gender

1992 2003 Change Rate of decline

Female 14% 14% 0 pp 0%

Male 16% 13% -3 pp -19%

Both genders 15% 13% -2 pp -13%

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Average Prose Literacy Scores of Adults, by Highest Level of Educational

Attainment: 1992 and 2003

Education level: 1992 2003 Change

Less than/some high school 216 207 -9

High school graduate 268 262 -6

Vocational/trade/business school 278 268 -10

Some college 292 287 -5

Associate’s/2-year degree 306 298 -8

Bachelor’s degree 325 314 -11

Graduate study/degree 340 327 -13

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage of College Graduates Proficient in Reading Prose

1992 2003 Change Rate of decline

Bachelor’s degree 40% 31% -9 pp -23%

Graduate study/degree 51% 41% -10 pp -20%

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 15

Almost every day

Once or twice a week

Once or twice a month

Never or hardly ever

302

292

285

274

Almost every day

Once or twice a week

Once or twice a month

Never or hardly ever

165

154

149

136

Average Reading Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun

Grade 12 in 2005

Average Writing Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun

Grade 12 in 2002

Reading scores range from 0 to 500.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Writing scores range from 0 to 300.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
16 To Read or Not To Read

C. T D  R H C, S,  E

I

Advanced readers accrue personal, professional, and social advantages. Deficient

readers run higher risks of failure in all three areas.

1. Employers now rank reading and writing as top deficiencies in new hires.

• 38% of employers find high school graduates “deficient” in reading comprehension, while 63% rate this basic skill “very important.”

• “Written communications” tops the list of applied skills found lacking in high

school and college graduates alike.

• One in five U.S. workers read at a lower skill level than their job requires.

vii

• Remedial writing courses are estimated to cost more than $3.1 billion for large

corporate employers and $221 million for state employers.

viii

vii Statistics Canada and OECD,

Learning a Living: First Results of

the Adult Literacy and Life Skills

Survey, 2005, 145.

viii se National Commission on

Writing, Writing: A Ticket to

Work...or a Ticket Out: A Survey of

Business Leaders, 2004, 29, and

Writing: A Powerful Message from

State Government, 2005, 32.

Percentage of Employers Who Rate High School Graduates as Deficient

in Basic Skills

Writing in English 72%

Foreign languages 62%

Mathematics 54%

History/geography 46%

Government/economics 46%

Science 45%

Reading comprehension 38%

Humanities/arts 31%

English language 21%

Source: The Conference Board, Are They Really Ready to Work?, 2006

Percentage of Employers Who Rate Job Entrants as Deficient in Applied Skills

High school graduates deficient in: College graduates deficient in:

Written communication 81% Written communication 28%

Leadership 73% Leadership 24%

Professionalism/work ethic 70% Professionalism/work ethic 19%

Critical thinking/problem solving 70% Creativity/innovation 17%

Lifelong learning/self direction 58% Lifelong learning/self-direction 14%

Source: The Conference Board, Are They Really Ready to Work?, 2006

Rated Very Important by Employers

Percentage of employers who rate the following basic skills as “very important” for high school graduates:

Reading comprehension 63%

English language 62%

Writing in English 49%

Mathematics 30%

Foreign languages 11%

Source: The Conference Board, Are They Really Ready to Work?, 2006
To Read or Not To Read 17

2. 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.

3. Less advanced readers report fewer opportunities for career growth.

• 38% of Basic readers said their reading level limited their job prospects.

• se percentage of Below-Basic readers who reported this experience was 1.8

times greater.

• Only 4% of Proficient readers reported this experience.

Percentage of Full-Time Workers by Weekly Earnings and Reading Level in 2003

$850–$1,149 $1,150–$1,449 $1,450–$1,949 $1,950 or more Total earning $850

or more

Proficient 20% 13% 13% 12% 58%

Basic 12% 5% 2% 4% 23%

Below Basic 7% 3% 1% 2% 13%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage Employed in Management and Professional Occupations, by Reading

Level in 2003

Management, business Professional Total in either job

and financial and related category

Proficient 19% 42% 61%

Basic 8% 10% 18%

Below Basic 3% 4% 7%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage of Adults Who Said Their Reading Skills Limited Their Job

Opportunities, by Reading Level in 2003

A little Some A lot Total

Proficient 2% 1% 1% 4%

Basic 14% 15% 9% 38%

Below Basic 13% 22% 35% 70%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
18 To Read or Not To Read

4. 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.

• sey 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.

ix

5. Good readers make good citizens.

• Literary readers are more than twice as likely as non-readers to volunteer or do

charity work.

x

• Adults who read well are more likely to volunteer than Basic and Below-Basic

readers.

ix National Endowment for the

Arts, Le Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in Arts, Involved in

Life, 2006.

x Ibid.

Percentage of Adults Who Volunteered, by Reading Level in 2003

Less than Once a week Total who

once a week or more volunteered

Proficient 32% 25% 57%

Basic 16% 15% 31%

Below Basic 8% 10% 18%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage of Literary Readers Who Volunteered in 2002

Literary readers Non-readers Gap between groups

43% 16% -27 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts

Participation Rates for Literary Readers in 2002

Literary readers Non-readers Gap between groups

Visit art museums 43% 12% -31 pp

Attend plays or musicals 36% 10% -26 pp

Attend jazz or classical concerts 29% 9% -20 pp

Create photographs, paintings, or writings 32% 10% -22 pp

Attend sporting events 44% 27% -17 pp

Play sports 38% 24% -14 pp

Exercise 72% 40% -32 pp

Do outdoor activities 41% 22% -19 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts
To Read or Not To Read 19

• 84% of Proficient readers voted in the 2000 presidential election, compared

with 53% of Below-Basic readers.

6. 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.

• For high school dropouts, the average reading score is 55 points lower than for

high school graduates—and the gap has grown since 1992.

• sis fact is especially troubling in light of recent estimates that only 70% of

high school students earn a diploma on time.

xi

xi Editorial Projects in Education,

Diplomas Count 2007: Ready for

What? Preparing Students for

College, Careers, and Life after

High School, Executive Summary.

Percentage of Adults Who Voted in the 2000 Presidential Election, by 2003

Reading Level

Proficient 84%

Basic 62%

Below Basic 53%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage of Adults at or Below “Basic” Prose Reading Level Who Did Not

Complete High School: 1992, 2003

Prose reading level

Below Basic Basic

1992 2003 Change 1992 2003 Change

45% 50% +5 pp 38% 33% -5 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Average Prose Reading Scores for Adult High School Graduates and Those Who

Did Not Complete High School: 1992, 2003

Prose reading score

Highest level of education 1992 2003 Change

Less than/some high school 216 207 -9

High school graduate 268 262 -6

Gap between groups -52 -55

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
20 To Read or Not To Read

7. Deficient readers are more likely than skilled readers to be out ofthe 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.

8. 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

xii U.S. Department of Education,

National Center for Education

Statistics, Literacy Behind Bars:

Results from the 2003 National

Assessment of Adult Literacy

Prison Survey, 2007, 77.

Percentage of Adult Prisoners and Household Populations by 2003 Reading Level

Prose reading level Household Prison Gap

Below Basic 14% 16% *+2 pp

Basic 29% 40% +11 pp

Intermediate 44% 41% *-3 pp

Proficient 13% 3% -10 pp

* = not statistically significant

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Percentage of Adults Employed Full-Time or Part-Time, by 2003 Reading Level

Proficient 78%

Basic 56%

Below Basic 45%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 21

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.

se 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.

From the diversity of data sources in this report, other themes emerge. Analyses

of voluntary reading and reading ability, and the social characteristics of advanced

and deficient readers, identify several discrepancies at a national level:

• Less reading for pleasure in late adolescence than in younger age groups

• Declines in reading test scores among 17-year-olds and high school seniors in

contrast to younger age groups and lower grade levels

• Among high school seniors, a wider rift in the reading scores of advanced and

deficient readers

• A male-female gap in reading proclivity and achievement levels

• A sharp divide in the reading skills of incarcerated adults versus non-prisoners

• Greater academic, professional, and civic benefits associated with high levels of

leisure reading and reading comprehension

Longitudinalstudies are needed to confirm and monitor the effects of these differences overtime. Future research also could explore factorssuch asincome, ethnicity,

region, and race, and how they might alter the relationship between voluntary reading, reading test scores, and other outcomes. Critically, further studies should weigh

the relative effectiveness and costs and benefits of programsto fosterlifelong reading

and skills development. For instance, such research could trace the effects of electronic media and “screen reading” on the development of readersin early childhood.

Recent studies of American time-use and consumer expenditure patterns highlight a series of choices lurking in the question “To read or not to read?” se future

of reading rests on the daily decisions Americans will continue to make when confronted with an expanding menu of leisure goods and activities. se import of these

national findings, however, is that reading frequently is a behavior to be cultivated

with the same zeal as academic achievement, financial orjob performance, and global

competitiveness.

Technical Note

sis report presents some of the most reliable and currently available statistics on

American reading rates, literacy, and reader characteristics. No attempt has been

made to explore methods for reading instruction, or to delve into racial, ethnic, or

income traits of voluntary readers, though age, gender, and education are discussed

at various pointsin the analyses. se majority of the data stem from large, nationally

representative studies completed after the 2004 publication of the NEA’s Reading at

Risk report. Unless a footnote is provided,sourcesfor all data in this Executive Sum-
22 To Read or Not To Read

mary are given with each accompanying chart or table. All adult reading scores and

proficiency rates refer to the Department of Education’s prose literacy category.

Caution should be used in comparing results from the several studies cited in this

publication, asthe studies use different methodologies,survey populations,response

rates, and standard errors associated with the estimates, and the studies often were

designed to serve differentresearch aims. No definite causalrelationship can be made

between voluntary reading and reading proficiency, or between voluntary reading,

reading proficiency, and the reader characteristics noted in the report. Finally, except

where book reading orliterary reading rates are specifically mentioned, allreferences

to voluntary reading are intended to cover all types of reading materials.

Office of Research & Analysis

National Endowment for the Arts
To Read or Not To Read 23

I

The National Endowment for the Arts’ landmark report, Reading at Risk: A

Survey of Literary Reading in America, grew out of a periodic survey the

agency has been conducting since 1982. Co-developed with an expert team of

statisticians,sociologists, and economists, the survey collected data from more than

17,000 adults, reported on every demographic group in the country, and relied on

the U.S. Census Bureau for its administration. Key findings of the report occasioned

considerable commentary from policy-makers, educators, librarians, journalists,

scholars, and arts and cultural organizations. sose statistics included:

• Only 47% of adults read a work of literature (defined as a novel, short story, play

or poem) within the past year.

• sat figure represented a 7-point decline in the percentage of literary readers

over a 10-year period.

• Literary reading declined in both genders, across all education levels, and in

virtually all age groups.

• se declines were steepest in young adults, accelerating at a greater rate than in

the general population.

• Americans were not only reading literature at a reduced rate—they were reading fewer books generally.

se NEA had begun to outline the nation’sreading habits as early as 1989, with the

publication of Research Report #22, Who Reads Literature? Based on the 1985 Survey

of Public Participation in the Arts, thatreport found 56% of Americansreading literature, a percentage that dropped 10 points by 2002. But Reading at Risk was qualitatively different from prior NEA reports for the public concern it raised. With its

distressing snapshot of literary reading in America, the study provoked a national

conversation in news media and classrooms, and among local,state, and federal agencies, on how to respond to the problem.

se Arts Endowment responded by partnering with another federal agency, the

Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the regional arts organization Arts

Midwest, to initiate the Big Read, a grassroots literary program of unprecedented

scale, designed to bring together American communities in the reading and celebration of great imaginative literature. By the end of 2007, nearly 200 towns and cities

will have adopted the Big Read, and a national evaluation will identify the extent to

which the program is helping to improve the reading rates of participants.

For a more extensive survey of American reading trendssince Reading at Risk, the

Arts Endowment will collect new data on reading as part of the agency’s 2008 Survey

of Public Participation in the Arts. Although findingsfrom thatstudy will not appear

until late 2008, the agency has wanted to address several urgent questions raised by

Reading at Risk—at least those questions for which data are available. For example,

how does leisure reading fare in the lives of young Americans? (Only Americans 18

years of age or older were included in the Reading at Risk study.) Also, what is the

relationship between reading for pleasure and reading proficiency? Finally, why does

reading matter to our nation and communities?

sis report uses large-scale, nationally representative data from a variety of
24 To Read or Not To Read

sources—federal, academic, nonprofit, and commercial—to draw a picture of voluntary reading rates and literacy in American life. se vast majority of these findings

arose only after the 2004 publication of Reading at Risk, and never have been collected in a single narrative about reading in our culture and our times.

se report consists of three parts,subdivided into a total of 9 chapters. Each chapter begins with its conclusion: a statement whose truth is borne by subsequent data.

Each chapter also includes a background section providing context for the analysis

and listing all sources.

Of all the variables that can be examined in conjunction with leisure reading and

reading skills, this report is concerned chiefly with age and education level. se

potential roles of race, ethnicity, income level, or learning-related and other disabilities have not been considered, in part because reporting of those variables is inconsistent from study to study. Also absent is a discussion of U.S. public libraries and

their part in promoting reading of all kinds. se lack of reliable national data on

library circulation ratesforreading materials—asseparate from CDs and videotapes,

for example—has informed this decision.

For the most part, footnotes have been avoided forsources already cited in a chapter’s background section. Unless “book-reading” is specifically mentioned, study

results on voluntary reading should be taken as referencing all varieties of leisure

reading (e.g., magazines, newspapers, online reading), and not books alone. Unlike

Reading at Risk, thisreport is not limited to the reading primarily of literature, except

where that earlier report is cited.

An all-important word of caution: None of the data on reading proficiency and

the personal or social attributes of readers should be regarded as drawing a

causal relationship between voluntary reading, reading skills, and other variables. As we note elsewhere, the longitudinal study or randomized, controlled trial

that would define those relationshipsis conspicuously absent. Yet the recurring associations between voluntary reading and advanced reading skills and other benefits

are compelling in their own right.

se Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, with its up-to-date reporting of

adultreading rates, will commence in May 2008. By then, many of the teenage groups

discussed in thisreport, those showing the greatest declinesin voluntary reading and

in proficiency, will have aged into the population eligible for the survey. One hopes

their engagement with books and other reading materials will have improved by that

point. Until then, like stock analysts who must watch and record every fluctuation in

the market, though they cannot predict outcomes with certainty, we offer thisreport

capturing some of the most current and reliable statistical information on reading.

Sunil Iyengar

Director, Research & Analysis

National Endowment for the Arts

2

6ToReadorNotToRead

©FotostudioFM/zefa/Corbis
To Read or Not To Read 27

CHAPTER ONE

1. Young adults are reading fewer books in general.

2. Reading is declining as an activity among teenagers.

BACKGROUND

When the National Endowment for the Arts released its Reading at Risk

report in 2004, one of the more widely discussed findings was that

declines in literary reading were sharpest in young American adults.

Twenty years earlier, 18- to 34-year-olds had been the age group most likely to read

literature. se 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Artsrevealed they were now

the least likely (with the exception of Americans aged 65 and older, a group whose

average reading rates may have been stifled by health issues).

Each year of the survey since 1992, the Arts Endowment has asked not only about

participation in literary reading, but also about the reading of books in general.

Among young adults in 2002, these data show trends similar to those for literary

reading rates.se book-reading rate of 18- to 24-year-olds was only 52%,significantly

below the percentage of all Americans who read a book in 2002 (57%). Here, as with

literary reading, 18- to 24-year-olds showed one of the steepest percentage point

declines for all age groups—a 7-point drop from 1992 to 2002, representing a loss of

2.1 million potential readers.

By contrast, the group with the greatest percentage of book readers within it (61%)

was 45–54 years old. Perhaps notsurprisingly, this age group wasthe one most likely

to read novels,shortstories, poetry, and plays. Indeed, a central finding of Reading at

Risk was that literary reading rates declined substantially for all adult age groups

S O

Youth Voluntary Reading Patterns

Table 1A. Percentage of Adults Who Read a Book Not Required for Work or School,

by Age Group

Age 1992 2002 Change

18–24 59% 52% -7 pp

25–34 64% 59% -5 pp

35–44 66% 59% -7 pp

45–54 64% 61% *-3 pp

55–64 59% 58% *-1 pp

65–74 55% 54% *-1 pp

75+ 42% 44% *+2 pp

pp = percentage points

* no statistically significant change from 1992

Source: National Endowment for the Arts, Survey of Public Participation in the Arts
28 To Read or Not To Read

under 45.

1 sis phenomenon extended to book reading of all types. See Table 1A.

Given this pattern of diminished reading in the U.S.—and the concentration of the

trend in 18- to 44-year-olds’ literary and book-reading rates—it is reasonable to ask

whether such declines also appear in children and teenagers. Because the Survey of

Public Participation in the Arts(SPPA) islimited to U.S. adults, it cannot answer this

question. Fortunately, other large-scale studies have investigated reading habits in

Americans under 18. sis chapter considers data from three primary sources:

• U.S. Department of Education: NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress: Lree

Decades of Student Performance in Reading and Mathematics, 2005.

• se Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: Generation M: Media in the Lives of

8-18 Year-Olds, (#7251), 2005.

• Higher Education Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles:

American Freshmen: Forty-Year Trends 1966–2006, 2007.

Like most of the data in thisreport, the results of all three studies became available

after Reading at Risk was published. Although none identify the rates specifically for

literary reading among children and adolescents, the studies do report percentages of

voluntary (or leisure) readers among this population.

What Education Research Tells Us About Leisure Reading

se Department of Education’s NAEP, known as “the Nation’s Report Card,” has

tracked achievement test scores of elementary, middle, and high school students for

a range of subjects since 1969. In addition to this “main” assessment, conducted

nationally and at the state level, the NAEP provides a long-term trend assessment of

9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds in reading and mathematics. se trend assessment is based

on a nationally representative sample and is conducted roughly every four years. In

2004, the most recent year of the trend assessment, 38,000 students participated in

the reading component.

A discussion of reading achievement trends, as charted by NAEP, follows in Chapter Five of this report. For our immediate purpose, however, the NAEP long-term

assessment offers valuable information about childhood and teenage reading rates.

sese data are made available because apart from testing students’ progress in reading, the assessment asked students to report contextual variables such as time spent

on homework, the number of pages read for school and homework, and the amount

of time spent reading for fun.

2

Table 1B shows the frequency of leisure reading by 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds in

three years: 1984, 1999, and 2004. Students on the lowest end of the age scale evinced

not only the highest leisure reading rate for all three years—more than half of 9-yearolds reported reading “almost every day,” compared with 28%–35% of 13-year-olds

and 22%–31% of 17-year-olds—but one that did not alter significantly with each test

period. By 2004, 9-year-olds had the smallest percentage of non-readers(studentsin

the “never or hardly ever”read category), and for all three yearsthey had the smallest

percentage of infrequent readers (“a few times a year”) relative to the two other age

groups.

Chapter Seven describes how the consistently higher leisure reading rates in 9-

year-olds correspond with improvements in their reading achievement scores. For

now, 13- and 17-year-old leisure reading rates invite a closer comparison with those

of the younger age group.

1 NEA, Reading at Risk: A Survey

of Literary Reading in America,

2004, 26–28.

2 Nine-, 13- and 17-year-olds were

asked “How often do you...read

for fun on your own time?”
To Read or Not To Read 29

Among 1984–2004 trend data for 9-year-old reading rates, the one statistically significant finding was a growth in infrequentreaders by two percentage points(from 3%

in 1984 to 5% in 2004). For Americans at the early and late stages of adolescence, however,statistically significant changes appeared at each extreme of the frequency band.

se percentage of avid readers(“almost every day”)slumped for 13- and 17-year-olds,

from 35%to 30%and from 31%to 22%,respectively. Conversely, both age groups experienced a jump in the percentage of non-readers, from 8% to 13% of 13-year-olds and

from 9% to 19% of 17-year-olds. se latter growth rate represents a doubling of the

percentage of 17-year-olds who never or hardly ever read for fun.

se changes in leisure reading rates are disconcerting. In the two adolescent age

groups, the rates have declined to such an extent that by 2004 less than one-third of

13-year-olds read for fun “almost every day.” se corresponding figure for 17-yearolds, combined with a growing percentage of non-readers in both teen groups, leads

us to ask: What factors account for the relatively stable leisure reading rates among

9-year-olds?

More to the point, why are voluntary reading rates consistently higher in 9-yearolds than in 13- and 17-year-olds?It may be unwise to discount biological and social

developmental factors in a child’s transition to adolescence: the teen’s growing need

for peer approval; his or her bid for greater independence; the likelihood of less

parental supervision; puberty itself. Still, none of these factors necessarily conflict

with a voluntary reading lifestyle. Nor are they sufficient to explain the extent of the

difference in reading rates.

If the low reading rates for 13- and 17-year-olds were constant over time, one

might be tempted to call them characteristic of those age groups. Yet not only have

teenager reading rates remained well below those of 9-year-olds; teen reading rates

have diminished in the past two decades.

Table 1B. Percentage of Students Ages 9, 13, and 17, by Frequency of Reading for Fun: 1984, 1999, and 2004

Age 9

Almost Once or twice Once or twice A few times Never or

every day a week a month a year hardly ever

1984 53% 28% 7% 3% 9%

1999 54% 26% 6% 4% 10%

2004 54% 26% 7% 5% 8%

Age 13

Almost Once or twice Once or twice A few times Never or

every day a week a month a year hardly ever

1984 35% 35% 14% 7% 8%

1999 28% 36% 17% 10% 9%

2004 30% 34% 15% 9% 13%

Age 17

Almost Once or twice Once or twice A few times Never or

every day a week a month a year hardly ever

1984 31% 33% 17% 10% 9%

1999 25% 28% 19% 12% 16%

2004 22% 30% 15% 14% 19%

Shading of a column denotes statistically significant changes between 1984 and 2004.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
30 To Read or Not To Read

Voluntary Versus Compulsory Reading

sere is anotherfrequently voiced explanation for declinesin reading from childhood

to adolescence. It is sometimes argued that as children enter and progress through

high school, they toil under more rigorous coursework, which, along with extracurricular activities, tend to sap time from leisure reading.

