[CALIBK12] Are Americans reading less?

[Stephen Krashen]

Are Americans Reading Less?  Are Americans Reading
Worse? Comments on To Read or Not to Read.
Stephen Krashen
Submitted for publication

A recent report from the National Endowment for the
Arts, To Read or Not To Read, claims Americans are
reading less than they used to and are not reading as
well. 

Are Americans really reading less? Actually, it is
only 17-year-olds and adults who are reading less,
according to To Read or Not To Read, and the data is
not all that clear: It depends on which survey you
read and how you define “reading.”  In one study, for
example, the Kaiser M Generation study, young people
were asked how much reading they did “yesterday”: If
you define reading as book reading, the average for 15
to 18 year olds was 21 minutes, six minutes less than
reported by 11 to 14 year olds and two minutes less
than reported by 8 to 10 year olds. If you add reading
magazines and newspapers, however, the total is 41
minutes, and if you add reading on the internet, the
total is 60 minutes, more total reading than those
ages 8 to 10 (51 minutes) and 11 to 14 (57 minutes).
All of these figures are much higher than the seven to
ten minutes of daily reading for 15 to 24 years
reported in another study (American Time Use Survey)
cited by To Read or Not to Read.  

To Read or Not to Read also tells us that 38% of
adults said they read something yesterday, citing a
2006 Pew report.  But they do not mention that Pew
reported that in 2002 the figure was less, 34%, and a
major study of reading published in 1945 found that
only 21% of those ages 15 and older said they read
something yesterday, with the most reading done by
those lazy teenagers, ages 15-19, 34% (Link and Hopf,
People and Books, 1945).

Adults are also reading less, according to To Read or
Not to Read, and college students read less than they
did in high school.  Not mentioned, however, is one
study showing that college students read quite a bit,
and this has not changed over three decades.  Hendel
and Harrold (College Student Journal, 2004) surveyed
the leisure activities reported by undergraduates
attending an urban university from 1971 to 2001. Among
the questions asked were those related to leisure
reading. In agreement with other studies Hendel and
Harrold reported a decline in newspaper reading and
reading news magazines, but there was no decline in
reported book reading.  On a scale of 1-3 (1 = never,
2 = occasionally, 3 = frequently), the mean for book
reading in 1971 was 2.35; in 2001 it was 2.26, with
only small fluctuations in the years between 1971 and
2001. 

Moreover, the ranking for reading books was higher
than that reported for attending parties (2.14 in
2001), going to the movies (2.16) and for all
categories of watching TV (sports = 2.07). Reading
held its own despite a clear enthusiasm for surfing
the internet (2.78) and e-mail (2.84), both newcomers.


Are Americans reading worse?  To Read or Not to Read
also claims that children don’t read as well as they
used to, and once again, it is the 17-year-olds who
are to blame.  We are told there has been a “slow
downward trend” since 1984 on national reading tests
(NAEP long-term trends). But if we chose a different
date as a starting point, there has been no change.
Scores for 17-year-olds in 2004 are identical to
scores achieved by 17-year-olds in 1971.  And the
“downward trend” from 1984 is not that large, only 4
points on a test in which the highest 10% averaged 333
and the lowest 235, a spread of nearly 100 points. 

In table 5F, we are given the very disturbing
statistic that NAEP reading scores on the main NAEP
assessment for the lowest scoring 10% of 17-year-olds
dropped 14 points between 1992 and 2005, which is
substantial for a subgroup. We are not told that most
of this happened between 1992 and 1994, with a
ten-point drop.  Similarly, seven of the nine point
drop between 1992 and 2004 for the lowest 25% occurred
between 1992 and 1994.  One suspects something else
was happening other than a sudden decline in reading
ability.

To Read or Not to Read is the latest of many
complaints about the decline of literacy in the United
States. These complaints go back to 1874 when Harvard
failed half of its incoming class on a test of
writing. To Read or Not to Read may be just another
instance of what Bracey (Setting the Record Straight,
2004) calls “knowledge nostalgia.”  Careful analyses,
as Bracey reports, shows that these, claims of mental
deterioration typically get lots of media attention,
but are unfounded.