Before we react to the lower amount of reading, what exactly is the problem we seek to solve?
Is the problem declining student reading scores? We need to improve reading comprehension. Students may need to learn how to read more effectively so increasing the quantity may not help that much.
Is the problem half of adults read no books in a year? Is that really a problem? What adults do seems to be the canary for pointing out how we are a culture going to collapse soon. Two, three generations later, we are still here… More wealthy and concerned about a wider variety of issues.
Howard Gardner has an interesting article in the Washington Post about how the form of reading has changed over time. Just because we read out of books in the 18th to 20th centuries doesn’t mean books will remain the primary form ideas will be delivered in the 21st century.
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