3 (As shown later in this

report, a similar view must be faced when characterizing reading trends in college

students.)

se NAEP long-term trend assessment is a handy resource to consult when investigating this claim. Table 1C showsthe number of pagesread daily by 9-, 13-, and 17-

year-olds—in school or for homework—for the years 1984, 1999, and 2004. se

percentages suggest that compulsory reading has increased for both 9- and 13-yearolds. From 1984 to 2004, a statistically significant drop in the percentage of 9-yearolds reading 0–10 pages a day is accompanied by a proportionate increase in the

percentage reading 16 or more pages a day.

sirteen-year-olds also experienced a 20-year decline in the percentage ofstudents

reading 0–10 pages a day for school, with corresponding increases in the 16–20 and

“more than 20” pages-daily categories. sis latter percentage is nearly twice as great

as the 1984 level.

By comparing Table 1C with 1B, we conclude that a growth in school-related reading for 9-year-olds does not appear to hinder their voluntary reading rate, but that

for 13-year-olds, the relationship between compulsory and voluntary reading is altogether different. sirteen-year-oldsread more forschool than in previous years, and

they also read less for pleasure.

Yet this conflict is not apparent in older teens. In 17-year-olds—the group whose

voluntary reading ratesfared the worst—the percentage of students at all five levels

of compulsory reading has remained largely constant for the three test periods.

3 se Henry J. Kaiser Family

Foundation, Generation M: Media

in the Lives of 8–18-Year-Olds

(#7251), 2005, 26.

Table 1C. Percentage of Students Ages 9, 13, and 17, by Pages Read Per Day in School and for Homework: 1984,

1999, and 2004

Age 9

5 or fewer 6 to 10 11 to 15 16 to 20 More than 20

1984 36% 25% 14% 13% 13%

1999 28% 24% 15% 14% 19%

2004 25% 21% 13% 15% 25%

Age 13

5 or fewer 6 to 10 11 to 15 16 to 20 More than 20

1984 27% 34% 18% 11% 11%

1999 23% 31% 18% 13% 16%

2004 21% 26% 18% 14% 21%

Age 17

5 or fewer 6 to 10 11 to 15 16 to 20 More than 20

1984 21% 26% 18% 14% 21%

1999 23% 24% 17% 14% 22%

2004 21% 24% 17% 15% 23%

Shading of a column denotes statistically significant changes between 1984 and 2004.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 31

4 Ibid. However, the percentage of

11- to 14-year-olds who read a

book for at least 30 minutes the

previous day does not differ significantly from the percentage of 15-

to 18-year-olds who did, as that

sentence would appear to indicate.

5 sis table does not display the

reported time spent reading other

materials, including magazines

and newspapers. For both of these

media, the percentage of readers

among the 11- to 14-year-old

and 15- to 18-year-old groups

is greater than for the 8- to 10-

year-old group—but only in the

5-minutes-or-more category.

Forty-seven percent of 15- to 18-

year-olds read a magazine for at

least 5 minutes, compared with

35% and 54% of the 8–10 and

11–14 age groups, respectively.

Forty-three percent of 15- to 18-

year-olds read a newspaper for at

least 5 minutes, compared with

21% and 35% of the 8–10 and

11–14 age groups, respectively.

For both media, there was no

statistically significant difference

in the percentage of 11- to 14-

year-old and 15- to 18-year-old

children who read for at least 5

minutes. Indeed, the percentage of

8- to 10-year-olds who read any of

the three media—books, magazines, or newspapers—for at least

5 minutes (73%) did not differ in

comparison with the 11- to 14-

and 15- to 18-year-old groups.

Regarding newspaper and

magazine reading for at least 30

minutes the previous day, there

were no statistically significant

differences in the percentages

of any of the age groups. sus,

for 8- to 10-year-olds, the percentage who read any of the three

media—books, magazines, or

newspapers—for at least 30 minutes (51%) was roughly the same

as for the two older age groups.

6 From trend data provided by

UCLA’s Higher Education

Research Institute.

Indeed, by 2004, the percentage of 17-year-olds in the “more than 20 pages-a-day”

category has failed to surpass that of 9-year-olds.

sis observation does not preclude the possibility that expanded school-related

activities among teens are displacing time spent on leisure activitiessuch asreading—

but it does complicate that view considerably. In this study, 17-year-olds are the only

age group that a) lacked growth in the percentage reading more than 15 pages daily

for school or homework and b) saw no attrition of the percentage reading fewer than

11 pages daily forschool or homework. At the same time, they were the only age group

to experience a doubling of the percentage that never or hardly everreadsfor pleasure.

Without attempting to quantify reading for school or homework, another study

shows a progressively lower rate of book reading for pleasure across age groupsfrom

8 to 18 years old.

Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8–18 Year-Oldsresulted from a nationally representative survey of 2,032 third- through twelfth-grade students, supplemented by

694 seven-day media-use diaries. Although the study aimed primarily to examine

students’ access to a host of traditional and electronic media, and their related use

patterns, it also shed light on the reading habits of teenagers.

Generation M reported that lessthan half of 8- to 18-year-oldsspent at least 5 minutes of the previous day on the leisure reading of books. Yet within that group, 63%

of 8- to 10-year-olds read books for 5 minutes or more, while only 44% of 11- to 14-

year-olds did so. At the laterstages of adolescence, that percentage dwindled to 34%.

“Indeed, with each successive increase in age, both the proportion of kids who engage

in leisure book reading and the proportion who read books for at least 30 minutes

decreasessignificantly,” the study authors conclude before tentatively ascribing those

discrepancies to increased reading for school.

4 See Table 1D.5

If heavier course requirements were eroding the leisure reading time of high school

students, one might expect the factor to be documented by large population surveys

of teen experiences at home and school.

Asit happens, a long-term trend analysis of high schoolseniorsfound that in 2006

only 33% of them reported spending 6 or more hours a week on homework, compared with 47% in 1987.

6 se same analysisrevealed, however, that high school seniors’ leisure reading rates have failed to improve in the last 13 years for which

the survey has tracked this activity. In 1994, less than 20% of seniors reported they

spent no time reading for pleasure on a typical week. In 1997, that figure jumped to

25% and has lingered there ever since.

Meanwhile, the percentage reading 6 or more hours a week for pleasure has

dropped by two points, representing a 17% rate of decline. Table 1E shows the percentage of high school seniors engaged in leisure reading in 1994 and 2006 for the

time amounts measured by the survey. For each year of the survey,students who read

0–2 hours a week made up a majority.

Table 1D. Percentage Who Read Books for Fun the Previous Day: 2004

8- to 18- 8- to 10- 11- to 14- 15- to 18-

year-olds year-olds year-olds year-olds

Read for at least 5 minutes 46% 63% 44% 34%

Read for at least 30 minutes 30% 40% 27% *26%

* No statistically significant change from the percentage directly to the left

Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18 Year Olds, (# 7251), 2005
32 To Read or Not To Read

Chart 1F tracks year-over-year changesin the percentage ofstudents who read 6 or

more hours a week for pleasure. For the sake of comparison, a line is also given for

the percentage of high schoolseniors who did homework for 6 or more hours a week.

As illustrated by two vertical axes, both activities display a downward trend from

1994 through 2001.

Comparisons such asthese do notsolve the puzzle of why leisure reading rates are

declining among teenagers, yet they do suggest that compulsory reading trends lack

a clear and obvious relationship with voluntary reading patterns. As Chapter Two

explains, relatively low reading rates persist throughout the teen’s entry into college

and adulthood.

Table 1E. Percentage of High School Seniors Who Read for Pleasure, by Hours

Per Week

1994 2006 Change Rate of change

None 20% 25% +5 pp +25%

Less than one hour 25% 25% 0 pp 0

1 to 2 hours 26% 25% -1 pp -4%

3 to 5 hours 17% 16% -1 pp -6%

6 or more 12% 10% -2 pp -17%

Numbers do not total 100% due to rounding.

pp = percentage points

Source: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006

45%

40%

35%

30%

25%

% Reading for Pleasure

6 or More Hours a Week

%

Who Did Homework

6 or More Hours a Week

5%

42% 4%

33%

Chart 1F. Percentage of High School Seniors Who Read for Pleasure and/or

Did Homework 6 or More Hours Per Week: 1994–2006

Source: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute
To Read or Not To Read 33

7 U.S. Census Bureau’s 2004 Current Population Survey; Department of Education’s 2006 Digest of

Education Statistics (National

Postsecondary Aid Study), Table

180.

CHAPTER TWO

3. College attendance no longer guarantees active reading habits.

BACKGROUND

I

n 2005, approximately 8.5 million students were enrolled as undergraduates in

U.S.-based four-year colleges and universities. By partaking of higher education,

those individuals were on track to join the nation’s 52 million college graduates,

who account for 28% of Americans ages 25 years or older.

7

College attendance, although far from universal, is often depicted as a rite of passage into independent adulthood. (se word “Commencement,” and the ceremonies

it describes, marks the beginning of that transition.) sroughout the histories of

modern universities, college learning has been portrayed as a series of classroom and

out-of-classroom experiences and responses that equip the student for participation

in adult life.

In “se Idea of a University” (1854), John Henry (Cardinal) Newman distinguishes

between didactic learning and the behavioral framework that must be cultivated if

education and not “mere extrinsic or accidental advantage” is to prevail:

[Knowledge] is an acquired illumination, it is a habit, a personal possession, and

an inward endowment. And this is the reason why it is more correct, as well as

more usual, to speak of a University as a place of education, than of instruction,

though, when knowledge is concerned, instruction would at first sight have

seemed the more appropriate word....But education is a higher word; it implies

an action upon our mental nature, and the formation of character; it is something individual and permanent....

Newman’s distinction between “instruction” and “education” proves helpful when

we consider voluntary reading as a strategy to reinforce the skills and habits needed

for lifelong learning. sree large population studies gauge the intensity of that

engagement—ofreading beyond the curriculum—during thisformative period. sey

are:

• Higher Education Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles:

Findings from the 2005 Administration of Your First College Year (YFCY) Survey: National Aggregates, 2007.

• Higher Education Research Institute, UCLA: Findings from the 2005 College

Senior Survey (CSS): National Aggregates, 2007.

• Indiana University Bloomington: National Survey of Student Engagement 2006

Institutional Report, 2006.

UCLA Freshman and Senior Surveys

se first two reports stem from annual surveys conducted by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), which also produced the trend analysis discussed

in Chapter One (see pp. 31–32). As part of the Cooperative Institutional Research

Program, a longitudinalstudy billed as“the nation’s oldest and largest empiricalstudy
34 To Read or Not To Read

8 See HERI website (http://www.

gseis.ucla.edu/heri/heri.html). In

2006, the baseline survey obtained

responses from 271,441 first-year

college students at 393 U.S. colleges and universities.

9 HERI, Findings from the 2005

Your First College Year (YFCY)

Survey: National Aggregates, 2007,

20. Other “notable declines” arose

in students’ reported time spent

playing sports, exercising, participating in student clubs or groups,

or watching television.

of higher education,” UCLA collects baseline data each year from incoming college

students.

8

se baseline data can be analyzed separately or in tandem with two other annual

surveys: UCLA’s Your First College Year survey and the College Senior Survey, which

poll college students approaching the end of theirfreshman and senior years,respectively. Because the three surveys yield a wealth ofstatistics on student life experiences

from twelfth grade to college—and from the undergraduate’s first through final

year—they allow us to assess reading habits at key points along the continuum.

In the annual report for the 2005 Your First College Year survey, researchers identified “reading for pleasure” as one of several leisure activities that have sustained

“notable declines” as high school students enter college and progress throughout

their first year.

9 In the fall of 2004, 27% of incoming college freshmen reported having

read for pleasure for three or more hours per week during their senior year in high

school. By the spring of 2005—when those students were set to finish their first year

of college—only 15% reported that level of reading intensity. See Table 2A.

se situation does not improve asstudents advance through college. Although the

percentage of college seniors in 2005 who did no reading for pleasure was 4 points

less than that of college freshmen in the same year (35% versus 39%), a longitudinal

perspective prompts a more sobering view.

Table 2B shows that the college seniors of 2005 had a greater likelihood of reading

less on any given week than when they were high schoolseniors. Twenty-one percent

of incoming college freshmen reported reading nothing for pleasure during theirsenior yearin high school, which, forthe majority ofstudents, was pre-2002. By the time

that population reached senior year in college, the percentage of nonreaders had

climbed by 14 points, to 35%. Moreover, only 14% of 2005 college seniors reported

reading weekly for 3 hours or more. sat figure marks a 10-point drop from the percentage who read for the same amount of time as high school seniors.

Table 2A. First-Year College Students: Time Spent Reading for Pleasure

Reading Percentage as high school Percentage as college

per week: seniors in 2004 freshmen in 2005 Change

None 21% 39% +18 pp

Less than 1 hour 26% 26% 0 pp

1 to 2 hours 27% 20% -7 pp

3 or more hours 27% 15% -12 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute

Table 2B. College Seniors: Time Spent Reading for Pleasure

Reading Percentage as high school Percentage as college

per week: seniors seniors in 2005 Change

None 21% 35% +14 pp

Less than 1 hour 28% 28% 0 pp

1 to 2 hours 27% 23% -4 pp

3 or more hours 24% 14% -10 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: University of California, Los Angeles, Higher Education Research Institute
To Read or Not To Read 35

10 See NSSE Web site: “Our Origins and Potential” (http://nsse.

iub.edu/html/origins.cfm).

11 se corresponding item on the

questionnaire is “Number of

books read on your own (not

assigned) for personal enjoyment

or academic enrichment” during

the current school year.

National Survey of Student Engagement

Results from another large-scale, institutional survey tell a different story. Indiana

University has polled random samples of first-year and senior college students every

year since 1999, focusing its questions on “items that are known to be related to

important college outcomes.”10 Unlike the UCLA surveys, the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) asks about leisure reading in terms of volume of books

read, not hours spent reading.

NSSE is not designed as a longitudinal study—and therefore does not track the

same cohort of students as they pass through college—but the researcher can compare first-year and senior book-reading ratesfor a given year. Toward the end of their

freshman year, 27% of college students reported reading zero books for pleasure or

enrichment in 2007.

11 For outgoing college seniors, the corresponding figure is 21%.

Similarly, while only 18% of first-year college students had read five or more books

during the school year, college seniors reported doing so at a rate of 25%. See Table

2C.

Despite the apparently significant gains in college senior reading rates when compared with students roughly four years their junior, this analysis does not report

whether the same seniors read fewer or greater numbers of books than in their first

year of college. Similarly, the study does not reveal whether college students experienced a change from their reading levelsin high school. Still, if we accept that voluntary reading habits are central to a liberal arts education, then surely it is troubling

to find that the majority of freshmen and seniors alike read only 1–4 booksfor pleasure throughout the entire school year or they read no unassigned books at all.

As when reviewing reading rates of high school students, we might ask whether

incrementally more challenging course requirements are stunting the growth of voluntary reading in undergraduates. se question cannot be answered with the NSSE

data alone. Still, the 2007 data show that seniors are not assigned more college texts,

on average, than freshmen of the same year—see Table 2D—and that seniors, on

average, do not spend more time on class preparation. Table 2E clarifies the latter

point.

From these data, it still is plausible that college seniors, in aggregate, are assigned

more rigorous coursework in general than first-yearstudents, though notreflected in

the amount of assigned texts. Yet this is by no means the only way to interpret the

data. se NSSE results do not explain, after all, whether the students completely read

every assigned text, whether the texts ranged in complexity from freshman to senior

year, or whether the prescribed reading materials grew progressively more complex

during the same college year.

Similarly, we lack a number for other, non-reading assignments and activities. At

Table 2C. Comparison of First-Year and Senior College Student Reading Rates in 2007

Percentage of Percentage of Gap between

first-year students seniors groups

Number of unassigned None 27% 21% -6 pp

books read 1–4 55% 54% -1 pp

5 or more 18% 25% +7 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: Indiana University Bloomington, National Survey of Student Engagement
36 To Read or Not To Read

12 See Table 2C, p. 35.

the end of this exercise, we are left with a cheerless statistic: 74%–80% of college

freshmen and seniors read 0–4 books on their own during the school year.

12

We are also left with a further question: if we cannot credit school and homework

assignments entirely with displacing early reading habits, then what otherfactors are

responsible? To explore these issues, we must turn to a federal study of how Americans spend their leisure time.

Table 2E. Comparison of Time Spent on College Preparation in 2007

Percentage of Percentage of Gap between

first-year students seniors groups

Preparing for class 0 hours/wk 0% 0% 0 pp

(studying, reading, 1–5 hours/wk 17% 18% +1 pp

writing, doing 6–10 hours/wk 27% 26% -1 pp

homework, etc.) 11–15 hours/wk 22% 19% -3 pp

16 hours or more/wk 34% 35% +1 pp

Numbers do not total 100% due to rounding.

pp = percentage points

Source: Indiana University Bloomington, National Survey of Student Engagement

Table 2D. Comparison of College-Prescribed Reading Levels in 2007

Percentage of Percentage of Gap between

first-year students seniors groups

Number of assigned None 1% 1% 0 pp

textbooks, books, or Between 1–4 22% 28% +6 pp

book-length packs of Between 5–10 44% 39% -5 pp

course readings Between 11–20 24% 20% -4 pp

More than 20 10% 12% +2 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: Indiana University Bloomington, National Survey of Student Engagement
To Read or Not To Read 37

13 Robinson, John P. and Godbey,

Geoffrey, Time for Life: Le Surprising Ways Americans Use Leir

Time: Penn State Press, University

Park, PA. 1997, 67.

14 Ibid.

CHAPTER THREE

4. Teens and young adults spend less time reading than people of other age

groups.

5. Even when reading does occur, it competes with other media.

BACKGROUND

The rapid technologicalshiftsthat marked the second half of the last century—

breakthroughsin electronics, computers, and communications—reverberated

far beyond the fields where they occurred. Parallel developmentsin medicine,

commerce, media, and manufacturing have continued to benefit the average consumer. Yet a subtler revolution is dictating the way Americans live and work today.

With the advent of time-saving technologies, we have more time to spend on

leisure—but we also have more waysto spend time on work. (Blackberries, pagers, and

cell-phones attest to this paradox, as does the growing popularity of telecommuting,

which collapses conventional boundaries of home and work.) To some extent, the Digital Age merely accelerated an earlier process. More fundamental changesin work and

leisure patterns had originated with 18th- and 19th-century industrialization, which

heightened public awareness of time as a commodity to be managed.

In early-to-mid-20th-century America, two trends placed time management under

greaterscrutiny than before. First were improvementsto manufacturing efficiencies,

represented by the automobile industry and the assembly line. Innovationsin scalable

production, involving the subdivision of time and tasks into discrete units, ensured

America’s competitiveness in a global market.

se second change was the commercialization of leisure in the two decades after

World War II, a period of unrivalled prosperity for the nation. Product vendors and

advertisers began vying more aggressively for the leisure hours of a growing middleclass. sey also targeted the free time of America’s largest generational cohort ever,

the Baby Boomers.

Roughly concurrent with those trends, academic researchers, corporations, and

public policy planners began to crave a more sophisticated understanding of how

Americans use leisure time. In 1954, more than 8,000 Americans participated in a

time-use study conducted by the Mutual Broadcasting Corporation.

13 sis exercise

involved “time diaries” in which subjects reported all their activities within a twoday period. Time diaries were again used in a 1965 multinational study including

more than 1,200 Americans. Subsequent major time-use studies occurred in 1975,

1985, and throughout the 1990s.

14

sis chapter examines leisure reading habits in the context of more recent timeuse studies. se data derive from four independent sources—a private foundation,

two university research teams, and the U.S. government:

• Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics: American Time Use Survey

(ATUS), 2006.

• University of Michigan/Ann Arbor’s Institute for Social Research: Changing

Times of American Youth: 1981–2003, 2004.
38 To Read or Not To Read

15 For details, see American Time

Use Survey “Overview” section of

BLS website (http://www.bls.gov/

tus/overview.htm#purpose).

16 “Socializing and communicating” involves 1 hour and 7 minutes

of Americans’ average leisure

time—but only on weekends and

holidays. On weekdays, the activity consumes 36 minutes.

• Indiana University Bloomington: 2006 High School Survey of Student

Engagement (HSSSE), 2007.

• se Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: Media Multitasking Among American

Youth: Prevalence, Predictors and Pairings, (# 7592), 2006.

Federal Data on Time Use Patterns

Since 2003, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has sponsored the annual American Time Use Survey, conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Consisting of telephone interviews, this nationally representative survey included

about 13,000 people in 2006. se interviewees, who must be at least 15 years old, are

asked about the activitiesthey did during the last 24 hours. (To avoid obtaining varied

response rates throughout the week, the interviews are pre-assigned.)

15

se survey responses are then used to report the average number of hours and

minutes per day spent—by the total civilian population or a demographic group—in

performing various activities. BLS designates several categories of “major activity,”

including “leisure and sports,” of which reading is a part.

