Warren Watson
First Thoughts
Nov. 27, 2007

Reading is FUN-damental

Once again, a major national study has focused on the deficiencies of our sons and daughters when it comes to academic preparation and civic participation.

Less than two months ago, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation reported that for the third year in a row America’s high school students showed weak knowledge of and support for the First Amendment, the cornerstone of our Bill of Rights. The report strongly suggested that democracy is threatened when our schools fail to do an adequate job in preparing students to become citizens.

Now, our schools are getting dinged again, this time for failing to instill a love of reading in our youth.

This week, the National Endowment for the Arts, in providing new, original research while examining other data from previous surveys, said that Americans 18-to-24 are reading less and less, that reading comprehension scores have eroding, and that the declines have serious civic, social, cultural and economic implications.

Chairman Dana Gioia said that “teaching to the test,” as the saying goes among instructors preparing students for standardized tests, is not nurturing an appreciation of the written word.

Gioia said that students are spending less time with books and periodicals and more time watching TV, listening to music and using other media.

This scares me as an educator and as someone who cares about the civic health of young people.  Reading is a prerequisite for democratic life and institutions.

Our way of life is fueled by fresh and diverse ideas, ideas that create choices for voting and civic participation.  We have to read to make this work.

The study is a wakeup call for our schools.  We must sharpen our effort here and encourage our kids to read frequently and broadly.

We owe a lot to J.K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter series has jump-started many kids to begin to read for enjoyment.

But we must include non-fiction as well.  Too many schools overload what reading is available with tales of make-believe.  In fact, Project CIRCLE, a Maryland-based organization that monitors and reports on civic life and engagement, reports that only 12 percent of reading available in schools K-12 consists of non-fiction.

Sure, we all love a great James Patterson page-turner, but let’s not forget about real life – which sometimes can be a whole lot more interesting.