The past few months have not been a joyful time for lovers of the printed word. Since the release last November of "To Read or Not to Read," a report by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), many writers, editors, critics and teachers of language and literature have been wringing their hands in despair.
According to the report, reading in America is in serious decline, especially among the young. Fewer than one-third of 13-year-olds read for pleasure every day, which is a 14 percent decline from two decades ago. The percentage of 17-year-old non-readers doubled over the same period.
Young citizens between the ages of 15 and 24 watch TV about two hours a day, but read, on average, for only seven minutes.
"Scary," "sad," and "downright depressing" are among the responses to the report, and for good reason. The report gathered statistics from more than 40 national studies on the overall reading habits of children, teenagers and adults, and includes all varieties of reading, including books, magazines, newspapers and online reading.
As might be expected, some attribute the decline in reading to competition from movies, TV, the Internet, and computer games, all of which no doubt play a part. But other factors may also be at work.
According to Timothy Shanahan, a professor at the University of Illinois (Chicago) and past president of the International Reading Association, many young people don't read because, they say, it's lonely.
"What kids like about instant messaging and text messaging is that it's playful and interactive and connects them to their friends," says Shanahan. "The Harry Potter books were popular not mainly because of the wonderful story and the language, I don't think, but because it was this huge phenomenon that allowed young people to participate in it. What was exciting was reading what your friends were reading and talking to them about it. People of all ages are hungry for that kind of community."
What can be done to reverse the trend? Teachers shoulder much of the burden of improving reading skills among students, but the NEA report suggests that parents can play a pivotal role by reading to their children and modeling the habit. Other strategies might include the expansion of community reading groups and book clubs, and efforts by newspapers and magazines to appeal to a wider band of reader interests.
Writers may share some of the blame for reading decline - and some of the opportunity to regain lost readers. For too many years some novelists and poets turned away from the audience and deliberately made their work difficult to understand. The movement known as modernism scared off a lot of readers who, thinking every novel would resemble "Finnegans Wake," decided instead just to go to the movies.
Whatever the remedy, much is at stake. The health of a democratic republic like our own depends enormously on an informed and literate citizenry. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press mean little if no one reads what's printed.
Liberty and literacy are the opposite sides of the same precious coin.
(Columnist Craig Nagel recently published a collection of past Cracker Barrel articles in book form titled "A Place Called Home.")
Copyright 2008 by Craig Nagel
