Reading: forgotten effect of literacy in America
Some teenagers are swept away into the current that surrounds the Divergent trilogy, or The Hunger Games, or even the vampire-werewolf love triangle of Twilight. But others are more content to shun the idea of reading rather than tackling the challenge hidden within the crisp, clean pages of novels they’ll never love.
Some teenagers are swept away into the current that surrounds the Divergent trilogy, or The Hunger Games, or even the vampire-werewolf love triangle of Twilight. But others are more content to shun the idea of reading rather than tackling the challenge hidden within the crisp, clean pages of novels they’ll never love.
The problem with literacy is not that there isn’t enough variety. There are somewhere between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books published every year in the US alone, according to forbes.com. The problem is that even in developed countries like the United States, some students simply aren’t at the reading level that is expected, and necessary for college as well as future jobs and careers.
Every school day in America, 3,000 students drop out, and the majority of them are poor readers according to scholastic.com. Students with below grade level reading skills are twice as likely to drop out of school as those who can read on or above grade level according to scholastic.com.
Dropping out severely limits the potential of young americans; consequently, a high school dropout will earn $200,000 less than a high school graduate over his lifetime, and almost a million dollars less than a college graduate according to dosomething.org.
Even some college students struggle to comprehend literature. In 2008, the California State University System, the largest university system in the country, recorded that more than 60% of its incoming freshmen student’s required remedial coursework in English according to scholastic.com.
Reading does makes a difference. Children with low-education families can do as well as children with high-education families if they have access to books at home.They also tend learn an average of 4,000 to 12,000 new words each year as a result of book reading, according to scholastic.com.
There needs to be a greater emphasis on reading. Students should be encouraged to read every day. Perhaps there should be a free period of half an hour where students must choose a book, magazine, or newspaper to read.
