Patterson, Proust, and the power of pleasure reading

Pleasure reading enriches our lives, but new report indicates decline in such reading

It is very early on a Sunday morning as I sit at the computer writing this column for Reading Today. I have just spent 45 minutes engaged in one of my favorite pleasure reading rituals-reading the Sunday papers-catching up on world politics, sports, book reviews, local news, and the comics. I’m sure that many of you start your Sunday in the same way. Pleasure reading can take many forms-reading a novel or nonfiction book, a scientific magazine, a poem, or the Sunday paper online-but in any form, pleasure reading enriches our lives in countless ways.

This morning as I read the Sunday paper I ran across an article in Parade magazine by James Patterson, the best-selling novelist who made a presentation at the IRA Annual Convention in Chicago in 2006. In this article, “The Best Gift to My Son,” Patterson writes an open letter to his 9-year-old son, Jack. The gist of his message is the hope that his son will “read because you love to, not because you have to.” Patterson believes it is the responsibility of all parents, grandparents, and teachers to introduce children to books that they won’t be able to put down.

Earlier this week, I read Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf. In this book, Wolf reminds us that French novelist Marcel Proust (1871-1922) viewed reading as an intellectual “sanctuary” where readers have access to thousands of different realities they might never encounter or understand otherwise. He believed that these “new realities” transform our intellectual lives. Through reading we are no longer limited by the confines of our lives, our perceptions, our thinking.

To Read or Not to Read

Clearly, both Patterson and Proust believe in the transformative power of pleasure reading. This brings me to something else I read this week, To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence (available at www.arts.gov), a report released in November by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). This report focuses on the role of pleasure reading in U.S. society and raises a number of issues that are worth thinking about.

Among the many findings reported by NEA is that reading for pleasure correlates strongly with academic achievement. Individuals who engage in reading for pleasure are better readers and writers than nonreaders. Children and teenagers who read for pleasure on a daily or weekly basis score better on reading tests than infrequent readers. Frequent readers also score better on writing tests than infrequent readers.

In this report, NEA sought to gather the best national data available to provide a comprehensive view of American reading habits today. The data sources consisted of large, national studies by U.S. federal agencies, as well as academic, foundation, and business surveys. These data sources yielded three unsettling conclusions:

Americans are spending less time reading

One of the most unsettling statistics is that nearly half of all Americans ages 18-24 read no books for pleasure. From 1984 to 2004, the percentage of 13-year-olds who reported that they “read for fun” on a daily basis declined from 35% to 30%, and for 17-year-olds the decline was from 31% to 22%. Teens and young adults read less often and for shorter amounts of time when compared with other age groups and with Americans of the past.

Even when reading does occur, it competes with other media. This multi-tasking suggests less focused engagement with a text. Approximately 60% of middle and high school students use other media (i.e., watch TV, play computer games, send and receive instant messages or e-mail, or surf the Web) while reading.

Reading comprehension skills are declining

Reading test scores for 9-year-olds are at an all-time high, but the average reading scores for 17-year-olds began a slow downward trend in 1992. In addition, the reading gap between males and females is widening.

As young Americans read less, they read less well, resulting in lower levels of academic achievement. Proficient readers with strong comprehension skills accrue personal, professional, and social advantages, while less proficient readers run higher risks of failure in all three of these areas.

Declines in reading have many implications

Employers now rank reading and writing as top deficiencies in new hires. One in five U.S. workers reads at a lower skill level than his or her job requires. Approximately 40% of workers reading at the “basic” level reported that their reading level limited their job prospects.

According to a 2004 report titled Reading Next, prepared by the Alliance for Excellent Education for the Carnegie Corporation, approximately 3,000 American students drop out of high school each school day. Many of these students struggle with reading.

Poor reading proficiency correlates with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement. The NEA report indicates that less proficient readers are less likely to become active in civic and cultural life, especially with respect to volunteering and voting.

Should we be concerned?

Some will criticize the NEA report for its shortcomings-among them the difficulties involved in defining “pleasure reading,” especially in this digital age-and that the report is based on correlational data. Although the report cautions that none of the data presented should be regarded as drawing a causal relationship between voluntary reading, reading skills, and other variables, the consistent associations between voluntary reading and advanced reading skills and other benefits are compelling.

In spite of the possible limitations of this report, the information drawn from a number of large data-based sources tells a consistent and disturbing story about American reading habits. After the elementary school years, there is a decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Also of great concern is the finding that both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates. Whether or not people read, as well as how much and how often they read, affects their lives in crucial ways.

I think both Proust and Patterson would agree that we should be concerned about declines in the reading habit. The data from the NEA report suggest how powerfully pleasure reading transforms the lives of individuals-regardless of social and economic circumstances. Simply put, reading changes lives for the better.

P.S. This month I’m recommending the book mentioned earlier in this column, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf (Harper). This is a book about the miracle of reading. The first section, “How the Brain Learned to Read,” is worth the price of the book. Wolf explains, in a highly entertaining and informative fashion, that we taught our brain to read only a few thousand years ago, and thus changed the intellectual evolution of our species.

This is the most interesting history of the development of writing and reading that I’ve ever read. You’ll have to read the book to find out why she titled this volume Proust and the Squid!

Linda B. Gambrell is Distinguished Professor of Education in the Eugene T. Moore School of Education at Clemson University.