According to the survey results for 2006, Americans’ leisure and sports activities

accounted for an average of 4 hours and 32 minutes on weekdays and 6 hours and 22

minutes per day on weekends and holidays. For teenagers and very young adults, the

share of leisure time is slightly greater, exceeding that for all other age groups under

55. See Table 3A.

Before we consider the average number of hours per day spent reading, it is worth

knowing what othertypes of activity compose the “leisure and sports” category. sey

are: “participating in sports, exercise, and recreation”; “socializing and communicating”; “watching TV”; “relaxing/thinking”; “playing games and computer use for

leisure”; and “other leisure and sports activities, including travel.”

When we review the average number of hoursthat Americans daily devote to these

activities, however, an anomaly arises. As Table 3B reveals, only one category of

leisure activity claims more than an hour of Americans’ daily time—claims, indeed,

more than 2 hours on weekdays and, on weekends, more than 3. sis activity is TVwatching.

16

On average, TV-watching consumes about half of the total daily leisure time

of all Americans ages 15 and older. Equally significant, of all the leisure categories,

only TV-watching is wholly dependent on electronic media. For example, the “recreation” in “sports, exercise, and recreation” may represent many different types of

activity. Likewise, “playing games and computer use for leisure” is not restricted to

computer games or computer use. “Socializing and communicating” is described as

“face-to-face social communication and hosting or attending social functions.”17

How does TV-watching time compare with time spent reading? Table 3C shows

two sets of columns: the amounts of time spentreading and TV-watching by the various age groups. On weekdays, most Americans under 55 watch about 2 hours of TV.

(Older adults watch significantly more.) By contrast, this group spends less than 20

minutes per weekday on reading, with teens and young adults of 15–34 years old

spending only 7–9 minutes.

Now see Table 3D, which givesthe same time amounts as a percentage of all leisure

time. Although all age groups read far less than they watch TV, we may take heart

that 15- to 24-year-olds spend a lower percentage of their leisure time, relative to

other age groups, on TV-watching. Yet 15-to 24-year-olds still spend less than 3%

of their daily leisure time reading, and 25- to 34-year-olds spend roughly 4%.
To Read or Not To Read 39

17 BLS economic news release,

“American Time Use Survey—

2006 Results,” Technical Note.

Academic Time-Use Studies

In 1981, University of Michigan researchers began conducting nationally representative time-use studies of the behavior patterns of children and adolescents. se data

involve American youth ages 6–17, and the studies allow comparisons of various age

subgroups.

Table 3B. Hours and/or Minutes Per Day Spent on Leisure and Sports Activities,

by Activity

2006 Annual Averages

Ages 15 Years and Over Weekdays Weekends and holidays

Participation in sports, exercise and recreation 0:16 0:20

Socializing and communicating 0:36 1:07

Watching TV 2:21 3:06

Reading 0:20 0:26

Relaxing and thinking 0:17 0:20

Playing games and computer use for leisure 0:18 0:22

Other leisure and sports activities, including travel 0:24 0:41

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Table 3C. Hours and/or Minutes Per Day Spent Watching TV or Reading

2006 Annual Averages

Hours/minutes spent watching TV Hours/minutes spent reading

Weekdays Weekends Weekdays Weekends

and holidays and holidays

Total, 15 years and over 2:21 3:06 :20 :26

15 to 24 years 1:57 2:33 :07 :10

25 to 34 years 1:55 2:51 :09 :11

35 to 44 years 1:53 2:39 :12 :16

45 to 54 years 2:07 3:02 :17 :24

55 to 64 years 2:35 3:35 :30 :39

65 years and over 3:56 4:10 :50 1:07

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Table 3A. Hours and/or Minutes Per Day Spent on Leisure and Sports Activities,

by Age Group

2006 Annual Averages

Weekdays Weekends and holidays

Total, 15 years and over 4:32 6:22

15 to 24 years 4:39 6:33

25 to 34 years 3:38 5:52

35 to 44 years 3:34 5:20

45 to 54 years 3:54 5:59

55 to 64 years 4:47 6:54

65 years and over 7:08 7:57

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
40 To Read or Not To Read

18 F. somas Juster, et al., University of Michigan’s Institute for

Social Research, Changing Times

of American Youth: 1981–2003,

2004. Table 1.

For a 2002–2003 study, published in late 2004, researchersinterviewed 2,017 families who had participated in a 1997 time-use study. se 2002–2003 interviews generated data for nearly 3,000 children and adolescents. Co-sponsored by the National

Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, the

study had children and teens fill out 24-hour time-use diaries for randomly selected

weekdays and weekends, with 6- to 9-year-olds receiving parental help.

Not surprisingly, given what we have seen with the American Time Use Survey,

TV-watching occupied the most weekly leisure time of 6- to 17-year-oldsin the University of Michigan study. (Among non-leisure activities, only sleep and school attendance claimed more hours per week than TV-watching.

18) Table 3E breaks down

weekly average hours and/or minutes that 6- to 17-year-olds spent on a range of

leisure activities for the 2002–2003 study period.

Table 3E. Weekly Average Hours and/or Minutes Spent on Various Activities

by American Children

Ages 6–17, 2002–2003

Leisure activity 2002–2003

Visiting, socializing 4:47

Sports 2.59

Outdoor activities 0:50

Hobbies 0:12

Art activities 0:48

Television 14:36

Other passive leisure 2:46

Playing 8:05

Reading 1:17

Being read to 0:05

Computer activities 2:45

Source: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Institute for Social Research

Table 3D. Percentage of Daily Leisure Time Spent Watching TV or Reading

2006 Annual Averages

Percentage spent watching TV Percentage spent reading

Weekdays Weekends Weekdays Weekends

and holidays and holidays

Total, 15 years and over 51.8% 48.7% 7.3% 6.9%

15 to 24 years 41.9% 38.9% 2.6% 2.6%

25 to 34 years 52.7% 48.6% 4.1% 3.2%

35 to 44 years 52.8% 49.6% 5.6% 4.9%

45 to 54 years 54.1% 50.7% 7.4% 6.7%

55 to 64 years 54.2% 52.0% 10.5% 9.4%

65 years and over 55.3% 52.5% 11.6% 14.0%

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 41

Reading and TV-Watching

Why focus on TV-watching time in a report on voluntary reading habits? Admittedly, there is no single barrier, which, if removed, would

raise reading rates for young Americans. Moreover, there is no assurance that a

decline in one type of leisure habit would spur greater participation in another.

We can, on the other hand, use statistics from the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts (SPPA) to gauge the strength of the correlation between leisure

reading and TV-watching.

Although the SPPA survey revealed that readers of literature watch the same

average amount of TV per day as non-readers—roughly 2 hours—the likelihood

of reading diminishes with additional hours watched. According to a regression analysis, the odds of literary reading by Americans who watch 3 or more

hours of TV are significantly less than (or 13% below) the odds of literary reading

by Americans who watch 2 hours or less per day. For all types of book reading—

not only fiction, plays, or poetry—non-readers watch an average of 3 hours per

day, while Americans who read at least one book per year watch, on average, 2

hours daily.

As Reading at Risk concedes, “the SPPA results cannot show whether people

would read more if they watched less TV, or whether they would use this extra

time in other ways.” Elsewhere, the report adds: “television does not seem to be

the culprit” in the 10- and 20-year declines of American literary reading rates. It is

not the culprit, perhaps, but certainly a culprit in subtracting time and work from

the development of young readers—especially when we regard the SPPA statistics alongside American time-use data and recent medical articles. (See, for

example, Jeffrey Johnson, et al., “Extensive Television Viewing and the Development of Attention and Learning Difficulties During Adolescence,” in the May

2007 Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.)

In their comprehensive study of U.S. time use in the latter part of the 20th

century, Time for Life: The Surprising Ways Americans Use Their Time (1997),

John P. Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey conclude: “The real adversary of the

arts...is television.” Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of

Show Business (1985), Neil Postman’s classic polemic against popular media

culture, is more dire and less empirically driven, but its metaphor still resonates:

We are now a culture whose information, ideas and epistemology are given

form by television, not by the printed word. To be sure, there are still readers

and there are many books published, but the uses of print and reading are

not the same as they once were; not even in schools, the last institutions

where print was thought to be invincible. They delude themselves who

believe that television and print coexist, for coexistence implies parity. There

is no parity here. Print is now merely a residual epistemology, and it will

remain so, aided to some extent by the computer, and newspapers and magazines that are made to look like television screens. Like the fish who survive a toxic river and the boatmen who sail on it, there still dwell among us

those whose sense of things is largely influenced by older and clearer

waters. (p. 28)
42 To Read or Not To Read

19 Data provided by HSSSE,

Indiana University Bloomington.

se 2004 and 2005 surveys also

asked students how much time

they spent on “personal reading

online/web.” In 2004, 71% of students read online for 0–3 hours

per week, 17% reported reading

online for 4–6 hours per week,

and the remainder read online for

7 or more hours per week. In 2005,

the share of online readers in the

0–3-hours category rose to 84%.

Still more recent data suggest

that online reading does not contribute greatly to the overall reading rates of high school students.

In the 2007 HSSSE, “online articles” was included as an option

in the survey question about

“reading for yourself.” Of college

freshmen and seniors alike, more

than half said they spent only 1

hour per week, less, or no time at

all on this activity. (Complete 2007

HSSSE results were unavailable at

the time of publication.)

20 Ibid.

21 Ibid.

Reading accountsfor 1 hour and 17 minutes of the weekly average leisure time of 6-

to 17-year-olds.sat amountrepresentslessthan 9%of their TV-watching time, which

averages 14 hours and 36 minutes per week. But the mostrevealing observations about

children and adolescent reading patterns flow from subgroup comparisons.

se University of Michigan study lists average weekly time expenditures for four

age ranges within the 6- to 17-year-old group: 6 to 8, 9 to 11, 12 to 14, and 15 to 17.

Table 3F signals a discrepancy in the leisure reading patterns of olderteenagers, compared with those of younger age groups. For young children (6- to 8-year-olds), many

of whom are relatively new readers, the average weekly time spent reading is 1 hour

and 22 minutes. sat number increases for the 9-to-11 age group. Among 12- to 14-

year-olds, the time allotment is slightly less. But the average reading time of 15- to

17-year-olds is markedly different.

sese older teens read for just under 50 minutes a week—not even the full hour

granted by all the other age groups. Taken together with what we learned in Chapter

One about leisure reading trends for 17-year-olds, the University of Michigan timeuse data suggest a decline in voluntary reading from childhood to adolescent age

groups.

Another study, Indiana University’s High School Survey of Student Engagement

(HSSSE) 2006, polled 81,499 students of all high school grades from 110 schools

across the U.S. Responding to questions about various activities, 56% of high school

students attributed only 0–1 hour per week to “reading for self.” An additional 30%

read 2–5 hours a week.

As with the federal American Time Use Survey, trend data are limited for the purpose of accurate year-over-year comparisons. Still, when a similar question was asked

in the 2005 version of the high school survey, 54% reported “personal reading” of

“books, magazines, newspapers, etc.” for 0–1 hours a week. Another 34% ofstudents

read those materials 2-5 hours weekly for pleasure.

19

In 2004, the high schoolsurvey asked respondents whether they gave 0 hours, 1–3

hours, 4–6 hours, 7–10 hours, or 11–14 hours to weekly personal reading of “books,

magazines, newspapers, etc.” se majority by far (70%)reported reading those materials for 0–3 hours a week. Yet in 2005, a greater percentage of high school students

(77%) were in the 0–3 hours category.

20

In Chapters One and Two, we asked whether homework is crowding outstudents’

leisure time devoted to voluntary reading. Further data from the High School Survey

of Student Engagement appear to dispel this notion. In 2004, 2005, and 2006, the

majority of high school students read only minimally for class. In 2004, as we

have seen, 70% spent 0–3 hours weekly on leisure reading. sat year, 76% of high

school students reported reading assigned texts or course materials for only 0–3

hours a week.

21 se following year, that figure was 81%.

In 2006, the question on compulsory reading was phrased differently. Students

were asked about the amount of time “reading/studying for class,” and they selected

Table 3F. Weekly Average Hours and/or Minutes Spent Reading by American

Children, By Age: 2002–2003

6–8 9–11 12–14 15–17

1:22 1:33 1:25 0:49

Source: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Institute for Social Research
To Read or Not To Read 43

22 HSSSE, Indiana University

Bloomington, Voices on Student

Engagement: A Report on the 2006

High School Survey of Student

Engagement, 2007.

23 Pew Internet & American Life

Project, Teens and Technology,

2005, 22.

24 Steve Lohr, “Slow Down, Brave

Multitasker, and Don’t Read sis

in Traffic,” Le New York Times,

March 25, 2007.

25 Shamsi Iqbal, University of Illinois, and Eric Horvitz, Microsoft

Research, “Disruption and Recovery of Computing Tasks: Field

Study, Analysis, and Directions”

(San Jose, Calif.: CHI 2007).

from five possible choices: 0 hours, 1 or fewer, 2–5, 6–10, and 10 or more. Fifty-five

percentselected 0-1 hours.

22 Yet asshown above, a comparable percentage (56%) also

reported “reading for self” for 0–1 hours.

“Generation M”: Reading While Doing Other Activities

Americans largely accept the role of multitasking in their daily routines at home and

at work. sey may even view the ability to accomplish several discrete tasks, simultaneously, as a source of pride in their efficiency. Economic pressures and time constraints—the one factor scarcely distinguishable from the other—have combined

with increasingly user-friendly technologies to create a scenario where it no longer

seems unnatural to talk on the phone while driving, to grab lunch while Web-surfing,

or to compose an office memo while a 24-hour TV news channel blares in the background.

Early data suggest that the use of some types of digital media for multitasking is

more prevalent among youth.

23 Much more research is needed to weigh the relative

costs and benefits of IT multitasking. Nevertheless, a March 2007 New York Times

article posed the question, citing several published and unpublished studies by “neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors.”24 For example, the article

references a field study of Microsoft employees’ work habits.

se study showed that afterinterrupting their computertasksto respond to e-mail

or instant messages, employees took, on average, an additional 10–15 minutes to

resume work. In 27% of the cases, the interruptions resulted in employees taking

more than two hours until task resumption.

25 se Times quotesthe study’s co-author,

a Microsoft researcher, as saying: “If it’s this bad at Microsoft...it has to be bad at

other companies, too.”

Taking time off in the middle of the workday to respond to a personal e-mail is one

type of inefficiency, but a matter best left for the employer to resolve—if the costs are

significant enough to merit attention in the first place. By contrast, there is no easy

method to account forthe costsincurred by IT multitasking while attempting to read

a book. Still, while we may lack substantive data on any tradeoffs associated with this

behavior, we do know that the tendency is rampant among American youth.

In late 2006, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation issued the report Media

Multitasking Among American Youth: Prevalence, Predictors and Pairings. se report

built on an earlier study by the foundation. Titled Generation M: Media in the Lives

of 8-18 Year-Olds, the earlier study reported, among other findings, that young people use multiple media 26% of the time that they use any media at all—whetherlistening to music, using the computer, watching TV, or reading. sis percentage marks a

10-point climb from 1999, when 16% of children and adolescentsreported multimedia use.

se Generation M study results came from a nationally representative sample

exceeding 2,000 students in grades 3–12. In addition, the study involved 694 weekly

diaries on media use. sese data allowed the Kaiser Family Foundation to analyze

youth multitasking for the 2006 study, Multitasking Among American Youth.

Tables 3G and 3H display two of the analysis’ core findings: 58% of 7th- to 12thgraders multitask while reading,some or most of the time. To consider multitasking in other terms: 35% of total weekly reading time for children and teens is shared

with other media. “Screen media” alone—video/computer games, e-mail or instant

messaging, Web surfing and, of course, TV-watching—account for 20% of reading

time, according to the analysis.
44 To Read or Not To Read

26 David Touve and Steven Tepper,

Curb Center for Art, Enterprise

and Public Policy, Vanderbilt

University, Leisure in America:

Searching for the Forest Amongst

the Trees, 2007, 17–18.

Again, more data are needed to show conclusively that multitasking, especially

with information technology, helps or hinders productivity in any single task. But

given what we know about reading as a sustained act of participation with a text, an

act requiring great resources of memory, imagination, and intent questioning, it

seems unlikely that multiple diversions during the reading process itself can do anything but dilute the reader’s experience and enjoyment of a literary work.

Add to this possibility that the dilution is occurring at the formative stages of a

reader’s development—when any reading at all competes heavily with other demands

on a youth’s leisure time—and the prospect grows more troubling. In a recent white

paper, Vanderbilt University researchers David Touve and Steven Tepper posit that

the multitasking way is here to stay:

Leisure is fully embedded within the context of everyday routines, work and

social obligations. We may expect those who offer leisure choices to fit into this

polychronic, punctuated, even interrupted lifestyle.

26

In the next chapter, we will consider how book buying has been affected by this

ever-expanding, sometimes deafening array of “leisure choices.”

Table 3H. Percentage of Time Spent Reading While Using Other Media

7th- to 12th-Graders in 2003–2004

Percentage of reading time

Reading while:

Watching TV 11%

Listening to music 10%

Doing homework on the computer 3%

Playing videogames 3%

Playing computer games 2%

Using the computer (other) 2%

Instant messaging 2%

E-mailing 1%

Surfing websites 1%

Using any of the above media 35%

Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Media Multitasking Among Youth: Prevalence, Predictors and

Pairings, (# 7592), 2006

Table 3G. Percentage Using Other Media While Reading

7th- to 12th-Graders in 2003–2004

% who use other media while reading

Most of the time 28%

Some of the time 30%

Most/some 58%

Little of the time 26%

Never 16%

Little/never 42%

Source: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, Media Multitasking Among Youth: Prevalence, Predictors and

Pairings, (# 7592), 2006
To Read or Not To Read 45

Table 3I. Book-Reading Rates as Measured by Multiple Surveys

Survey Surveying Number of Response Survey

Year Organization Respondents Rate Question Result

2002 U.S. Census Bureau 17,135 adults 70% “With the exception of 57%

and the National books required for work or

Endowment for the Arts school, did you read any books

during the last 12 months?”

2005 The Gallup Organization 1,006 adults 20% “Do you happen to be reading *47%

any books or novels

at present?”

2005 Mediamark Research, Inc. 9,823 adults 38% Checklist of leisure activities, 35%

including “reading books,”

under “Participated in the last

12 months.”

2006 Pew Research Center 3,204 adults plus 29% for landline, “Not including school or 38%

for the People & the 250 cell-phone-only 24% for cell- work-related books, did you

Press (with Princeton respondents phone only spend any time reading a book

Survey Research yesterday?”

Associates International)

2007 Associated Press/Ipsos 1,003 adults N/A “Have you read any books in *73%

the past year or haven’t you

had the chance to read a book

in the past year?”

* Does not exclude reading required for work or school.

Different Questions, Different Answers

Since 2004, when the Arts Endowment published its Reading at Risk report,

several organizations have conducted surveys of book-reading by the general

adult population. The surveys vary by sample size, methodology, questions

asked, and data reported. For that reason, specific characteristics of each survey

are provided with the results below.
46 To Read or Not To Read

27 Also, while the percentage of

45- to 54-year-olds in the general

population grew four points from

1991 to 2004 (from 10.2% to

14.2%), its share of the U.S. bookbuying market remained flat.

(Population data for the age

groups derive from the U.S.

Census Bureau.)

28 NEA, Reading at Risk: A Survey

of Literary Reading in America,

2004, xi.

29 Bowker press release, May 9,

2006.

30 Albert N. Greco, Le Book Publishing Industry, 2nd ed. (Mahwah,

N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005), 341.

31 In contrast to the boom in title

output, book sales have been characterized as sluggish. New book

“production jumped 64% between

’99 and ’04, but sales increased by

barely 10%,” the industry trade

magazine Publishers Weekly

reported in 2005 (“Cranking It

Out,” May 30).

CHAPTER FOUR

6. American families are spending less on books than at almost any other time

in the past two decades.

BACKGROUND

With the 21st century barely begun, the word “mature” can describe both

the U.S. book market and its customer base. In 1991, Americans in the

25- to 44-year-old age group accounted for about 42% of the book market

(excluding children’s books). sirteen years later, they represented only 28%. Over

the same period, the percentage of book buyers in the 55-and-older category leapt

13 points to 44%. See Table 4A.

Not surprisingly, the aging of America’s baby boomers—a demographic shift that

has altered business practices across the commercial sector, in fields such as healthcare, travel, insurance, and transportation—has also affected book buying and publishing trends. However, the percentage shifts in Table 4A do not uniformly reflect

changes in the age of the general population.

For example, from 1991 to 2004, the share of 25- to 34-year-olds nationwide

slipped by two percentage points—from 16% to 14%—and this group’s stake of the

total book-buying market also decreased, from 19% to 11%. But the 35–44 age group

exhibited a different trend: while the group held largely steady as a percentage of the

total population, it too made up a significantly lower share of book purchasers in

2004, compared with the 1991 level.

27

Beyond the maturing of baby boomers, then, we must look elsewhere to explain

the decline in 25- to 44-year-olds as a percentage of the book-buying public. Part of

the reason exists in their leisure reading patterns relative to other age groups.

se National Endowment for the Arts’ 2004 Reading at Risk report revealed that

the demographic group with the highest percentage of literary readers (readers of

novels, short stories, plays, or poetry) was no longer young adults. In 1982, Americans ages 18–34 were the most likely to read literature—at a rate of about 60%.

Twenty yearslater, however, 45- to 54-year-olds had the highest literary reading rate:

52%.

28

se study also found a four-point decline in the percentage of Americans who read

any book at all within the past 12 months: 61% in 1992 versus 57% in 2002. Behind

this trend were substantial declines in the book reading rates of 18- to 44-year-olds,

as noted earlier in this report (see Table 1A on p. 27).

