Just read on the Publisher's Lunch listserv about the new NEA Report. Check out what Publisher's Lunch said about it:
As Different Sparks Fly from NEA
But right before Jeff Bezos took to the podium to introduce a device designed squarely for core "pleasure readers" with disposable income, the NEA dropped their latest reading scare release. Analyzing a wealth of government data (approximately two dozen studies) instead of a single survey, this report sounds a new alarm--that "reading for pleasure" is in decline.
NEA Chairman Dana Gioia sums it up this way: "We are doing a better job of teaching kids to read in elementary school. But once they enter adolescence, they fall victim to a general culture which does not encourage or reinforce reading. Because these people then read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do more poorly in school, in the job market and in civic life."
Or at least reading in print, every day, for pleasure, which is really what the study measures. By their own admission, the report is severely limited by "its lack of specific data about online reading" because the "research is not yet strong."
Oddly, one of Gioia's recommended solutions is more coverages of books in popular culture: "I guarantee that if we could expand the coverage in the media, you'd immediately see people responding. People are looking for things to do that aren't dumb. I don't think that Americans are dumber than before, but I do believe our public culture is."
Or...what if we could get the administration Gioia serves less focused on relentless testing and measuring in schools and more focused on actually teaching and conveying a love of reading (and learning)?
In another ironic coincidence, the film version of Beowulf topped the box office over the weekend.
(Washington Post)
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This is so sad and scary, but not really anything new. Reports like this seem to come out all of the time, but that doesn't mean that I like it. It makes me think just how hard of a time I'm going to have trying to teach Little Scribe and Baby Scribe to have a life-long love of reading. Little Scribe definitely loves books now, his favorites currently being LITTLE TOOT by Hardie Gramatky, HAVE YOU GOT MY PURR by Judy West, the original CURIOUS GEORGE, and HERE WE GO ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH. I shudder to think that he might lose this love for reading that he has when he goes into middle school. Well, not if my husband and I can help it. Hopefully, he will sense our own love for reading as he grows up, and books will remain a natural part of his life instead of something forced on him in adolescence.
I received a free issue of PARENTING magazine and browsed through the Best Holiday Toys of 2007 article. To my horror, one of the "best" toys for ages 3-5 is something called a Smart Cycle by Fisher Price. You plug this stationary bike into the T.V. and play "educational" video games while getting exercise riding the bike (to help with childhood obesity, I'm guessing.)
Is anybody else appalled by this toy? I mean, first of all, how about having the kid go outside and play (or go to an indoor playground) so they can get "exercise," and secondly, do we really need to have kids start playing video games, whether they're educational or not, at age three?
Another "best toy" of the year for the same age group is a Clickstart My First Computer by LeapFrog that also hooks up to your T.V. so your little one can start getting addicted to video games, I mean, become smarter.
No wonder reading for pleasure is in decline.
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