Parents are doing a great job promoting reading

According to a new study by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), for
the first time in history, American adults are reading more literature. The
study, called “Reading on the Rise” documents a convincing increase in rates
and numbers of American adults who read literature, with the biggest
increases among young adults, ages 18 to 24. This growth reverses more than
two decades of downward trends cited in previous NEA surveys.
The overall rate at which adults read literature, novels and short stories,
plays, or poems, rose by seven percent. Young adults showed the most
impressive increases in literary reading. Since 2002, 18 to 24 year-olds
have had the biggest increase (nine percent) in literary reading, and the
most rapid rate of increase (21 percent) as well.
Reading rates among Hispanic Americans have improved at the sharpest
rate—by 20 percent; among African Americans, rates have increased by 15
percent and among Whites, at a mere eight percent rate of increase. Also,
for the first time in the survey’s history, literary reading has increased
among both men and women. In fact, literary reading rates have grown or held
steady for adults of all education levels.
Fiction, that is novels and short stories, accounts for the new growth in
adult literary readers. Nearly 15 percent of all US adults read literature
online in 2008 and a slight majority of American adults now reads literature
or books in any format.
“This dramatic turnaround shows that the many programs now focused on
reading, including our own ‘Big Read’, are working,” said NEA’s Chairman
Dana Gioia (no relation to our author). The Big Read program has an active
presence in every state, and reaches almost 500 communities with over 21,000
organizational partners. It is only one example of the countless efforts by
teachers, parents, and others to encourage young people to read.
In light of the expanding variety of distractions in the form of music,
movies, video games, and alternate universes, these results are surprising.
We expect this reading trend to continue to increase, in a small way
supporting the US in its drive for competitiveness.