Table 4A. Percentage of Book Purchasers, by Age

1991 2004

Under 25 years old 4.4% 5.1%

25 to 34 years old 18.7% 11.0%

35 to 44 years old 23.7% 17.4%

45 to 54 years old 22.4% 22.8%

55 to 64 years old 15.6% 21.0%

65 years and older 15.2% 22.8%

Source: Ipsos-NPD, reported in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2003 (Table

1138) and 2006 (Table 1128)
To Read or Not To Read 47

32 Albert N. Greco and Robert M.

Wharton, Book Industry TRENDS

2007 (New York, N.Y.: Book

Industry Study Group, 2007), various pages. Total book sales include

data for the following categories:

adult and juvenile trade, massmarket paperback rack size, book

clubs, mail-order publications,

religious, professional, university

press, elementary-high school,

college, and subscription reference, excluding standardized tests.

33 se annual reporting schedules

vary for Amazon, Barnes & Noble,

and Borders.

34 Barnes & Noble, Inc., 2006

Annual Report, 2, and Borders,

Annual Report 2006, Shareholders’

Letter.

35 se American Booksellers Association, which represents independently owned bookstores,

draws attention to a 6.6% dip in

bookstore sales in June 2007, compared with the prior-year period.

se group’s newsletter, Bookselling

Lis Week (Aug. 13, 2007), cites

U.S. Census Bureau estimates of

$1.13 mil. in retail bookstore sales

for June 2007, compared with June

2006 sales of $1.21 mil. “sis was

the twelfth month in a row that

book sales failed to keep pace with

the previous [year’s] results,” the

newsletter states.

Retail bookstore sales trend data

for 1992–2005 are available

through the Census Bureau’s

Annual Retail Trade Survey. Over

the 13-year period, retail book

sales grew 49% to $8.45 mil., after

adjusting for inflation. A steady

growth pattern was undercut

after 2000, with declines in 2001

(-1.2%), 2002 (-0.1%), and 2005

(-0.9%), and increases in 2003

(3.3%) and 2004 (1.8%).

36 Unit sales are computed by

dividing net publisher revenues by

the wholesale price of books. Net

publisher revenue numbers come

from publishers’ quarterly and

annual reports and conference

calls. Bowker provides the wholesale price numbers. All unit sale

numbers are net, thus reflecting

total sales after returns.

37 Albert N. Greco and Robert M.

Wharton, Book Industry TRENDS

2007 (New York, N.Y.: Book

Industry Study Group, 2007),

various pages.

Industry Book Sales Figures

How are these declines being registered by the book industry? On the surface, there

is no connection. In 2005, U.S. publishers brought out 172,000 new titles and editions.

29 sat total represents an 18,000-unit drop from 2004—the first decline in

annual title output since 1999, according to the industry data publisher Bowker.

Nonetheless, the 2005 amount is almost three times the title output of a decade earlier: 62,000.

30

Publisher revenues also have grown, albeit at a slower rate.

31 In 2006, publishers

did $28.6 billion in total book sales (after returns). sis amount is $800 million up

from the previous year, and a $3.9 billion increase overthe 2000 level. Salesfrom consumer books, which are a subset of all books and include only adult and juvenile trade

books and mass-market paperback rack-size books, contributed to thisrise. Net consumer book sales were $9.2 billion in 2006, up $1 billion from 2000.

32

Likewise, sales figures from the nation’s largest booksellers are robust—though in

many cases it is difficult to credit books alone. In 2006, Amazon’s net sales for

“Media” items (including DVD rentals, DVD/video and music products, magazine

subscriptions,software games and video consoles, as well as books) were $7.1 billion,

a 20% climb from the previous year.

For less diversified booksellers, 2006 net sales were flat or slightly positive: Barnes

& Noble and Borders brought in $5.3 billion and $4.1 billion, respectively. (Bottomline numbersfor all three companies give a more nuanced picture: In 2006, Barnes &

Noble’s net income rose 3% above the 2005 level, Amazon’s declined by nearly half,

and Borders posted a net loss.)

33

Like their client base, however, the market for booksellers and publishersis mature.

se industry is perpetually chasing the next hot title or market segment to achieve

the high-growth potential of other businesses in the entertainment sector.

Despite Barnes & Noble’slofty sales figure, the company’s chairman acknowledged

in a letter to shareholdersthat “2006 was a challenging year...as a lack of high-profile

titles contributed to softness across the bookselling industry.” se CEO of Borders

Group separately relayed to shareholders his concern that the bookseller has not

“moved fast enough to keep up with rapid changesin how consumers accessinformation and entertainment.”34

Both large bookseller chains, and several others, supplement book sales with the

marketing of coffee, CDs and DVD/video products, magazines,stationery, and other

items. sose additional types of revenue are captured in the net sales data reporting

for both firms. For small, independent, and specialty bookstores, a slump in yearly

book sales can be debilitating, having a palpable effect on the neighborhood and community, where the store may provide the only locus for literary event programming,

book clubs, and author readings.

35

Consumer Book Unit Sales

Better than total sales figures per se, book unit sales are useful in quantifying book

purchases.

36 For example, while publishers’ revenues for consumer books rose from

2000 to 2006, the number of consumer book units sold fell.

37 Gains in publisher revenues, therefore, would have been driven by higher book prices, not expanded bookbuying.

Chart 4B shows trend data for publisher unit sales of consumer books, from 2000

to 2006. Amid year-to-year fluctuations, consumer book unitsales climbed through-
48 To Read or Not To Read

38 In 2000, unit sales of juvenile

trade hardback books rose 8%,

while juvenile trade paperback

book unit sales grew nearly 12%,

according to unpublished data

from the Institute for Publishing

Research, Inc.

39 Scholastic press release, Aug. 2,

2007.

40 Albert N. Greco and Robert M.

Wharton, Book Industry TRENDS

2007 (New York, N.Y.: Book

Industry Study Group, 2007),

various pages.

41 General trade print books

exclude children’s books, audio,

and digital purchases.

42 Dan Cullen, “National Figures

Show Independents Hold Market

Share in a Flat Market,” Bookselling Lis Week, May 1, 2003.

43 Albert N. Greco and Robert M.

Wharton, Book Industry TRENDS

2007 (New York, N.Y.: Book

Industry Study Group, 2007),

various pages.

out the 1980s and early 1990s, but have since slowed.

In 2000, more than 1.6 billion consumer books were purchased in the U.S.—a

record high. One possible reason for the spike in unitsalesisthe Harry Potter series:

J.K. Rowling’sfourth book wasreleased in hardback in January 2000, and a paperback

version of the second book became available in August of that year.

38

Residual sales from publication of the first three Potter books, which came out in

1998 and 1999, also may have contributed. Since 2001, no single title has helped to

restore unit sales to the 2000 level. (It remains to be seen whether Rowling’s final

Harry Potter book, issued in 2007, will do the trick. se series’ publisher, Scholastic

Corp. reported 8.3 million hardback copies sold in the first 24 hours of its release.

39

)

By 2006, unit sales for consumer books were down 100 million from 2000, with 1.5

billion books sold.

40

Purchasing trends for general trade print books reflect a similar slowing.

41 Unit

sales grew between 1992 and 1996, but trailed off near the turn of the century, barely

keeping pace with population growth, according to an industry consultant quoted in

Bookselling Lis Week, the newsletter of the American Booksellers Association, representing independent bookstores.

From 1992–2002, unit sales of general adult trade print books grew 2.4%, but for

the last 5 years of that period, the growth rate was only 1.3%—roughly the same as

for the U.S. population, the newsletter reports.

42

sere are no signs that the U.S. book market will pick up dramatically anytime

soon. Between 2001 and 2011, the compound annual growth rate for consumer book

sales is projected to be only 0.2%.

43

sese background statistics are intended to show how complex and multi-layered

must be any analysis of the book-buying market that seeks to quantify the link

between leisure reading declines and the health of the commercial publishing industry. Instead of pursuing this aim, which exceeds the scope of our report, the remainder of Chapter Four will rely on a large federal data source to examine book-buying

in relation to other consumer spending patterns:

1,800

1,600

1,400

1,200

2000 2002 2004 2006

(in millions) Chart 4B. Unit Sales of Consumer Books

The data represent publishers’ unit sales net of returns.

Source: Book Industry Study Group, Book Industry TRENDS, 2007
To Read or Not To Read 49

44 For the purpose of this analysis,

“family” and/or “household” is

used instead of the Bureau of

Labor Statistics’ technical term

“consumer unit.” In addition to

families and households, a consumer unit may describe “a person living alone or sharing a

household with others or living as

a roomer in a private home or

lodging house or in permanent

living quarters in a hotel or motel,

but who is financially independent.” See “Frequently Asked

Questions” on the BLS Web site

(http://www.bls.gov/cex/

csxfaqs.htm).

45 Unpublished data provided by

the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

46 Anindya Ghose, New York University, et al., “Internet Exchanges

for Used Books: An Empirical

Analysis of Product Cannibalization and Welfare Impact,” Information Systems Research, March

2006, 3–19.

• Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics: Consumer Expenditure

Survey, 1985–2005.

Annual Consumer Spending on Books

se Consumer Expenditure Survey, administered by the U.S. Census Bureau for the

Bureau of Labor Statistics, collectsinformation about American household and family buying habits, including expenditures, income, and other characteristics.

44

Conducted annually since 1980, the survey consists of two parts: a quarterly interview and a diary (orrecordkeeping)survey. se interview features questions on large

expenditures such as purchases of property and cars, as well as expenditures that

occur on a monthly basis,such as utility payments. se diary part isintended to capture weekly expenditures on smaller, frequently purchased items such as food and

beverages, housekeeping supplies, personal care products, and medications.

Results from the survey indicate that the average annual amount that American

familiesspend on booksis nearits 20-yearlow.

45 After adjusting forinflation, average

consumerspending on books in 1985 was $33.25. By 2003, it had dropped to $27.69,

and though it gained slightly in each of the next two years, by 2005 the amount represented a 14% decline over two decades. See Table 4C and Chart 4D. Notably, the

sharpest decrease occurred after 2000, when unit sales started to sag.

Some of the decline in spending may be attributed to the growing popularity of

used books, especially through online sales. On the other hand, a recent study has

suggested that most purchasers of used booksthrough Amazon are committed readers who also buy new books, and that used books are a means by which readers often

get introduced to new titles and authors.

46

Reading as Entertainment

Another way to understand trend data on book purchasing is to relate those household expenditures to other types of spending. Books are classified as “reading materials” within the survey’s Entertainment category, which includes a variety of

potential goods and services, ranging from compact discs and musical instruments

to pets, toys, and playground equipment. It is useful to compare average consumer

spending on reading materials—newspapers, magazines, and newsletters, in addition

to books—with spending on other entertainment options.

Table 4C. Average Annual Spending on Books, by Consumer Unit

1985 2005 Change

Consumer unit spending on books $37.74 $57.43 +$19.69

(current dollars)

Consumer unit spending on books $33.25 $28.59 -$4.66

(inflation adjusted1

)

Percentage change in spending, 1985–2005 -14.02%

(inflation adjusted)

1 The Consumer Price Index, 1982–1984 (less food and energy), was used to adjust for inflation.

Source: Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
50 To Read or Not To Read

47 se Henry J. Kaiser Family

Foundation, Zero to Six: Electronic

Media in the Lives of Infants,

Toddlers, and Preschoolers, 2003,

4.

48 Consumer spending on

computers and Internet services

is categorized as “Miscellaneous

Household Equipment” in the

survey.

Take electronic media, for instance. In late 2003, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reported on the pervasiveness of electronic media in early childhood development. Titled Zero to Six: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, and

Preschoolers, the Kaiser study found that children from six months to six years old

use screen media, on average, for about 2 hours a day, compared with reading or

being read to, which occupies roughly 40 minutes of their average daily time. Screen

time for these children is three times the amount of their reading time.

47

se study also showed the omnipresence of electronic media in children’s living

spaces. For example, half the young children in the study lived in a home with three

or more television sets, 36% had a TV in their bedroom, and 49% had a video game

player. sirty-four percent of young children lived in homes receiving a newspaper

subscription, while almost twice as many (63%) lived in homes with Internet access.

A logical question is how this media saturation might be reflected in American

family buying patterns, particularly in relation to reading. Although the Consumer

Expenditure Survey’s Entertainment category does not include computer-based or

online entertainment options, the data do cover“television,radios, and sound equipment”—a subcategory that includes video games, CD players, cable, and satellite

dishes.

48

Books and reading materials are fundamentally different from electronic media in

a variety of ways. For the purpose of our analysis, however, the key distinction isthat

TVs, video game consoles, and audio equipment—as single units—simply cost more

than most books. Unlike electronic media, books are usually not subject to technological innovation or upgrades, and they do not reflect those advances in substantial

price increases from year to year. In that sense, we may expect spending on the

TV/audio category to frequently outpace spending on reading materials.

Far more revealing isto assess both reading and electronic media as proportions of

family/household entertainment spending, and to compare those percentages over

time. Chart 4E and Table 4F do just that. As they illustrate, the share of American

families’ entertainment budget that goes toward reading materials is shrinking.

$26

$28

$30

$32

$34

$36

1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005

Chart 4D. Average Annual Spending on Books, by Consumer Unit

Adjusted for Inflation

The Consumer Price Index, 1982–1984 (less food and energy), was used to adjust for inflation.

Due to the small size of this spending category, caution should be used in interpreting year-over-year changes.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 51

Between 1995 and 2005, average annual spending on reading material dipped

almost five percentage points as a share of total family/household entertainment

spending. Yet over the same time period, average annual spending on TV/audio

equipment grew almost four percentage points to more than one-third of total family/household entertainment spending, as shown in Table 4F.

Given the Kaiser Family Foundation statistics—and the American time-use survey

data discussed in the preceding chapter of this report—it might have been expected

that consumer spending patterns would reflect increased time spent with electronic

media in comparison to books and other reading materials. Combined with the relatively flat unit sales of books in recent years, this consumer spending trend is yet

another indicator of the loss of reading time and the rise of screen time.

40%

35%

30%

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%

1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005

TV and audio equipment

Reading materials

Chart 4E. Average Annual Spending on TV/Audio Equipment Versus

Reading Materials as a Share of All Entertainment Spending, by Consumer Unit

Table 4F. Average Annual Spending on TV and Audio Equipment Versus

Reading Materials as a Share of All Entertainment Spending, by Consumer Unit

1995 2005 Change

TV and audio equipment 33.6% 37.2% +3.6 pp

Reading materials 10.1% 5.3% -4.8 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics
52 To Read or Not To Read

From Page to Screen: Newspapers, Blogs, and

Book Reviews

Books are not the only texts in decline. Newspapers, too, have lost ground.

According to annual data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, average daily

circulation for major newspapers fell 2% to 3% each year from 2005 to 2007. Part

of the reason lies with American youth. David T. Z. Mindich, author of Tuned Out:

Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News (2004), outlines the problem:

In 1972, 46% of college-age Americans read a newspaper every day. Today

it’s only 21% percent, according to research by the Roper Center for Public

Opinion Research’s General Social Survey.... While many point to new

media as the best hope for rekindling interest in news, only 11% of 18- to 24-

year-olds list news as a major reason for logging on. The Internet is a great

source of news for some, but for most it is a great way of avoiding the news,

to be used for e-mail, instant messages, and other personal information.

(“Dude, Where’s Your Newspaper?” Chronicle of Higher Education, Oct. 8,

2004.)

Those statistics were updated by separate national survey results published in

July 2007. In Young People and News, researchers at Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein

Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy found that only 16% of 18- to 30-

year-olds said they read newspapers daily, while 9% of 12- to 17-year-olds said

they did. (By contrast, 35% of Americans over 30 read newspapers daily.) Even

when they did read newspapers, teens and young adults were more likely than

older readers to “skim through the news sections,” rather than read the stories.

Young people’s lukewarm stance to newspapers extends to news from other

media. Approximately one-fifth of teens and young adults alike said they use the

Internet daily to access news. Yet of those readers, only 32% of teens and 46%

of young adults actively “seek” news on the Internet, while 65% and 48% “just

happen to come across it.”

Newspapers, for their part, remain undeterred. Many maintain blogs on their

Web sites, offering readers the chance to comment on reported information. Similarly, many news reporters now include their e-mail addresses in their bylines,

encouraging contact with their readership. Perhaps as a result of these changes,

the Newspaper Association of America was able to announce that Web sites of

newspapers had increased their audience by 7.7% in the second quarter of 2007,

compared with the prior-year period. And in January 2007, Nielsen/NetRatings

reported that visits to blogs at the Web sites of the nation’s top newspapers had

soared 210% year over year in December.

Blogging seems a safe bet for the attraction of teen and young adult readers to

news media. According to Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet’s New Storytellers,

a 2006 study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 54% of bloggers are

under 30 years old.

But if this interactive capability endows the average reader with a public forum

to discuss news developments, it also can create a sense of vertigo, as the line

between news and hearsay, between reportage and rumor, becomes increasingly

blurred. Sven Birkerts, author of The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an
To Read or Not To Read 53

Electronic Age (1994), recently described a conflict between blogging and newspaper book reviews:

Indeed, I would say we are right now at what feels like a point of vital balance, and those of us involved with literary journalism and book-reviewing

live with the sense of a balance teetering....The implicit immediacy and

ephemerality of “post” and “update,” the deeply embedded assumption of

referentiality (linkage being part of the point of blogging), not to mention a

new of-the-moment ethos among so many of the bloggers (especially the

younger ones) favors a less formal, less linear, and essentially unedited

mode of argument. (“Lost in the Blogosphere: Why Literary Blogging Won’t

Save Our Literary Culture,” Boston Globe, July 29, 2007.)

Opinions aside, there is a shortage of scientific research on the effects of

screen reading—not only on long-term patterns of news consumption, but more

importantly, on the development of young minds and young readers. (A good

research question is whether the hyperlinks, pop-up windows, and other extratextual features of screen reading can sharpen a child’s ability to perform sustained reading, or whether they impose unhelpful distractions.) Some of the

difficulty stems from the constantly evolving nature of information technology,

which often requires equally adaptive research tools to study it effectively. The

news market cannot wait, however, until the definitive study is conducted.

Meanwhile, many newspapers have scaled back their print content, often in

the arts or cultural sections, to make up for lost revenue. Recently, as Birkerts

notes, The Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and The Atlanta

Journal-Constitution all have cut or reallocated space for book reviews, a form of

news coverage originally designed to benefit the serious leisure reader.
5

4ToReadorNotToRead

©GarethBrown/Corbis
To Read or Not To Read 55

CHAPTER FIVE

1. Reading scores for 17-year-olds are down.

2. Among high school seniors, the average score has declined for virtually all

levels of reading.

BACKGROUND

I

n this report so far, we have seen several studies in support of the Arts Endowment’s 2004 conclusion that reading rates are comparatively lower in young

adults. But Department of Education and time-use survey data have shown that

the problem extends to even younger Americans, and that it appears to start in the

transition from childhood to adolescence.

se subsequent loss of potential readers can be estimated, but not the lost literary

experience. By forfeiting access to a range of emotions and viewpoints—in addition

to verbal, aesthetic, and intellectual pleasures—the non-reader is impairing his or

her prospects for communication through the written word. And while we cannot

assign value to a lost literary encounter, we can track the erosion of basic skills

teenagers bring to reading a previously unseen text.

sis discussion will avoid the heavily studied and debated topics of childhood literacy and the proper way to teach reading. In 1997, Congress asked the National

Institute of Child Health & Human Development to convene a National Reading

Panel to recommend reading instructional methods. Composed largely of psychologists and educators, the panel issued a 2000 report that informed the Reading First

initiative, legislated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Since the law’s enactment, debate continues over which classroom tools and curricula work best to improve student literacy. sis chapter will not revisit claims for

one technique versus another. Rather, it assumes a logical, relatively straightforward

link between reading often and reading well, while recognizing that the link may be

two-directional. For statistics supporting this connection, turn to Chapter Seven.

As noted in the first chapter of this report, a preponderance of information on

teenage reading trends is available through the Department of Education, which

administersthe National Assessment of Educational Progress(NAEP). se following

data can be found in three NAEP reports:

• NAEP Trends in Academic Progress: Lree Decades of Student Performance in

Reading and Mathematics, 2005.

• Le Nation’s Report Card: 12th-Grade Reading and Mathematics 2005, 2007.

• Le Nation’s Report Card: Reading, 2005.

S T

What the Declines Mean for Literacy
56 To Read or Not To Read

49 See “What are the Differences

between Long-Term Trend NAEP

and Main NAEP?” on se Nation’s

Report Card website (http://nces.

ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/

ltt_main_diff.asp).

50 sey are Level 200, “Demonstrate Partially Developed Skills

and Understanding,” Level 250,

“Interrelate Ideas and Make Generalizations,” and Level 300, “Understand Complicated Information.”

9-, 13-, and 17-Year-Olds: Reading Score Trends

se NAEP long-term trends assessment, explained in Chapter One, reviewed 2004

reading comprehension scores for 12,000–13,000 students in each of three age

groups: 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds. se nationally representative study compared average reading scores for each group with averages from previous years.

se test has been conducted 11 timessince 1971. It presentsreaders with brief passages of text and a multiple choice format asking the reader to pinpoint information,

draw inferences, and identify “the main idea of a passage.”49 A few of the questions

are open-ended, requiring a written response.

Scoring occurs on a 0- to 500-point scale, with 350 or higher denoting the ability

to “learn from specialized reading materials” such as scientific, literary, or historical

essays. At the other end of the scoring range, Level 150 readers can “carry outsimple,

discrete reading tasks.” sese readers can “select words, phrases, or sentences to

describe a simple picture and can interpretsimple written cluesto identify a common

object.” Between Levels 150 and 350, there are three intermediate reading levels.

