Give the Holiday Gift of Reading
NEA Finds Fewer Americans Read Books Daily
Reading comprehension skills may have declined, but giving books during the holidays has the dual potential of increasing future reading levels and being an ideal gift.
In November, the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) issued the “To Read or Not to Read” report with statistics confirming fewer Americans read books regularly. The report timing puts the importance reading back in the center of the national conscious just in time for the holidays.
To Read or Not to Read
The report on reading confirms the oft-cited statistic from the previous 2004 NEA study that almost half of Americans do not read a single book over the course of a year.
Per NEA statistics from the 2007 report, each year nearly half of all Americans ages 18-24 read no books for pleasure, less than one-third of 13-year-olds read daily, and the percentage of college graduates who regularly read for pleasure had declined by 15 percent (from 82 percent to 67 percent).
The report concludes that while reading skills have risen for third graders, this improvement stops as they get older and overall reading comprehension skills have declined from two decades ago.
The NEA report analyzes trends in American reading and finds that overall people are reading less and at a lower skill level. Reasons for diminishing reading levels and skills vary, the NEA report concludes. One of the primary areas is that reading time competes with other media. A Kaiser Family Foundation study cited in the NEA report found that 58 percent of seventh to twelfth graders multi-task with other media such as the Internet, e-mail, text messaging, video games, and television while reading.
Bring Back More Books
So how do the report findings impact the gift of reading? Americans are spending less each year on books than ever before. Consumer books sales peaked at 1.6 billion in 2000, declined to approximately 1 billion by 2006, and had a 14 percent reduction in spending on books after inflation for adjustment, per Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In contrast to these dire predictions, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Scholastic, 2007) sold a record-breaking 11.5 million copies in the United States in its first 10 days on sale, according to publisher statistics.
Similarly, book sales records indicate that Elizabeth Gilbert’s nonfiction book Eat Pray Love (Penguin Books, 2006) sold more than 1.35 million paperback copies in 2007. So people are reading.
No matter what the age group, the gift of reading is a welcome present. Whether it is a bestseller or classic, novel that brings the reader to a different world ala Harry Potter, or a nonfiction book on a topic about which they are passionate, a book is an ideal holiday present.
With enough books given as gifts, maybe by the next NEA report the reading trend will turn around.
Source:
National Endowment of the Arts