50

Chapter One revealed that in contrast to 9- and 13-year-olds, 17-year-olds read at

significantly lowerratesthan in 1999 and 1984. How do these age groupsfare in reading comprehension?

Chart 5A depictsthe pattern of average reading scale scores for 17-year-oldssince

1984. sat year marked the firststatistically significant difference from the 2004 average score forthis age group since the test was first administered in 1971. Asshown by

the chart, average reading scale scores were flat for the three test years after 1984.

sen the scores began to slip, resulting in a five-point loss from 1992 to 2004.

By 2004, the average scale score had retreated to 285, virtually the same score as

275

280

285

290

295

300

1984 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1999 2004

(Test years occurred at irregular intervals.)

1992–2004: Down 5 points

285

288 288 288

290* 290* 290*

289*

Chart 5A. Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for Students Age 17

Test Years 1984–2004

* Significantly different from 2004.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 57

51 Regarding the performance

range of 9-year-old readers, the

score at the 50th percentile surpassed the median score from

every other year of the test. sirteen-year-olds showed measurable

differences only at the 75th and

90th percentile scores, which

exceeded those of 1971, but not

those of 1999. Only 17-year-olds

showed no measurable difference

in 1971 or 1999 scores at any of

the selected percentiles (10th,

25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th).

in 1971, though not shown in the chart. For more than 30 years, in other words, 17-

year-olds have not sustained improvements in reading scores. For a vivid picture

of 17-year-old reading patterns,see Chart 5B, which displays a slow downward trend

in score differences since 1984, when the average scale score was 289.

A different scenario applies to 9-year-old reading score trends, also captured by

Chart 5B. See Chart 5C for more detail. From 1984–2004, while 17-year-old average

reading scores weakened, 9-year-old reader scores climbed eight points, with the

most dramatic hike occurring in 2004. sat year, 9-year-olds scored higher than in

any previous assessment year—11 points ahead of the 1971 average score.

51

sis growth pattern standsin contrast to 17- and 13-year-old reading score trends.

As Chart 5D illustrates, the scores for 13-year-olds have remained largely flat from

1984–2004, with no significant change between the 2004 average score and the scores

from the preceding seven test years. Although not apparent from the chart, the 2004

score does represent a significant improvement over the 1971 average—a four-point

increase.

At this point, it is worth stressing that 13- and 17-year-olds show progressively

lower voluntary reading rates, from 1984–2004, compared with 9-year-olds. As

Chapter One noted, in 2004 the teenage groups showed significant declines in the

percentage reading almost daily; both groups also had significant gains in the percentage reading “never or hardly ever” for pleasure.

Although no causal relationship can be determined, 9-year-olds were the only

age group that maintained an above-50% “almost daily” reading rate from 1984-

2004—and they were also the only group to show major improvements in reading test scores. Further research is needed to identify age-specific social and/or

academic factors underyling those patterns.

10

-6

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1999 2004

Reported as differences from 1984 reading scores.

Age 17

Age 9

Chart 5B. Trend in Average Reading Scores for Students Ages 17 and 9

Test years occurred at irregular intervals.

Trend analysis based on data from the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
58 To Read or Not To Read

219

200

205

210

215

220

225

1984 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1999 2004

(Test years occurred at irregular intervals.)

211* 212*

209*

211* 211* 212* 212*

Scale Score Chart 5C. Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for Students Age 9

Test Years 1984–2004

Chart 5D. Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for Students Age 13

Test Years 1984–2004

240

245

250

255

260

265

270

275

1984 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1999 2004

(Test years occurred at irregular intervals.)

Scale Score

257 257 257

260

258 258 259 259

*Significantly different from 2004.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.
To Read or Not To Read 59

52 See “What are the Main

Differences between Long-Term

NAEP and the Main NAEP?”

on se Nation’s Report Card

website (http://nces.ed.gov/

nationsreportcard/about/

ltt_main_diff.asp).

53 Senior average reading scores

were also lower in 2005 than in

1992 across all levels of parental

education.

54 se percentage of high school

seniors at the Advanced reading

level was 5% in 2005, compared

with 4% in 1992—a change of no

statistical significance.

55 Examples of test passages from

the 2005 main NAEP for high

school seniors include a guide to

the Washington, D.C. Metro transit system, Martin Luther King,

Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham

Jail,” Langston Hughes’ poem,

“Harlem,” and a short story by

Lucienne S. Bloch. se test used a

multiple-choice format and questions requiring short or extended

answers.

Reading Proficiency of 12th Graders

In addition to the NAEP long-term trend assessment, last administered in 2004, the

Department of Education tests students by grade level (4th-, 8th-, and 12th-graders)

on a biennial basis.

For 12th-graders, this “main assessment” occurred most recently in 2005, with

more than 21,000 high schoolseniors evaluated for reading comprehension. se test

featured longer passagesthan the trend assessment, and measured “a range ofreading

skills, from identifying explicitly stated information, to making complex inferences

about themes, to comparing multiple texts on a variety of dimensions.”52 Like the

trend assessment, the 2005 test adopted a 0–500 score scale, but it also ranked performance levels into three categories: Basic (at least 265), Proficient (at least 302),

and Advanced (at least 346).

After our review of 17-year-old reading test scores in the long-term trend assessment, the 2005 results for high-school seniors may not be surprising—but they

should raise fresh concern. se 2005 test found that the average NAEP reading score

for 12th-graders was 286 out of 500. se score was not significantly different from

the average score for the preceding test year, 2002. sis outcome fits with what we

know about trends in 17-year-old reading scores, that they often have remained flat

for several test years at a time.

But go back to 1992—fourtests ago—and it becomes clearthat average 12th-grade

reading scores have declined by a significantsix points, placing the readers 16 points

shy of the “Proficient” level. See Chart 5E.

When viewed across a range of percentile scores(10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th),

the declines appearfor most of the performance distribution. Students performing at

the 10th, 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles all experienced significant declines from

1992 to 2005.

53 Only the highest-scoring students of 2005—those at the 90th percentile—experienced no declines, compared with students at their performance level

in 1992. Conversely,reading scores at the very bottom of the 2005 performance range

declined the sharpest across the whole distribution. See Table 5F.

sese extreme trend differencesforthe highest and lowest performing readerssuggest a growing disparity in educational needs of 12th-grade readers. Bad readers are

reading worse, and outstanding readers are barely meeting the expectations set by

performance levels in previous years.

Another way of understanding the spread or distribution of 12th-grade average

reading score declinesfrom 1992 to 2005 isto considertrend differencesforstudents

performing at or above the Basic and Proficient reading levels. sis analysis shows

that the percentage of 12th-grade readers at or above Basic slipped from 80% in 1992

to 73% in 2005, while the 1992 percentage of readers at or above Proficient fell five

percentage points over the same period.

54

Also notable is that the 2005 declines occurred in all three “reading contexts”

established by NAEP. se assessment classifies test passages into three categories:

“reading for literary experience” (such as short stories, poems, folktales, and biographies), “reading for information” (e.g., textbooks, newspaper and magazine articles,

essays, and speeches) and “reading to perform a task” (including charts, public transportation schedules, instructions for games, recipes, maps, or insurance forms).

55

In each of the three reading contexts, 2005 average scores declined significantly

from 1992. But “reading forliterary experience”suffered worst: an 11-point decrease,

from 290 to 279. Independent of the statistical difference, the decline in this ability is

alarming because imaginative literature fosters personal inquiry and identification
60 To Read or Not To Read

with other lives, perspectives, and possibilities. Denied basic skills to participate in

this art form, young Americans will lose accessto a vital part of their cultural heritage.

4th- and 8th-Grade Reading Proficiency

se NAEP main assessment in 2005 includes a far larger sample of 4th- and 8thgraders than 12th-graders—more than 165,000 and 159,000 respectively—because

that year the test involved participation of states and selected urban districts for the

development of separate reports.

56

Of all the three grade levels tested, 4th-graders were the only studentsto see a significant climb in the percentage scoring at or above Proficient in 2005, compared

with 1992: 31% versus 29%. But the larger point isjust how poorly studentsin all three

grades are reading.

56 se three reading achievement

levels for 4th-graders correspond

with the following scores (in

parentheses): Basic (at least 208);

Proficient (at least 238); and

Advanced (at least 268). For 8thgraders, reading achievement

levels are: Basic (at least 243);

Proficient (at least 281); and

Advanced (at least 323). Published

results of the 2005 NAEP reading

tests for 4th-, 8th-, and 12thgraders do not report cumulative

“below Basic” percentages at the

national level for public and private schools. Consequently, the

“below Basic” percentages in Table

5G were obtained by subtracting

the “Basic or above” percentages

from 100%.

Table 5F. Change in 12th-Grade Reading Scores, by Percentile: 1992 and 2005

Percentile 1992 2005 Change ‘92–‘05

90th 333 333 0

75th 315 313 -2

50th 294 288 -6

25th 271 262 -9

10th 249 235 -14

All score changes from 1992 are statistically significant.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Chart 5E. Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for 12th-Graders

Test Years 1992–2005

275

280

285

290

295

300

1992 1994 1998 2002 2005

(Test years occurred at irregular intervals.)

Scale Score

292*

287

290*

287

286

*Significantly different from 2005.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 61

Table 5G reportsreading achievement levels by grade. In 2005, approximately 36%

of 4th-graders read at a level below Basic—the percentage had not changed significantly since 1992—while 27% of 8th-gradersread below Basic. se percentage of 8thgrade readers below Basic lost four points from 1992 to 2005, becoming identical to

the percentage of 12th-graders in that category: 27%. Among 8th-graders and 12thgraders alike, one in four students is a below-Basic reader.

For reasons that are unclear, 4th-graders consistently have had the greatest percentage of below-Basic readers. But where 12th-graders formerly had an 11-point

lead over 4th- and 8th-gradersin terms of the percentage of proficientreaders at each

grade level, by 2005 the gap had now narrowed to four points. Reading scores of 4thand 8th-graders are improving.

57 See Table 5H. At the lower grades, average reading

scores were two points higherthan in 1992,small butsignificant increases. Asshown

earlier, the average reading score of 12th-graders has declined by six points.

Viewing the grade-level reading test results alongside the trend analysis of reading

scores by age, we find the reading ability of 17-year-olds and 12th-graders has either

declined or failed to improve. By contrast, 9-year-olds and 4th-graders, on one hand,

and 13-year-olds and 8th-graders, on the other, have shown significant gains.

se disparity in reading skills improvement—between the lowest age/grade and

the highest age/grade—mirrors the gulf in voluntary reading rates of those groups.

se deterioration in reading rates and proficiency of 17-year-olds makes possible a

scenario where, according to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, only

5% of high school graduates are Proficient readers, as we shall see in the next

chapter.

57 Results from the NAEP 2007

reading assessments for 4th- and

8th-graders arrived as this report

was in the process of publication.

se reports reveal that 4th-grade

reading scores are continuing to

improve: in 2007, the average

score for this grade level (221) was

higher than in any of the preceding test years, and the percentage

of readers at the Basic and Proficient levels grew by 5 and 4 points,

respectively, compared with 1992

levels. (Like the average test score,

the percentage of 4th-graders at

the Basic and Proficient levels also

rose significantly from 2005.)

Eighth-graders, too, showed an

average reading score improvement (from 260 in 1992 to 263 in

2007) and a slight but significant

gain in the percentage reading at

or above the Basic level (74%),

compared with 1992 and 2005 levels. Unlike 4th-graders, however,

8th-graders did not see a significant change in the percentage of

Proficient readers, compared with

those prior test years.

Table 5H. Average Reading Scores of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-Graders

1992 2005 Change

Grade level:

4th 217 219 +2

8th 260 262 +2

12th 292 286 -6

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 5G. Percentage of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-Graders, by Reading Achievement Level

Below Basic Basic or above Proficient or above

1992 2005 Change 1992 2005 Change 1992 2005 Change

Grade level:

4th 38% 36% *-2 pp 62% 64% *+2 pp 29% 31% +2 pp

8th 31% 27% -4 pp 69% 73% +4 pp 29% 31% *+2 pp

12th 20% 27% +7 pp 80% 73% -7 pp 40% 35% -5 pp

* Not statistically significant

All percentages are approximate.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
62 To Read or Not To Read

Reading and the Gender Gap

Among 12th-graders, boys and girls alike performed worse in

the 2005 main NAEP reading assessment than in 1992. For girls, however, the

average reading score was lower than in 2002, while for boys the score has

remained constant for the past two test years. Still, because male student scores

were eight points lower in 2005 than in 1992, compared with the five-point differential for females over the same period, the gap between male and female

reading scores has widened. Further, female students outperformed males in

all three reading contexts—literary reading, reading for information, and reading

to perform a task.

This disparity in reading scores between the genders is not restricted to children or teenagers: as will be seen in the next chapter, women outscore men on

adult prose literacy tests. What accounts for females leading males in reading

ability? In many of the studies of voluntary reading that have been cited so far,

females have proved more frequent readers than males, and it is hard not to

credit greater exposure to books with playing a role.

The American Time Use Survey, for example, has consistently shown women to

spend more time on leisure reading than men. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2005 Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8–18 Year-Olds study identified

the same split along gender lines in children and teens. And The National Endowment for the Arts’ Reading at Risk (2004) report found that more than half of

America’s women (55%) read a novel, short story, poem, or play in the preceding

12 months, compared with 38% of men. Yet even for women, this reading rate

was down eight percentage points from 20 years earlier. The gender factor may

play a role in determining reading rates and reading skills, but females are by no

means out of trouble when it comes to declines in both.

Table 5I. Average 12th-Grade Reading Scores by Gender

1992 2005

Female 297 292

Male 287 279

Male-female gap -10 -13

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 63

CHAPTER SIX

3. Reading proficiency rates are stagnant or declining in adults of both genders

and all education levels.

BACKGROUND

The preceding chapter demonstrated that 17-year-old and high school senior

reading scores have weakened over time. sis finding has obvious implicationsfor college preparedness, especially since two-thirds of 2008 high school

graduates, or 2.2 million Americans, are likely to enroll that fall as first-year college

students.

58

In 2006, the nonprofit organization ACT, which administers yearly college

entrance exams, published an analysis of the more than 12.5 million high school students who had taken ACT tests from 1994 to 2005. ACT concluded: “Student readiness for college-level reading is at its lowest point in more than a decade,” with little

more than half of all students meeting ACT’s benchmark score.

59

se organization also found, astonishingly, that “more students are on track to

being ready for college-level reading in 8th and 10th grade than are actually ready by

the time they reach 12th grade.” sose data derived from a comparison of ACT reading test scores for 352,000 high school students from 1998 to 2005.

Chapter Eight will review data from employer surveys assessing the knowledge

gaps of high school graduates who enter the U.S. workforce. But college graduates

suffer similar deficiencies, which may have originated with the mediocre reading

rates and skills many carried through high school.

se Department of Education provides a snapshot of the reading ability of American adults—those who have graduated from college, but also those who have not.

sis time, our source is a single study:

• National Center for Education Statistics: Literacy in Everyday Life: Results from

the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2007.

Adult Prose Literacy Rates: Overview

se Department of Education gave the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy

(NAAL) to 19,200 Americans ages 16 and above.

60 se NAAL test booklets consisted

of a series of open-ended questions, each preceding a text passage.

Test-takers were scored on a 0–500 scale, with four distinct prose literacy levels:

“Below Basic” (0–209), “Basic” (210–264), “Intermediate” (265–339), and “Proficient”

(340–500). An Intermediate reading score corresponds with “understanding moderately dense, less commonplace prose texts as well as summarizing, making simple

inferences, determining cause and effect, and recognizing the author’s purpose.”61

By contrast, a reading score of Proficient shows the test-taker’s ability to read

“lengthy, complex, abstract prose texts,” synthesize information and make complex

inferences. According to the NAAL, thisliteracy level includesthe ability to compare

viewpoints from two different newspaper editorials, to “compare and contrast the

meaning of metaphors in a poem,” and to “infer the purpose of an event described in

a magazine article.”

58 Department of Education,

National Center for Education

Statistics, Projections of Education

Statistics to 2015, and NEA

Research projections based on

historical NCES data.

59 ACT, Reading Between the

Lines: What ACT Reveals About

College Readiness in Reading,

2006. se benchmark corresponds

with an ACT Reading Test score

of 21.

Few trend data have been published recently for the other wellknown entrance exam, the College

Board’s SAT, which integrated a

new writing component in 2005.

In August 2007, the College Board

reported a one-point decline in

the average critical reading score

for 2007 test-takers, compared

with the previous year. Otherwise,

critical reading scores have

remained flat for the past several

years, according to test officials.

Yet male students, who historically

have outscored females in this test

subject, are now only two points

ahead of females—compared with

a nine-point lead in 2003. As for

the new writing component,

females are 11 points ahead of

males: 500 versus 489 (out of 800).

60 sis population thus included a

younger cohort than the NEA’s

Reading at Risk report of literary

reading habits. sat study defined

adults as 18 or older. se NAAL

tested approximately 18,000 adults

in U.S. households and 1,200 adult

prisoners.

61 Literacy in Everyday Life, p. 4.
64 To Read or Not To Read

Forthis analysis, we will examine prose literacy scores only. (se NAAL also tested

for “document” and “quantitative” literacy.

62

) In 2003, 43% of test-takers placed at

or below Basic, with a third of that group in the Below Basic category.sis group

represents 96 million Americans, with 30 million at Below Basic, and the remainder

at Basic.

63

se Below-Basic group includes the 3% of all test-takers deemed “nonliterate in

English”—a figure representing 7 million Americans. se designation does not

include adults whose language barrier prevented them from taking the test; that figure is estimated at 2% of the U.S. adult population.

Comparing the 2003 results with those of the previous test year, 1992, we find that

the percentage of prose readers at the Below Basic, Basic, and Intermediate levels has

remained largely constant. A statistically significant change does arise, however, in

the percentage of American adults who read at the Proficient level. sey slipped from

15% in 1992 to 13% in 2003. See Table 6A.

Prose Literacy by Education Level

In addition to taking the literacy test, NAAL participants answered a “background

questionnaire” that sought information on their demographics. Responses to the

questionnaire allow usto understand, among other variables, the educational profile

of test-takers. While 2003 average prose literacy scoresrose with each increasing level

of education (excluding adults still in high school), the trend data for 1992–2003

show significant score declines in almost all groups.

64 See Table 6B.

Strangely, those declines are steepest among the best-educated groups. Graduate

students or degree-holders in 2003 scored, on average, 13 points lower than their

1992 counterparts. Other college graduatesin 2003 were down 11 points, on average,

compared with 1992 college graduates who did not pursue a higher degree. By con62 “Document examples include

job applications, payroll forms,

transportation schedules, maps,

tables, and drug and food labels,”

while quantitative literacy refers to

“balancing a checkbook, figuring

out a tip, completing an order

form, and determining the amount

of interest on a loan from an

advertisement.” (See Literacy in

Everyday Life, p. 2.)

63 se 96 million derives from

the total U.S. population represented by the 2003 NAAL study:

221,020,000 adults in U.S. households and 1,340,000 incarcerated

adults.

64 Exceptions are adults still in

high school and those with a GED

or high school equivalency. In

both cases, score changes from

1992 to 2003 were not statistically

significant.

Table 6B. Average Prose Literacy Scores of Adults, by Highest Level of

Educational Attainment: 1992 and 2003

Education level 1992 2003 Change

Less than/some high school 216 207 -9

High school graduate 268 262 -6

Vocational/trade/business school 278 268 -10

Some college 292 287 -5

Associate’s/2-year degree 306 298 -8

Bachelor’s degree 325 314 -11

Graduate study/degree 340 327 -13

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 6A. Percentage of Adults at Each Prose Literacy Level: 1992 and 2003

Below Basic Basic Intermediate Proficient

1992 14% 28% 43% 15%

2003 14% *29% *44% 13%

* no statistically significant change from 1992

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 65

trast, the average score for 2003 high school graduates was 6 points lower than for

high school graduates in 1992.

Despite exposure to higher learning in the case of college and graduate degreeholders, then, American adults of virtually all education levels are reading less

well than in the previous decade. One may conjecture that the erosion of reading

scores is partly due to less curricular emphasis on reading at the higher education

levels, but another plausible explanation is that adults are losing the habit of voluntary reading, which could sustain and reinforce their literacy skills.

se NAAL report notes a paradox, however. Although prose literacy scores

declined for high school and college graduates from 1992 to 2003, the average prose

literacy score for the U.S. adult population remained constant over that period. se

report explainsthat the declinesin average prose literacy scores at every educational

level were offset by an increase in the percentage of adults with postsecondary education from 1992 to 2003, and a corresponding decrease in the percentage that did

not complete high school. After all, compared with adults who do not complete high

school, adults with postsecondary education tend to attain higher prose scores.

se average prose reading score was stable from 1992 to 2003, and this trend

applied to all but the very best readers. As we have seen, “Proficient” wasthe only literacy level to experience a significant change—a dip—in the percentage of qualifying

readers. se decline is more striking when viewed as a function of the test-taker’s

education status.

As Table 6C shows, the decline in the percentage of Proficient readers is occurring at the highest educational levels. From 1992 to 2003, the proportion of Proficient readers who had attended graduate school lost 10 percentage points. Among

college graduates who had not proceeded to graduate school, the percentage of Proficient readers dropped nine points. sose reductions translate to a 20% rate of

decline for adults with graduate school experience and a 22% rate of decline for other

college graduates. Vocational/trade/businessschool graduates also experienced a significant decline in the share of Proficient readers: from 9% in 1992 to 5% in 2003.

Prose Literacy by Gender

se differences in male and female adult literacy levels resemble the disparities in

reading skills of boys and girls (see p. 62). In 2003, the average prose score for males

Table 6C. Percentage of Adults Proficient in Reading Prose, by Highest Level

of Educational Attainment

Education level 1992 2003 Change Rate of decline

Less than/some high school 1% 1% 0 0

High school graduate 5% *4% *-1 pp *-20%

Vocational/trade/business school 9% 5% -4 pp -44%

Some college 14% *11% *-3 pp *-21%

Associate’s/2-year degree 23% *19% *-4 pp *-17%

Bachelor’s degree 40% 31% -9 pp -22%

Graduate study/degree 51% 41% -10 pp - 20%

* No statistically significant change

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
66 To Read or Not To Read

was a significant four pointslowerthan in 1992: 272 versus 276. Females experienced

no change in average prose score over this period (277 in both 1992 and 2003),

although because of the decline in male scores, women scoresin 2003 exceeded men’s

by a statistically significant amount—an event that did not occur in 1992.

Prose scores for the best female readers also remained flat from 1992 to 2003. Yet

the percentage of males at the Proficient reading level did drop significantly, as Table

6D shows.

Taken together, the national prose literacy data show a lack of improvement in the

reading skills of women and a decline in the reading skills of men. Adults at virtually

every education level exhibited declines in average reading scores.

65

se data also show a slight butsignificant decline in the overall percentage of Proficient-scoring readers, and declines in reading proficiency among college graduates

and among adults who received vocational training. Although these trends suggest

the need to expand adult learning opportunities in our civic institutions and communities, we should not overlook—as central to that aim—the promotion of voluntary reading habits in grown-ups no less than children.

65 Other significant declines

occurred among 25- to 39-yearolds, whose average reading score

dropped five points to 283 from

1992 to 2003, and among 40- to

49-year-olds, who saw an 11-point

score decrease to 282 over the

same period. se percentage of

25- to 39-year-olds in the Below

Basic prose literacy category grew

a significant two points, to 12%.

Table 6D. Percentage of Adults Proficient in Reading Prose, by Gender

1992 2003 Change Rate of decline

Men 16% 13% -3 pp -19%

Women 14% 14% 0 pp 0%

pp = percentage points

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 67

Literacy in the Prison Population

Incarcerated Americans, totaling 1.4 million in 2003, composed

an important part of the National Assessment of Adult Literacy. Since the

1992 test, however, several changes occurred in this population that positively

affected literacy scores in 2003.

By the time of the 2003 test, U.S. prisons had gained half a million adult

inmates. On average, this group was older and better educated than the 1992

prisoners; indeed, parents of the 2003 prisoners also tended to be better educated than parents for the earlier test population. Related largely to those factors,

the average prose literacy for 2003 was higher than in the 1992 group.

Still, prisoners continued to score significantly lower than non-incarcerated

Americans on prose reading tests. The average prose literacy score of prisoners in 2003 was 257, while for non-incarcerated adults it was 275. Moreover,

the percentage of prisoners at or below the Basic reading level was 56%, compared with 43% of non-prisoners.

Forty-one percent of prisoners were Intermediate readers and only 3% were

Proficient. Among non-incarcerated Americans, 44% read at the Intermediate

level. This percentage was not significantly different from the proportion of prisoners at that reading level. The proficiency rate for non-prisoners, however, was

13%—10 points higher than for prisoners.

A disparity in the scores of U.S. household and prison populations appears

even in adults at the highest education level. The average prose score of nonincarcerated adults who had a postsecondary school education was 302, compared with 282 for prisoners of the same educational background, or one-fifth

of incarcerated adults. Twenty-three percent of non-incarcerated adults who

attended postsecondary school read at the Proficient level, while only 8% of

prisoners of that background did. For adult prisoners and non-prisoners whose

education ended with a high school diploma, average reading scores were

almost identical: 264 and 262, respectively.

Regarding the literacy gap between adult prisoners and non-prisoners, the

Department of Education’s Literacy Behind Bars (2007) report concludes: “This

would be of somewhat less concern if prison inmates who expected to be

released within 2 years had higher literacy than inmates with more time left to

serve on their sentences, but that was not the case.” As the report observes, “The

literacy of inmates who are near their expected date of release may be of particular concern because they will soon need to do such things as rejoin their families

and find a job.” Yet the 2003 literacy assessment revealed no difference in average prose scores of prisoners who still had more than 2 years to serve, and those

to be released within a 2-year period.
68 To Read or Not To Read

CHAPTER SEVEN

4. Reading for pleasure correlates strongly with academic achievement.

BACKGROUND

Over the last three decades, cognitive psychologistsspecializing in childhood

development have sought to clarify the relationship between reading widely

and reading well. Much of that research has been distilled by Anne Cunningham, University of California at Berkeley, and Keith Stanovich, University of

Toronto—notably in a Spring/Summer 1998 article for the American Federation of

Teachers’ magazine American Educator. Titled “What Reading Does for the Mind,”

the article begins:

Reading has cognitive consequences that extend beyond its immediate task of

lifting meaning from a particular passage. Furthermore, these consequences are

reciprocal and exponential in nature. Accumulated over time—spiraling either

upward or downward—they carry profound implications for the development

of a wide range of cognitive capabilities.

Cunningham and Stanovich go on to describe “the reciprocal effects of reading

volume,” whereby, regardless of reading ability, children who start reading for pleasure at an early age are exposed to exponentially higher numbers of new words—and

a greater opportunity to develop literacy skills—than children denied early reading

experiences. Because these skills are associated not just with reading comprehension,

but also with greater cognitive development, the researchers elsewhere state: “We

believe that independent reading may help explain the widening achievement disparities between the educational haves and have-nots.”66

Vocabulary growth is perceived by many to be central to reading development, but

what often gets overlooked isthe sheer quantity of words, concepts, and types ofsyntactic structure that reading provides. Cunningham and Stanovich cite statistical

studies of printed texts ranging from children’s stories to adult books, from comic

books to popular magazines, showing that each type of reading material contains a

far greater average number ofrare wordsthan TV shows or adultspeech.

67se implication is that children would learn more vocabulary from reading juvenile fiction

than from watching a prime-time television show or listening to their college-educated parents chat with each other!

Another article summarizing research on the link between voluntary reading and

literacy rates was commissioned by the Department of Education in the late 1990s.

68

Its author postulates:

Voluntary reading involves personal choice, reading widely from a variety of

sources, and choosing what one reads. Aliterates, people who have the ability to

read but choose not to, miss just as much as those who cannot read at all. Individuals read to live life to its fullest, to earn a living, to understand what is going

on in the world, and to benefit from the accumulated knowledge of civilization.

Even the benefits of democracy, and the capacity to govern ourselves successfully, depend on reading.

66 “Reading Can Make You

Smarter,” by Anne Cunningham

and Keith Stanovich, in Principal,

November/December 2003.

Reprinted with permission. Copyright (2003) National Association

of Elementary School Principals.

All rights reserved.

67 se authors refer to Hayes,

D.P. and Ahrens, M., “Vocabulary

Simplification for Children: A Special Case of ‘Motherese’?”, Journal

of Child Language 15 (1988): 395–

410, and Hayes, D.P., “Speaking

and Writing: Distinct Patterns of

Word Choice.” Journal of Memory

and Language 27 (1988): 572–585.

68 Bernice E. Cullinan, “Independent Reading and School Achievement,” American Association of

School Librarians’ School Library

Media Research, Vol. 3, 2000.
To Read or Not To Read 69

sat last proposition will resurface in Chapter Nine of thisreport, but for now, we

are concerned with identifying the correlation between reading often and reading

well. Ourreview will coverthe mostrecent data available in Department of Education

studies profiling youth reading skills and voluntary reading rates:

• NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic Progress: Lree Decades of Student Performance

in Reading and Mathematics, 2005.

• National Center for Education Statistics: NAEP Data Explorer tool, available

via NCES Web site.

Although earlier chapters have hinted at a mutual reinforcement between reading

rates and literacy skills, the following graphs make that pattern explicit. Still, because

the data cannot prove a causal relationship between the two variables, it is worth

reproducing a disclaimer from the previously quoted article.

Longitudinal studies that show long-term effects or that isolate the exercise of

literacy, however, are missing from the research on voluntary reading and school

achievement. Such studies might indicate which factors make a difference in

establishing lifetime reading habits, and in what influences readers’ choice of

reading material, that perhaps could help us plan effective programs.

69

Reading Often and Reading Well

9-, 13-, and 17-Year-Olds: Long-Term Trend Data

se consistently documented correlation between voluntary reading rates and higher

test scores is summed up by a paragraph in the NAEP 2004 Trends in Academic

Progressreport. se study assessed the reading skills of 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds over

three decades (see Chapters One and Five).

At all three ages, students who indicated that they read for fun almost every day

had higher average reading scoresin 2004 than those who said that they never or

hardly ever read for fun. Students at all three age levels who said that they read

for fun once or twice a week had higher average scores than those who never or

hardly ever read for fun.

70

Chart 7A displays this pattern for 17-year-olds—the age group least likely to read

for pleasure, as we have seen, and also the only group whose reading scores have

declined significantly since 1984.

Although average reading scores are similarfor 17-year-olds who read once ortwice

a week and those who read once or twice a month, there are large score differences

between these readers and the 17-year-olds who read infrequently or not at all. se

gulf expands for infrequent or non-readers, compared with those who read “almost

every day”—yielding a 33-point gap between daily readers and very infrequent readers, and a 37-point gap between daily readers and “never-or-hardly-ever” readers.

8th- and 12th-Graders: National 2005 Data

se NAEP national “main” assessment, administered biennially to 4th-, 8th- and

12th-graders,reflectsthe same pattern. Test-takers are asked how often they read for

69 Ibid.

70 NAEP Trends in Academic

Progress: Lree Decades of Student

Performance in Reading and

Mathematics, 2005, vii.
70 To Read or Not To Read

fun on their own. Chart 7B shows the 2005 test score pattern of 12th-graders in four

different categories ofreading frequency. Although notshown here, the relationships

between reading rates and test scores are similar in previous test years, and for all

three grade levels.

Another question on the 2005 main NAEP assessment asked 8th- and 12th-graders

how often, if ever, they read “fiction books orstories outside school.” Again, the results

are similar—for both grade levels, and in previous years. Chart 7C displays the 2005

pattern for 12th-graders. Notably, there is no significant difference in scores between

the 12th-graders who read only once ortwice a month and those who read a few times

a year. Although this anomaly does not appearin the previoustwo charts, itreinforces

the notion that consistently high levels of leisure reading are crucial to a positive relationship between reading and test scores.

Almost every day

Once or twice a week

Once or twice a month

A few times a year

Never or hardly ever

305

288

287

272

268

Almost every day

Once or twice a week

Once or twice a month

Never or hardly ever

302

292

285

274

Chart 7A. Average Reading Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun

Age 17 in 2004

Chart 7B. Average Reading Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun

Grade 12 in 2005

Reading scores range from 0 to 500.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics

Reading scores range from 0 to 500.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 71

Reading Often and Writing Well

se National Assessment of Educational Progress (also known as “se Nation’s

Report Card”) features a writing component. se test assigns students three types of

writing tasks: narrative, informative, and persuasive. Assignmentsfrom the 2002 test

included, for example, “writing a letter to the editor of a newspaper, offering advice

to younger students, reporting to a school committee, and writing a story based on

a poem.”71

Without citing a causal relationship between the two variables—once again, data

do not exist to show conclusively that one pattern results from the other—we note a

progressive rise in test scores by reading frequency. Chart 7D depicts a 29-point

spread between the 12th-graders who are non- or infrequent readers and those who

read daily or almost daily. (For 4th- and 8th-graders, the corresponding differences

are 20 and 25 points, respectively.)

Writing and reading are separate skills, to be sure, but the likelihood of writing well

isreduced when one has minimal exposure to printed texts. Doesthe same tendency

apply to readers and non-readers tested for academic subjects beyond reading and

writing?

Books in the Home

se NAEP does test for subjects such as math, science, history, and civics, but students are not asked about their voluntary reading rates. Rather, the NAEP inquires

about the number of “booksin the home.” While this variable says nothing of the student’s propensity for leisure reading, access to printed matter is associated positively with test scores for a variety of subjects.

For example, math, science, civics, and history scores are higher for 12th-graders

who report having booksin the home. See Tables 7E and 7F, which report, by number

of “books in the home,” the average math and science scores of 12th-graders. se

results are from the most recent NAEP tests.

71 See “What Does the NAEP

Writing Assessment Measure?”

on NCES Web site (http://nces.ed.

gov/nationsreportcard/writing/

whatmeasure.asp). Data from the

2007 NAEP writing assessment

were unavailable at the time of

preparing this publication.

At least once a week

Once or twice a month

Few times a year

Never or hardly ever

302

289

287

273

Chart 7C. Average Reading Scores by Frequency of Reading Fiction Books or

Stories Outside School

Grade 12 in 2005

Reading scores range from 0 to 500.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics
72 To Read or Not To Read

se NAEP results of a 2006 civics test show a similar pattern, as do results from a

2006 history test. In contrast to students who reported 0–10 books at home, 12thgraders with 26–100 books at home scored 27 points higher. If they had more than

100 books at home, the score went up an additional 17 points.

sat same year, history test-takers with 26–100 books at home scored 24 points

more than 12th-graders with 0–10 books at home. If they had more than 100 books,

the score was another 16 points greater. But even for households with 11–25 books,

Almost every day

Once or twice a week

Once or twice a month

Never or hardly ever

165

154

149

136

Chart 7D. Average Writing Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun

Grade 12 in 2002

Table 7E. Average Mathematics Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2005

Reported number Average mathematics

of books at home score

More than 100 163

26–100 151

11–25 136

0–10 126

Mathematics scores range from 0 to 300.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 7F. Average Science Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2005

Reported number Average science

of books at home score

More than 100 161

26–100 147

11–25 132

0–10 122

Science scores range from 0 to 300.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Writing scores range from 0 to 300.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 73

12th-grade scores were significantly higherthan for households with 0-10 books.sis

tendency applies to test-takers in all four subjects: math, science, civics, and history.

At this point, we might ask whether the relationship between student test scores

and number of books in the home is masking household income as a factor in the

analysis. se Department of Education’s NAEP Data Explorer tool, available on the

National Center for Education Statistics’ Web site, does not supply information on

parents’ earnings, which we might have compared with student test scores. Yet the

tool doestrack another variable closely related to socioeconomic status: parents’ level

of education.

Although test scores rise successively with the parents’ education, the number of

books remains a significant predictor of better test scores. Consider 12th-grade science scores: Students whose parents had high school diplomas and lived in homes

with more than 100 booksscored 22 points higherthan students whose parents were

college graduates and who reported 0–10 books in their home.

Indeed, for all the subjects reported in Table 7I, students of high school-educated

parents living in homes with more than 100 books outscored students with collegeeducated parents and 0–10 books at home.

72 Students with high school-educated

parents and 26–100 books in the home also outscored students with college-educated parents and 0–10 books at home. se relationship between test scores and the

availability of books may point to reading and literary activity as highly visible functions in the household—behaviors that strengthen the student’s own reading habits.

se close relationship between student achievement and exposure to books and

reading has been quantified to some extent. But left untouched are the less academically relevant benefits of reading. Better test scores aside, there is a civic and social

imperative, as subsequent pages will show.

72 Regression analyses support

this finding. Test scores are

roughly 30 points higher for students with 100 or more books at

home than for students with 0–10

books, regardless of their parents’

education.

Table 7G. Average Civics Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2006

Reported number Average civics

of books at home score

More than 100 167

26–100 150

11–25 134

0–10 123

Civics scores range from 0 to 300.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 7H. Average U.S. History Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2006

Reported number Average history

of books at home score

More than 100 305

26–100 289

11–25 275

0–10 265

History scores range from 0 to 500.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
74 To Read or Not To Read

Reading the Numbers: Math and Reading Scores

In August 2007, the Department of Education released a report

comparing the U.S. educational system with those of the Group of Eight (G-8)

countries, which rank among the world’s most highly developed nations. The

report found a strong relationship between reading and math achievement in

seven of the G-8 countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian

Federation, and the United States. (The UK was omitted because of its low

response rate.)

Among 15-year-olds tested for reading and mathematics literacy in 2003, a low

score in either subject was usually accompanied by a low score in the other subject. For example, 82% of Americans—the highest percentage among G-8 countries—who scored at the lowest proficiency level in reading also scored at the

lowest level in math. Further, 62% of American 15-year-olds who scored at the

lowest level in math also obtained the lowest performance level in reading. For

details, see pp. 27–28 of the report, Comparative Indicators of Education in the

United States and Other G-8 Countries: 2006, published by the Department of

Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.

Table 7I. 12th-Grade Test Scores by Number of Books in the Home and by

Parents’ Education

(2005–2006)

U.S. History Civics

Test scores by Test scores by

parents’ highest level parents’ highest level

of education of education

High school College High school College

diploma graduate diploma graduate

Books in the home:

More than 100 290 309 152 172

26–100 284 294 141 156

11–25 270 281 133 140

0–10 264 275 121 131

Mathematics Science

Test scores by Test scores by

parents’ highest level parents’ highest level

of education of education

High school College High school College

diploma graduate diploma graduate

Books in the home:

More than 100 145 169 148 166

26–100 143 157 141 152

11–25 132 142 127 140

0–10 126 137 120 126

Data source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

7

6ToReadorNotToRead

©Tobbe/zefa/Corbis
To Read or Not To Read 77

CHAPTER EIGHT

1. Employers now rank reading and writing as top deficiencies in new hires.

2. Good readers generally have more financially rewarding jobs.

3. Less advanced readers report fewer opportunities for career growth.

BACKGROUND

cademic achievement tests are useful in distinguishing between high and low

literacy levels in the general population, but they tell only half the story. As

with many other life skills, often of the artistic or intellectual kind, reading

and writing fluency yield intangible benefits that sharpen the divide between those

who have the skills and those who do not. Some of those qualitative differences are all

but immeasurable; others can be rated by their value in the job market.

se importance of technological innovation to the national economy has ensured

that math and science skills are sought after and well-remunerated by many industries. Increasingly, however, think-tank organizations and expert panels have also

cited the competitive value of advanced literacy in the American workplace. Some

of their conclusions differ on the type of literacy required. In Closing the Expectations

Gap 2007, for example, the nonprofit Achieve, Inc. reports:

Although [state] high schoolstandards and coursestend to emphasize literature,

most of the reading students will encounter in college or on the job is informational in nature (e.g., textbooks, manuals, articles, briefs and essays)....Most of

the writing students will do in college and work isto inform and persuade, often

requiring students to use evidence to support a position. Research also is cited

as an important skill for college and work. State standards tend to give these

types of writing short shrift, emphasizing narrative writing instead.

73

In contrast to this somewhat utilitarian perspective, another nonprofit public policy group places creativity on equal footing with traditional literacy skills. se

National Center on Education and the Economy’s 2007 report, Tough Times or Tough

Choices, states:

sis is a world in which a very high level of preparation in reading, writing,

speaking, mathematics, science, literature, history, and the arts will be an indispensable foundation for everything that comes after for most members of our

workforce. It is a world in which comfort with ideas and abstractionsisthe passport to a good job, in which creativity and innovation are the key to the good

life, in which high levels of education—a very different kind of education than

most of us have had—are going to be the only security there is.

74

73 Achieve, Inc.: Closing the

Expectations Gap 2007, 9.

74 National Center on Education

and the Economy, Tough Choices

or Tough Times: Le Report on the

New Commission on the Skills of

the American Workforce, 2007,

xviii.

S T

Why More san Reading Is At Risk

A
78 To Read or Not To Read

Despite the range of opinion on future career applications for literacy, a review of

recent employer surveys is enough to attest that above-basic reading and writing

skills are in high demand. Department of Education data profiling readers at competent and deficient literacy levels are additionally helpful in identifying positive outcomes associated with reading and writing well. Key sources for this chapter are:

• se Conference Board, Corporate Voices for Working Families, Partnership for

21st Century Skills, Society for Human Resource Management: Are Ley

Really Ready to Work? Employers Perspectives on the Basic Knowledge and

Applied Skills of New Entrants to the 21st Century Workforce, 2006.

• College Entrance Examination Board: Writing: A Ticket to Work...Or a Ticket

Out, A Survey of Business Leaders, 2004.

• College Entrance Examination Board: Writing: A Powerful Message from State

Government, 2005.

• U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Literacy in Everyday Life: Results from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2007.

Perceived Workforce Needs

American businesses and research and advocacy organizations posed a hard question

about America’s new hires in the title of a 2006 report, Are Ley Really Ready to

Work? In April and May of that year, the group polled employers for “perspectives

on the basic knowledge and applied skills of new entrants to the 21st-century U.S.

workforce,” a phrase captured by the report’s subtitle.

se survey sample was not nationally representative, and the response rate was

low—5%, or 431 companies with a combined workforce of 2 million U.S. employees.

However, the sample was diverse: the highest percentage of respondents, 23%,

belonged to the manufacturing industries, with another 21% of employersin government, nonprofit, or education sectors.

Business and professional services, on the one hand, and financial and insurance

services, on the other, each claimed about 14% of the respondent pool, with some of

the remaining percentages distributed across the healthcare (12%), entertainment/

trade (10%), and energy/utilities/construction/transportation sectors (7%). About

80% of companies were small (less than 500 employees) or mid-sized (500–4,999),

with the remaining respondents each having 5,000 or more employees.

75

Despite the range of employer-respondents, a clear majority viewed two basic skills

as “very important” for new workforce entrants, regardless of education level. sose

skills are reading and writing. See Table 8A.

Shown a list of nine “basic skill” areas—including math,science, and economics—

90% of employers named “writing in English” as “very important” for the job success

of new hiresthat had graduated from a four-year college or university. Reading comprehension also ranked high among the basic skill needs for this group, placing the

skill in the top three, just under “English Language” skills.

We might expect college-educated employees to be valued more highly for their

writing ability than employees with less education, if we can assume that the skill

was refined as part of the college experience. But employers’ expectations for lesseducated workers, those who stopped at high school or junior college, also emphasize the skill. Writing is the third most commonly selected skill deemed “very

important” for high school and junior college graduates alike. Among these hires,

75 Forty-four percent of responding employers recorded annual

revenues under $100 million,

while 29% had annual revenues of

$1 billion and more. Twenty-seven

percent had revenues from $100

million to $999,999,999. Personnel

with the job title of “director”

accounted for just over half of

the survey’s respondents. Other

respondents were company vicepresidents, senior VPs, managers/

supervisors, human resource specialists, and other HR staff. (See

p. 61 of Are Ley Really Ready to

Work?)
To Read or Not To Read 79

reading comprehension claimed the top spot, earning the most employer ratings of “very important.”

In addition to asking employers about basic skill needs, the survey listed 11

“applied skills” such as critical thinking and problem solving, professionalism and

work ethic, and asked which ones would be considered “very important,” “important,”

or “not important.”

Reading comprehension was not among the applied skills from which employers

could choose, but “written communications” was. (se survey definesthisskill asthe

ability to “write memos, letters and complex technicalreports clearly and effectively.”)

According to the majority of employers, written communications are essential

for new hires among two-year or four-year college graduates. See Table 8B. More

than 93% of employersrated the skill “very important” for job entrants with a college

education, while 72% rated the skill very important for two-year or technical college

graduates. For two-year and four-year college graduates alike, written communications ranks in the top five applied skills valued most highly by employers.

For new hires whose education stopped at high school, employer expectations do

not appearto value written communications as greatly asforjob entrants with higher

education. Yet just over half of respondents (52%) deemed the skill very important

even for this group of employees.

Top Deficiencies in New Hires

How do the skills of new hires stack up with these perceived job needs? For job

entrants of all levels of educational attainment, writing is faring poorly. Among high

school graduates, “writing in English” was the most commonly reported basic skill

Table 8A. Basic Skills Rated Very Important by Employers (Top Five)

Percentage of employers who rate the following basic skills as “very important” for:

High School Graduates Two-Year College Graduates Four-Year College Graduates

Reading Comprehension 63% Reading Comprehension 72% Writing in English 90%

English Language 62% English Language 71% English Language 88%

Writing in English 49% Writing in English 65% Reading Comprehension 87%

Mathematics 30% Mathematics 44% Mathematics 64%

Foreign Language 11% Science 21% Science 33%

Source: The Conference Board, Are They Really Ready to Work? (2006)

Table 8B. Applied Skills Rated Very Important by Employers (Top Five)

Percentage of employers who rate the following basic skills as “very important” for:

High School Graduates Two-Year College/Technical Four-Year College Graduates

School Graduates

Professionalism/Work Ethic 80% Professionalism/Work Ethic 83% Oral Communications 95%

Teamwork/Collaboration 75% Teamwork/Collaboration 83% Teamwork/Collaboration 94%

Oral Communications 70% Oral Communications 82% Professionalism/Work Ethic 94%

Ethics/Social Responsibility 63% Critical Thinking/Problem Solving 73% Written Communications 93%

Critical Thinking/Problem Solving 58% Written Communications 72% Critical Thinking/Problem Solving 92%

Source: The Conference Board, Are They Really Ready to Work? (2006)
80 To Read or Not To Read

deficiency reported by employers(72%). “Written communications,” meanwhile, was

the most commonly reported “applied”skill deficiency: 81% of employers reported

this problem with high school graduates, as Table 8C notes.

New hires with two-year or four-year college backgrounds display a similar weakness, according to employers, albeit at a lower rate. Forty-six percent of employers

judged two-year college graduates deficient in writing in English, while 26% of

employers reported this deficiency in four-year college graduates. In both cases, the

basic skill ranked as the second greatest deficiency found in the new hires.

Among applied skills, the job relevance of literacy is even clearer. For both twoyear and four-year graduates, written communications claimed the top spot in

applied skill deficiencies cited by employers. See Table 8D.

Before turning to a separate analysis of writing skill needs in the workplace, we

should look more closely at reading comprehension, though not shown in the preceding table. As demonstrated in Table 8A, 63% of employers ranked reading comprehension “very important” for high school graduates. Yet 38% consider most high

school graduates deficient in this basic skill.

se survey also revealed that employers in the manufacturing sector were more

likely than other employers to report reading comprehension as a deficiency in new

Table 8C. Skill Deficiencies in High School Graduates (Top Five)

Percentage of employers who rate high school graduates as deficient in basic and applied skills:

Basic Skills Applied Skills

Writing in English 72% Written Communications 81%

Foreign Languages 62% Leadership 73%

Mathematics 54% Professionalism/Work Ethic 70%

History/Geography 46% Critical Thinking/Problem Solving 70%

Government/Economics 46% Lifelong Learning/Self-Direction 58%

Source: The Conference Board, Are They Really Ready to Work? (2006)

Table 8D. Skill Deficiencies in College Graduates (Top Five)

Percentage of employers who rate two-year and four-year college graduates as deficient in basic and

applied skills:

Two-Year College Graduates Four-Year College Graduates

Basic Skills Basic Skills

Foreign Languages 50% Foreign Languages 41%

Writing in English 46% Writing in English 26%

Government/Economics 32% Government/Economics 17%

History/Geography 26% History/Geography 17%

Mathematics 25% Science 13%

Applied Skills Applied Skills

Written Communications 47% Written Communications 28%

Leadership 43% Leadership 24%

Professionalism/Work Ethic 31% Professionalism/Work Ethic 19%

Lifelong Learning/Self-Direction 28% Creativity/Innovation 17%

Creativity/Innovation 28% Lifelong Learning/Self-Direction 14%

Source: The Conference Board, Are They Really Ready to Work? (2006)
To Read or Not To Read 81

hires. Forty-nine percent of employersin manufacturing cited this basic skill aslacking in job entrants, compared with 36% of employers in all other industries. Math

and science were the two other basic skills that manufacturers found lacking in new

hires more often than other industries did.

se importance of reading comprehension to the manufacturing sector is projected to grow, according to a separate survey, the 2005 Skills Gap Report—A Survey

of the American Manufacturing Workforce, conducted by the National Association

of Manufacturers and Deloitte Consulting LLP. In resultsfrom the 800-employersurvey, “reading/writing/communication skills” ranked among the top three types of

skillsthat employers will demand increasingly. More than half ofsurveyed employers

said the need for those skills would expand over the next three years.

76

Writing Skills in Demand

Chapter Seven identified a correlation between students’ reading patterns and

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) writing test scores. Anecdotally, writing instructors have long witnessed the inspiration, stylistic lessons, and

vocabulary growth that the best student-writers derive from authors they read on

their own initiative.

In this respect, reading widely and reading well can be a career investment. Two

reports, issued by the National Commission on Writing for America’s Families,

Schools, and Colleges, underscore the perceived demand of today’s job market for

advanced writing skillsin new employees. se Commission wasfounded by the College Entrance Examination Board in 2005, the yearthe board launched its“new” SAT

exam, which now includes a writing component.

se first report, Writing: A Ticket to Work...or a Ticket Out (2004), described

results from a mailed survey with intensive phone call follow-up. Focused on writing

needs in the workplace, the questionnaire was distributed to 120 “human resource

leaders” belonging to the Business Roundtable, a CEO membership organization.

se survey yielded a 53% response rate. Like the survey in Are Ley Really Ready

to Work?, the writing data cannot be viewed as nationally representative, and a further caveat applies. Unlike that previously discussed survey, the writing survey data

do not reflect a broad range of employment sectors.

se National Commission on Writing notes, for example, that manufacturers are

overrepresented among Business Roundtable membership, and they accounted for

69% ofsurvey respondents. An additional 15% of respondents belonged to the transportation or utilities sectors, with another 7% in finance/insurance/real estate, 6% in

services, with the remainder in construction or mining.

Some industries with Business Roundtable membership were not captured by the

survey: wholesale and retail trade and agriculture, forestry, and fishing. se Commission also warns that the study’s findings cannot be applied to small business or

government employment. (se average employee base for the 64 responding firms

was 54,503.)

How do human resource personnel in large corporations rate the need for writing

ability in the workplace? Nearly 70% of responding firms said at least two-thirds of

their employees have “writing” in their job descriptions.

77 More than half of respondents claimed they “frequently or almost always” consider writing ability in hiring

decisions.

Accuracy (95%), clarity (75%), and spelling, punctuation, and grammar(59%) were

the top three writing characteristics valued by employers. sey cited e-mail corre76 National Manufacturers Association and Deloitte Consulting,

2005 Skills Gap Report—A Survey

of the American Manufacturing

Workforce, 2005, 8. See p. 25 for

survey methodology.

77 Unless noted otherwise, the

employee data culled from both

National Commission on Writing

surveys relate to “salaried” or “professional” employees, and not

“hourly” or “clerical/support” staff.
82 To Read or Not To Read

spondence, presentations and visuals, memos, and formal reports as some of the

most frequently required communication formats.

As for workers’ writing ability, 34% of employers reported that adequate writing

skills are lacking in two-thirds or more of the current workforce. Almost the same

percentage—36%—found writing skills lacking in at least two-thirds of incoming

employees. se Commission concludes: “Since up to one-third of the employees in

these blue-chip corporations do not possess adequate writing skills, writing deficiencies may be even more pronounced elsewhere in the broader private sector, particularly among employees of small- and medium-sized businesses.”

In 2005, the National Commission on Writing reported results from a smaller but

more representative employersurvey. sistime, the Commission asked the National

Governors Association to poll state human resources directors—through an online

survey—on writing skill needs ofstate government employees. Forty-nine of 50 state

human resource directors responded.

Table 8E displays key results from the two writing surveys side by side. On the

whole,state employers appear to value writing even more highly than the large companies surveyed. All of the state personnel directors said two-thirds or more of their

employees have writing as a job responsibility. (Two-thirds of large corporationssaid

the same fortheir employees.) Eighty percent ofstate human resources directorsfrequently or almost always consider writing in hiring new employees, compared with

just 51% of large companies.

When it comes to workforce writing ability, the corporate and state employersurveys yield markedly different conclusions: While 70% of state personnel directors

reported that two-thirds of current and new employees possessthisskill, the share of

companies claiming this view is only half as great.

Costs of Remediation

se comparatively higher rate of satisfaction recorded by state employers for their

workers’ writing ability may reflect, at least in part, a greater emphasis on training.

According to the National Commission on Writing, two-thirds of state employerrespondents said they “frequently” or “almost always” provide training for workers

whose writing abilities are poor, and lessthan 10% ofstate employerssaid they never

provide such training. Among large corporations, just over 40% frequently or almost

always provide such training for employees who require it.

Even if training for writing is emphasized more strongly by state employers, the

relative costs are reportedly greaterforthe private sector. State employersreport payTable 8E. Selected Results from National Commission on Writing Surveys:

A Comparison

Percentage who said: Corporate State

employers employers

Writing is a job responsibility for at least two-thirds of employees 67% 100%

Writing is “frequently” or “almost always” a factor in hiring decisions 51% 80%

Writing is “frequently” or “almost always” a factor in promotion decisions 50% 60%

The majority of new and current employees possess this skill 35% 70%

Some percentages are approximate.

Sources: College Entrance Examination Board, Writing: A Ticket to Work... Or a Ticket Out (2004) and Writing:

A Powerful Message from State Government (2005)
To Read or Not To Read 83

ing, on average, $425 per employee for writing training, which the National Commission on Writing estimates as costing state agencies $221 million annually.

For large corporations, the average spent on writing training, across industries, is

$950 per employee, yielding a National Commission on Writing estimate of $3.1 billion per year. Because of the range of reported costs, however, the total estimates

must be viewed cautiously.

78

Prospects for Promotion

According to the National Commission on Writing, more than 60% of state employers take writing skills into account in making promotion decisions, compared with

almost half of large corporate employers. In industry, manufacturers are more likely

than the construction sector to base promotion decisions on writing skills: 58% of

manufacturers versus one-third of construction companies.

se Department of Education’s 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy

(NAAL) provides another indirect measure of the link between literacy skills and job

advancement. In addition to gauging U.S. adults’ reading ability, the NAAL culled

self-reported background characteristicsfrom the test-takers. Several of these background characteristics cover workplace experience.

As shown by Table 8F, for example, the majority of adults at the “Below-Basic”

reading level (70%) expressed their belief that low reading skills had hindered their

job options. sat percentage dwindlesin relation to improved reading ability: 38% of

Basic readers said their career growth suffered, while only 16% and 4% of Intermediate and Proficient readers, respectively, reported this experience.

se NAAL also obtained self-reported data on salaries of full-time employed adults

who took the test. Here, too, advanced reading skills correlate with more positive outcomes, discounting other factors. se majority of Basic and Below-Basic readers—

62% and 77%, respectively—report earning weekly incomes below $650, while the

majority of Proficient readersfall within the $850-or-more-per-week category. Fiftyseven percent of Intermediate readers earn $650 or more per week. See Table 8G.

What about the types of jobs that people of different literacy levels tend to have?

According to Table 8H, more than 60% of Proficient readers are employed in the

“management, business, and financial” or “professional and related” sectors, where

average weekly earnings are typically the highest. Moreover, progressively higher

rates of employment in those categories are associated with higher reading levels,

with 7% of Below-Basic readers, 18% of Basic readers, and 36% of Intermediate readers working in those sectors. Also noteworthy is that significantly higher percentages of readers at or above Basic are now employed in those sectors than in

1992.

79

78 For example, the Commission

reports that corporate writing

training services range from

“online tutoring programs costing

very little to full-scale writing

workshops priced in the thousands.” State agencies, by contrast,

reported estimates ranging from

$35 per employee to $5,000 per

employee. se estimates include

“hourly” or “clerical/support” staff,

and not just the “professional” or

“salaried” employees discussed

elsewhere in this section.

79 se percentage of Basic readers

in management, business and the

financial sector rose three points

from 5% in 1992; the percentage of

readers at that skill level who were

employed in “professional and

related” fields grew two points—

from 8% to 10%—over the same

period.

Table 8F. Percentage of Adults Who Said Their Reading Skills Limited Their Job

Opportunities, by Reading Level in 2003

Prose literacy level Not at all A little Some A lot

Below Basic 30% 13% 22% 35%

Basic 62% 14% 15% 9%

Intermediate 85% 7% 6% 3%

Proficient 96% 2% 1% 1%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
84 To Read or Not To Read

Compared with Proficient readers, Below-Basic readers do claim higher percentages of employment in certain sectors—construction, production, transportation,

and service industries—but not in “office and administrative support.” Equal percentages of Below-Basic and Basic readers, on the one hand, and Intermediate and Proficient readers, on the other, occupy the “sales and related” sector.

From these data, we cannot conclude that deficient or mediocre readers universally

experience lessjob satisfaction or less opportunity for advancement than good readers. But when it comesto highersalaries,self-reported confidence in job success, and

employment in sectors with high-growth potential—management, business, and

“professional” careers—reading skills are in abundance.

Data from othersourcesindicate that not only do employers view advanced literacy

as critical to job success, but many Americans recognize their reading and writing

deficiencies as potentially harmful to their careers. According to survey results

reported in 2005, one-third of high school graduates who did not attend college identified the ability to read and understand complicated materials as a “gap” in their

preparation for achieving goalsin life. Even 29% of college studentsreported this gap.

80

As for writing ability, 35% of college students and 38% of high school graduates

who did not attend college reported a gap between their writing skills and the “quality

of writing that is expected” of them by future employers, the survey concluded.

An international study, conducted by Statistics Canada with the Organization for

80 Peter D. Hart Associates/Public

Opinion Strategies, Rising to

the Challenge: Are High School

Students Prepared for College and

Work? A Study of High School

Graduates, College Instructors,

and Employers, conducted for

Achieve, Inc., 2005, 5.

Table 8G. Percentage of Full-Time Workers, by Weekly Earnings and Reading Level in 2003

Prose literacy level Less than $300- $500- $650- $850- $1,150- $1,450- $1,950

$300 $499 $649 $849 $1,149 $1,449 $1,949 or more

Below Basic 18% 41% 18% 12% 7% 3% 1% 2%

Basic 12% 31% 19% 16% 12% 5% 2% 4%

Intermediate 8% 19% 17% 18% 17% 8% 6% 8%

Proficient 4% 10% 11% 17% 20% 13% 13% 12%

Numbers do not total 100% due to rounding.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 8H. Percentage of Adults in Each Occupational Group, by Reading Level in 2003

Prose literacy level Management, Professional Service Sales Office and

business, and financial and related and related administrative support

Below Basic 3% 4% 30% 8% 8%

Basic 8% 10% 24% 12% 14%

Intermediate 15% 21% 16% 12% 16%

Proficient 19% 42% 10% 7% 13%

Prose literacy level Farming, fishing, Construction Installation, Production Transportation

and forestry and extraction maintenance, repair and material moving

Below Basic 3% 15% 2% 15% 11%

Basic 1% 9% 4% 11% 9%

Intermediate 0% 5% 4% 7% 4%

Proficient 0% 3% 2% 3% 2%

Numbers do not total 100% due to rounding.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 85

Economic Cooperation & Development, has attempted to quantify the distribution

of deficient readers in the global workforce. By the study’s estimates, 19%–20% of

Americans ages 16–65 are “mismatched” for their jobs on the basis of their relatively

low scores on literacy tests. se study’s authors explain:

Skill deficits are apparent in every country, but the extent of the problem varies.

Approximately 10%–30% of the workforce can fall into this category, depending

on the country. Some countries have a comparatively high skills deficit....Presumably, a certain level of mismatch is expected in the labor market but whether

10%, for example, is normal cannot be answered with certainty. Higher rates,

however, are likely to suggest a need for adjustment; in particular, the need for

an increased effort to train persons in those jobs.

81

81 Statistics Canada and the

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development,

Learning a Living: First Results of

the Adult Literacy and Life Skills

Survey, Copyright OECD, 2005,

144.

Average Reading Scores: A Double Meaning?

In 2004, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published Learning for Tomorrow’s World: First Results from the OECD

Programme for International Student Assessment. Known as PISA, the program is

a schools-based study the OECD conducted in 2000 and again in 2003 to assess

literacy skills and student achievement outcomes based on an internationally

accepted framework.

The 2003 assessment revealed that average American reading scores are truly

average. U.S. 15-year-olds barely placed in the top half of average reading scores

for 31 participating nations. Their scores lagged far behind those of readers in

such countries as Australia, Canada, Ireland, Korea, Finland, Sweden, and The

Netherlands. Especially in a global marketplace, with highly skilled and educated

workers increasingly in supply, such mediocrity may become untenable.

Table 8I. Average Reading Scores of 15-Year-Olds in Selected Countries: 2003

Country Score Rank Country Score Rank

Finland 543 1 Denmark 492 16

Korea 534 2 Iceland 492 16

Canada 528 3 Austria 491 17

Australia 525 4 Germany 491 17

New Zealand 522 5 Czech Republic 489 18

Ireland 515 6 Hungary 482 19

Sweden 514 7 Spain 481 20

Netherlands 513 8 Luxembourg 479 21

Belgium 507 9 Italy 476 22

Norway 500 10 Portugal 478 22

Switzerland 499 11 Greece 472 23

Japan 498 12 Slovak Republic 469 24

Poland 497 13 Turkey 441 25

France 496 14 Mexico 400 26

United States 495 15

Source: Learning for Tomorrow’s World: First Results from PISA 2003, Copyright OECD, 2004
86 To Read or Not To Read

CHAPTER NINE

5. Good readers play a crucial role in enriching our cultural and civic life.

6. Good readers make good citizens.

BACKGROUND

Readers of poetry may recognize, in the second statement above, a faint allusion

to Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall.” se poem depicts two neighbors

mending a stone wall on a spring day. Winter has eroded the wall in parts,

leaving “gaps that even two can pass abreast.” As the neighbors toil on either side of

the wall, the speaker of the poem asks why a wall must divide their properties in the

first place.

sis neighboris more open and playful and perhaps more generousthan the other,

who comes off as stiff and prickly by comparison. (In a charming metaphor, the

speaker explains:“He is all pine and I am apple-orchard.”)se second neighborjustifies

the wall, however, with a now-famous sentence: “Good fences make good neighbors.”

se line recurs at the end of the poem, but thistime the meaning isironic. By contrast, no irony isintended in the second statement heading this chapter. Like the two

characters in Frost’s poem, advanced or frequent readers and deficient or irregular

readers can be shown to exhibit unique sets of behaviors, and it is tempting to imagine a wall dividing the two groups.

sis chapter draws from two publications, one an analysis conducted by the Arts

Endowment as part of the 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, and the

other a Department of Education report referenced in earlier chapters. Although

none of the data show cause and effect where reading and readertraits are concerned,

the two reports do highlight several shared behavior patterns linked with positive

individual, civic, and social outcomes.

• National Endowment for the Arts: Le Arts and Civic Engagement: Involved in

Arts, Involved in Life, 2006.

• National Center for Education Statistics: Literacy in Everyday Life: Results from

the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2007.

Literary Readers and Civic Engagement

se 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts(SPPA), designed by the National

Endowment for the Arts and executed by the U.S. Census Bureau, is the most recent

source of nationally representative,statistically reliable data on adult participation in

arts events and activities. For the benefit of arts organizations, artists, academic

researchers, policy makers, news media, and the general public, the 2002 data have

been reported in multiple NEA publications.

82

sat year, the SPPA was administered as a supplement to the Census’ Current Population Survey. se SPPA involved a sample of 17,135 adults (defined as 18 years of

age or older), and the response rate was 70%. Because the survey collected data not

only on arts participation, but also on respondent background characteristics and a

range of leisure activities, the results permit comparisons of self-reported behavior

82 sey are, in order of publication:

“Survey of Public Participation in

the Arts” (Research Note #81);

Bonnie Nichols, “Demographic

Characteristics of Arts Attendance” (Research Note #82); 2002

Survey of Public Participation in

the Arts (Research Report #45);

Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America (Research

Report #46); Bonnie Nichols, “Arts

and Leisure Activities: Evidence

from the 2002 Survey of Public

Participation in the Arts”

(Research Note, #89); and Bonnie

Nichols, “Volunteering and Performing Arts Attendance: More

Evidence from the SPPA”

(Research Note #94).
To Read or Not To Read 87

patterns across the general population. Further, because the survey has been conducted five times since 1982, trend comparisons are available.

se 2004 NEA report Reading at Risk was based on an analysis of the 2002 SPPA

data and identified declines in literary reading rates (the percentage of adults who

had read a novel, short story, poem, or play in the last 12 months) among Americans

of both genders, all education levels, and most age groups. se report also drew

attention to measurable links between literary reading and participation in arts and

civic activity. sose correlations were the focus of a separate NEA research brochure,

Le Arts and Civic Engagement (2006).

Table 9A demonstratesthe statisticalstrength of those links, between literary reading and arts participation and other types of activities. Literary readers are well over

three times aslikely as non-readersto visit art museums and attend plays or musicals

or classical orjazz concerts. Although notshown here, they are even more likely than

non-readers to go out to the movies and listen to classical or jazz radio stations.

Further, literary readers are significantly more likely than non-readers to play

sports or attend amateur or professional sporting events. sey do outdoor activities

(e.g., camping, hiking, and canoeing), exercise at home or in a gym, and create art

through photographs, paintings, or writings—all at higherratesthan Americans who

do not read fiction, drama, or poetry.

Reading at Risk found that young adults (18- to 34-year-olds) in particular were

reading literature at far lower rates than before—at a 45% rate in 2002, the sharpest

decline (16 points) among all adults under 65. Given the strong correlation between

literary reading and other positive individual and social behavior, one would expect

to see declines in young adult participation in those activities as well.

Tables 9B and 9C bear out this hypothesis. Literary reading is among a host of cultural and civic activities that have experienced declines in young adult participation

over a period of two decades.

Readers Serve Their Communities

Volunteering is the most directly “civic” activity tracked by the survey. Here the

results are even more striking than for the other leisure activities done by literary

readers. As Table 9D shows, literary readers are more than twice as likely as nonreaders to volunteer or do charity work.

Table 9A. Participation Rates for Literary Readers in 2002

Activity Literary readers Non-readers Gap between groups

Visit art museums 43% 12% -31 pp

Attend plays or musicals 36% 10% -26 pp

Attend jazz or classical concerts 29% 9% -20 pp

Create photographs, paintings, or writings 32% 10% -22 pp

Attend sporting events 44% 27% -17 pp

Play sports 38% 24% -14 pp

Exercise 72% 40% -32 pp

Do outdoor activities 41% 22% -19 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts
88 To Read or Not To Read

se strong link between literary reading and volunteering was observed in virtually

all demographic groups captured by the SPPA: across all age groups, education levels,

income groups, and Censusregions. Moreover, when controlling for education level,

gender, age, and ethnicity, the study found that literary readers were three times as

likely as non-readers to volunteer.

83 Finally, not only literary readers but readers of

83 Bonnie Nichols, “Volunteering

and Performing Arts Attendance:

More Evidence from the SPPA”

(Research Note #94), 2006, 9.

Table 9C. Participation in Sports and Physical Activities (Ages 18-34)

Participation trends

1982 1992 2002 1982–2002 Rate of decline

Percentage who:

Attended a sporting event 62% 48% 43% -19 pp -31%

Played sports 60% 55% 43% -17 pp -28%

Did outdoor activities 50% 42% 38% -12 pp -24%

Exercised 67% 67% 60% -7 pp -10%

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts

Table 9B. Literary Reading and Performing Arts Attendance (Ages 18–34)

Participation trends

1982 1992 2002 1982–2002 Rate of decline

Percentage who read literature 61% 54% 45% -16 pp -26%

Percentage who attended a:

Jazz concert 16% 13% 11% -5 pp -31%

Classical concert 12% 10% 9% -3 pp -25%

Musical 19% 16% 15% -4 pp -21%

Ballet 4% 5% 3% -1 pp -25%

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts

Table 9E. Percentage of Adults Who Volunteered, by Prose Literacy Level in 2003

Less than once Once a week Total who

a week or more volunteered

Proficient 32% 25% 57%

Basic 16% 15% 31%

Below Basic 8% 10% 18%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 9D. Percentage of Adults Who Volunteered or Did Charity Work: 2002

Literary readers Non-readers Gap between groups

43% 16% -27 pp

pp = percentage points

Source: National Endowment for the Arts
To Read or Not To Read 89

books in general are more likely than non-readers to do charity work. As Reading at

Risk demonstrated—see pp. 6–7 of that earlier report—volunteering rates rose with

the number of books (literary or nonfiction) read over the past year.

se Department of Education’s 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy

(NAAL) also containsstatistics on volunteering. Figures are presented not in relation

to literary reading, but by reading skill level. Table 9E reveals that not only do

advanced readers, on average, volunteer at a higher rate than Basic or Below-Basic

readers—they also volunteer more frequently.

Another measurement of civic participation is the percentage of readers who

choose to vote. se assessment asked U.S. adults whether they had voted in the most

recent presidential election, which had occurred in 2000. As with the NAAL data on

Table 9F. Percentage of Adults Who Voted in the 2000 Presidential Election,

by 2003 Prose Literacy Level

Proficient 84%

Basic 62%

Below Basic 53%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 9G. Percentage of Adults Who Got Information About Current Events,

Public Affairs, and the Government from Various Media Sources, by Prose Literacy

Level: 2003

Source and literacy level None A little Some A lot

Newspapers

Proficient 7% 26% 32% 35%

Intermediate 8% 23% 36% 33%

Basic 12% 23% 35% 30%

Below Basic 29% 25% 26% 20%

Magazines

Proficient 16% 37% 37% 10%

Intermediate 18% 35% 37% 10%

Basic 25% 30% 34% 12%

Below Basic 42% 23% 25% 9%

Books or Brochures

Proficient 21% 39% 30% 9%

Intermediate 20% 34% 35% 11%

Basic 26% 30% 33% 11%

Below Basic 44% 23% 25% 8%

Internet

Proficient 16% 22% 31% 31%

Intermediate 31% 18% 25% 26%

Basic 53% 13% 17% 17%

Below Basic 77% 6% 9% 8%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
90 To Read or Not To Read

volunteering, voting activity increasesin relation to reading skill level: from 53% and

62% of Below-Basic and Basic readers, respectively, to 84% of Proficient readers. See

Table 9F.

Proficientreaders also exhibit greater curiosity about current events, public affairs,

and government activity, as measured by their use of media to obtain this information. Table 9G displaysthe percentages ofreaders at allskill levels who received information on the aforementioned subjects through three types of print media and the

Internet.

Based on the links we already have observed between voluntary reading and reading proficiency, the strong relationship between reading skills and engagement with

print media islesssurprising than anotherfact: even Internet usage for information

on current events, public affairs, and government rises in relation to reading

skills—from Below-Basic to Proficient.

Reading as an Act of Empathy

What accounts for these disparities in civic engagement between deficient and

advanced readers? Forsome of the outcomes measured in this chapter, broadersocial

dynamics may be at work.

For example, the lowerincome levels often associated with less-skilled readers may

result in less access to the Internet for news purposes, let alone other types of computer use. Or the comparatively lower income level of the average deficient reader

may require him or her to work more than one job—yielding fewer leisure hours to

spend on volunteering and other civic activities. Alternatively, unremarked factors

unique to the household, neighborhood, or health status of the individual may play a

role.

In the absence of hard data explaining the reason for increased civic engagement

among literary and skilled readers, we might consider the question more abstractly.

se NEA’s 2006 Arts and Civic Engagement research brochure noted: “By every

measure captured by the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, literary readers

lead more robust lifestyles than non-readers. sese findings contradict commonly

held assumptions that readers and arts participants are passive, isolated, or selfabsorbed.”

Another quotation, this one from the novelist, literary critic, and popular theologian C.S. Lewis (author of Le Chronicles of Narnia), presents a personal reason for

expecting readers to identify more closely with community than non-readers:

Literary experience healsthe wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. sere are mass emotions which heal the wound; but they destroy the

privilege....But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet

remain myself....Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I

transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

84

Good readers, and not only literary ones, enjoy this privilege of understanding and

appreciating the outlook of others while enlarging their own identity. Perhaps

because of this active empathy, they contribute in measurable waysto civic and social

improvements.

Ultimately, reading skills and early habits of leisure reading may come to occupy

the same relationship to artistic, cultural, and civic progress as “basic science” skills

84 C.S. Lewis, An Experiment in

Criticism, Cambridge University

Press, 1995, 140–141.
To Read or Not To Read 91

have had to technological breakthroughs. Just as fundamental knowledge of math

and science has enabled practical innovationsin everyday life,so might young readers

of today yield unforeseen benefitsfor health policy, business, law, the socialsciences,

arts and culture, journalism, and civic planning.

But why limit their accomplishmentsto the humanities?In an era ofspecialization,

the imaginative and analytical skills unlocked by reading can fuel a brisker dialogue

between the arts and sciences. As this report has attempted to show, reading often

and reading well are prerequisites for achievement in areas far beyond literature and

literacy alone.
92 To Read or Not To Read

Patterns of Disengagement: A Corollary

Despite positive findings about the civic engagement levels of

literary and advanced readers (see the preceding pages), the reverse trend for

deficient or non-readers is worthy of special attention. As the tables below indicate, adults who are deficient readers are more likely than skilled readers to be

high school dropouts—and they are more likely to be absent from the workforce.

The NAAL recorded education and employment background statistics of testtakers in 2003, and provided a comparison with 1992 levels. One-third of Basic

readers have a history of not completing high school, while one half of BelowBasic readers share that history. Significantly, the percentage of Below-Basic

readers who are high school dropouts expanded by five points since 1992. (The

percentage of Proficient readers who dropped out of high school was only 1%.)

Measured on the basis of reading score, and not level of proficiency, the following table shows a gap of 55 points between the prose reading scores of 2003

high school graduates and high school dropouts. In addition to the gap, the average reading scores of both of those groups have decreased over time.

The nonprofit Editorial Projects in Education has reported that only 70% of all

high school students graduate on time with their peers—suggesting a high

dropout rate already for the general population. In this context, and given the

profound disadvantages facing high school dropouts later in life, the NAAL numbers for Below-Basic and Basic readers are especially grim.

These findings are significant because they stress the erosion of reading

scores for high school graduates and dropouts alike. The data also show that

Table 9H. Percentage of Adults at or Below “Basic” Prose Literacy Level

Who Did Not Complete High School: 1992, 2003

Prose literacy level

Below Basic Basic

1992 2003 Change 1992 2003 Change

45% 50% +5 pp 38% 33% -5 pp

pp = percentage points

Adults are defined as people 16 years of age and older living in households or prisons.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics

Table 9I. Average Prose Literacy Scores for Adult High School Graduates

and Those Who Did Not Complete High School: 1992, 2003

Prose literacy score

1992 2003 Change ‘92–‘03

High school graduate 268 262 -6

Less than/some high school 216 207 -9

Gap between groups -52 -55

Adults are defined as people 16 years of age and older living in households or prisons.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
To Read or Not To Read 93

dropouts retain far worse reading skills than graduates, which, as we have seen

in this report, places the former group at greater risk in a number of areas

throughout life.

Independent of what we have learned about employer preferences for good

readers, the following table shows a familiar pattern: greater societal risks

linked with poorer reading skills. Seventy-eight percent of Proficient readers

are employed, compared with far lower percentages of less-skilled readers.

Specifically, half of America’s Below-Basic readers and 38% of Basic readers are

classified as “not in the labor force”—a term that includes adults still in school

or keeping home—compared with only 18% of Proficient readers. An additional

6% of Basic readers and 5% of Below-Basic readers are unemployed or looking

for work, compared with 3% of Proficient readers. Although Chapter Eight provided some estimates on employer costs associated with remedial skills training,

there is no reliable estimate of the economic damage done to society by the lost

contributions of deficient readers.

Table 9J. Percentage Employed Full-Time or Part-Time, by 2003 Prose

Literacy Level

Proficient 78%

Basic 56%

Below Basic 45%

Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
94 To Read or Not To Read

CONCLUSION

S

elf-reported data on individual behavioral patterns, combined with national

testscoresfrom the Department of Education and othersources,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.

se 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.

From the diversity of data sources in this report, other themes emerge. Analyses

of voluntary reading and reading ability, and the social characteristics of advanced

and deficient readers, identify several discrepancies at a national level:

• Less reading for pleasure in late adolescence than in younger age groups

• Declines in reading test scores among 17-year-olds and high school seniors in

contrast to younger age groups and lower grade levels

• Among high school seniors, a wider rift in the reading scores of advanced and

deficient readers

• A male-female gap in reading proclivity and achievement levels

• A sharp divide in the reading skills of incarcerated adults versus non-prisoners

• Greater academic, professional, and civic benefits associated with high levels of

leisure reading and reading comprehension

Longitudinalstudies are needed to confirm and monitor the effects of these differences overtime. Future research also could explore factorssuch asincome, ethnicity,

region, and race, and how they might alter the relationship between voluntary reading, reading test scores, and other outcomes. Critically, further studies should weigh

the relative effectiveness and costs and benefits of programsto fosterlifelong reading

and skills development. For instance, such research could trace the effects of electronic media and “screen reading” on the development of readersin early childhood.

Recentstudies of American time-use and consumer expenditure patterns highlight

a series of choices lurking in the question “to read or not to read.” se future of reading rests on the daily decisions Americans will continue to make when confronted

with an expanding menu of leisure goods and activities. se import of these national

findings, however, isthatreading frequently for pleasure is a behaviorto be cultivated

with the same zeal as academic achievement, financial orjob performance, and global

competitiveness.
To Read or Not To Read 95

I have sometimes dreamt, at least, that when the Day of Judgment dawns

and the great conquerors and lawyers and statesmen come to receive their rewards—

their crowns, their laurels, their names carved indelibly upon imperishable

marble—the Almighty will turn to Peter and will say, not without a certain envy

when he sees us coming with our books under our arms, “Look, these need

no reward. We have nothing to give them here. Ley have loved reading.”

— Virginia Woolf, “How Should One Read a Book?”
96 To Read or Not To Read

LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES

27 Table 1A.

Percentage of Adults Who Read a Book Not Required for Work or School,

by Age Group: 1992, 2002

29 Table 1B.

Percentage of Students Ages 9, 13, and 17, by Frequency of Reading for Fun:

1984, 1999, and 2004

30 Table 1C.

Percentage of Students Ages 9, 13, and 17, by Pages Read Per Day in School

and for Homework: 1984, 1999, and 2004

31 Table 1D.

Percentage Who Read Books for Fun the Previous Day: 2004

32 Table 1E.

Percentage of High School Seniors Who Read for Pleasure, by Hours Per Week:

1994, 2006

32 Chart 1F.

Percentage of High School Seniors Who Read for Pleasure and/or Did Homework

for 6 or More Hours Per Week: 1994–2006

34 Table 2A.

First-Year College Students: Time Spent Reading for Pleasure: 2004, 2005

34 Table 2B.

College Seniors: Time Spent Reading for Pleasure: 2001, 2005

35 Table 2C.

Comparison of First-Year and Senior College Student Reading Rates in 2007

36 Table 2D.

Comparison of College-Prescribed Reading Levels in 2007

36 Table 2E.

Comparison of Time Spent on College Preparation in 2007

39 Table 3A.

Hours and/or Minutes Per Day Spent on Leisure and Sports Activities,

by Age Group: 2006

39 Table 3B.

Hours and/or Minutes Per Day Spent on Leisure and Sports Activities,

by Activity: 2006

39 Table 3C.

Hours and/or Minutes Per Day Spent Watching TV or Reading: 2006

40 Table 3D.

Percentage of Daily Leisure Time Spent Watching TV or Reading: 2006

40 Table 3E.

Weekly Average Hours and/or Minutes Spent on Various Activities by

American Children: 2002–2003
To Read or Not To Read 97

42 Table 3F.

Weekly Average Hours and/or Minutes Spent Reading by American Children, by

Age: 2002–2003

44 Table 3G.

Percentage Using Other Media While Reading: 2003–2004

44 Table 3H.

Percentage of Time Spent Reading While Using Other Media: 2003–2004

45 Table 3I.

Book-Reading Rates as Measured by Multiple Surveys

46 Table 4A.

Percentage of Book Purchasers, by Age: 1991, 2004

48 Chart 4B.

Unit Sales of Consumer Books: 2006

49 Table 4C.

Average Annual Spending on Books, by Consumer Unit: 1985, 2005

50 Chart 4D.

Average Annual Spending on Books, by Consumer Unit: 1985–2005

51 Chart 4E.

Average Annual Spending on TV/Audio Equipment Versus Reading Materials

as a Share of All Entertainment Spending, by Consumer Unit: 1995–2005

51 Table 4F.

Average Annual Spending on TV and Audio Equipment Versus Reading Materials

as a Share of All Entertainment Spending, by Consumer Unit: 1995, 2005

56 Chart 5A.

Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for Students Age 17: 1984–2004

57 Chart 5B.

Trend in Average Reading Scores for Students Ages 17 and 9: 1984–2004

58 Chart 5C.

Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for Students Age 9: 1984–2004

58 Chart 5D.

Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for Students Age 13: 1984–2004

60 Chart 5E.

Trend in Average Reading Scale Scores for 12th-Graders: 1992–2005

60 Table 5F.

Change in 12th-Grade Reading Scores, by Percentile: 1992 and 2005

61 Table 5G.

Percentage of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-Graders, by Reading Achievement Level:

1992, 2005

61 Table 5H.

Average Reading Scores of 4th-, 8th-, and 12th-Graders: 1992, 2005

62 Table 5I.

Average 12th-Grade Reading Scores by Gender: 1992, 2005
98 To Read or Not To Read

64 Table 6A.

Percentage of Adults at Each Prose Literacy Level: 1992 and 2003

64 Table 6B.

Average Prose Literacy Scores of Adults, by Highest Level of Educational

Attainment: 1992 and 2003

65 Table 6C.

Percentage of Adults Proficient in Reading Prose, by Highest Level of Educational

Attainment (1992, 2003)

66 Table 6D.

Percentage of Adults Proficient in Reading Prose, by Gender (1992, 2003)

70 Chart 7A.

Average Reading Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun: Age 17 in 2004

70 Chart 7B.

Average Reading Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun: Grade 12 in 2005

71 Chart 7C.

Average Reading Scores by Frequency of Reading Fiction Books or Stories

Outside School: Grade 12 in 2005

72 Chart 7D.

Average Writing Scores by Frequency of Reading for Fun: Grade 12 in 2002

72 Table 7E.

Average Mathematics Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2005

72 Table 7F.

Average Science Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2006

73 Table 7G.

Average Civics Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2006

73 Table 7H.

Average U.S. History Scores and Books in the Home: Grade 12 in 2006

74 Table 7I.

12th-Grade Test Scores by Number of Books in the Home and by Parents’

Education: 2005–2006

79 Table 8A.

Basic Skills Rated Very Important by Employers (Top Five)

79 Table 8B.

Applied Skills Rated Very Important by Employers (Top Five)

80 Table 8C.

Skill Deficiencies in High School Graduates (Top Five)

80 Table 8D.

Skill Deficiencies in College Graduates (Top Five)

82 Table 8E.

Selected Results from National Commission on Writing Surveys: A Comparison
To Read or Not To Read 99

83 Table 8F.

Percentage of Adults Who Said seir Reading Skills Limited seir Job

Opportunities, by Reading Level in 2003

84 Table 8G.

Percentage of Full-Time Workers, by Weekly Earnings and Reading Level in 2003

84 Table 8H.

Percentage of Adults in Each Occupational Group, by Reading Level in 2003

85 Table 8I.

Average Reading Scores of 15-Year-Olds in Selected Countries: 2003

87 Table 9A.

Participation Rates for Literary Readers in 2002

88 Table 9B.

Literary Reading and Performing Arts Attendance: Ages 18–34 in 2002

88 Table 9C.

Participation in Sports and Physical Activities: Ages 18–34 in 2002

88 Table 9D.

Percentage of Adults Who Volunteered or Did Charity Work: 2002

88 Table 9E.

Percentage of Adults Who Volunteered, by Prose Literacy Level in 2003

89 Table 9F.

Percentage of Adults Who Voted in the 2000 Presidential Election, by 2003

Prose Literacy Level

89 Table 9G.

Percentage of Adults Who Got Information About Current Events,

Public Affairs, and the Government from Various Media Sources, by Prose

Literacy Level: 2003

92 Table 9H.

Percentage of Adults at or Below “Basic” Prose Literacy Level Who Did Not

Complete High School: 1992, 2003

92 Table 9I.

Average Prose Literacy Scores for Adult High School Graduates and sose Who

Did Not Complete High School: 1992, 2003

93 Table 9J.

Percentage Employed Full-Time or Part-Time, by 2003 Prose Literacy Level