[Krashen] The Big Read: Bad Solution to the Wrong Problem

[Stephen Krashen's Mailing List]

Sent to the Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2008

Re: (“Big read or big waste?,” February 25)

Jim Henley is right about the National Endowment of
the Arts’ “Big Read” plan to encourage reading: Their
elitist approach is like trying to deal with hunger by
having wine tasting parties.  
Also it is not clear that we are reading less. Studies
show that in 1945 only 21% said they read something
yesterday. In 1991, it was 31%, and in 2006, 38%,
suggesting an increase in reading.
Scores show that reading ability has not declined.
Fourth and eighth grade reading scores have not
decreased since 1984. Twelfth graders’ scores dropped
only four points since 1984 and are the same as they
were in 1971. 
The real problem is that children of poverty have
little to read at home, in school, or in their
communities. As a result, they don’t read very much
and don’t read very well. 
The Big Read is a bad solution that addresses the
wrong problem.  

By Jim Henley
Speeches and an $8-million program will not turn
Americans into readers
Los Angeles Times, February 25, 2008
If you blew off your summer reading lists in school,
the government is here to help. Alarmed by the
proportional decline in reading for pleasure among
Americans, the National Endowment for the Arts has
expanded its Big Read initiative, which is designed to
“restore reading to the center of American culture.”
Big Read began as a pilot project in 2006 and is
similar to the "city reads" projects across the nation
that began in the late 1990s.
It won't cost much money, as governments reckon
things. The NEA plans to disburse about $1.6 million
in grants during the first half of 2008. By the end of
2008, the total expense for the Big Read, including
the pilot program, should be less than $8 million. We
can surely all agree that that's a small price to pay
to "restore reading to the center of American
culture." Indeed, with a price tag this low, it's
feels almost peevish to ask if the program will
actually accomplish anything.
The NEA knows that reading has slipped because of its
own survey from 2004, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of
Literary Reading in America,” and a 2007 follow-up,
"To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National
Consequence." The reports find 20-year declines in
what the NEA calls "literary reading" among all
demographic categories. It defines "literary reading"
generously: "any novels, short stories, poetry or
plays" -- anything fictional or poetic. "Executioner"
novels count as much as "The Corrections"; Dan Brown
no less than Tony Kushner. "Reading at Risk" concluded
that fewer than half of all Americans read stories or
poems for pleasure in 2002.
A separate Associated Press-Ipsos poll from 2007 found
more readers, though AP-Ipsos counts nonfiction and
Bible-only readers. And between 1982 and 2002 -- the
comparison points in "Reading at Risk" -- came the
boom in so-called literary nonfiction, the decade when
ambitious twentysomethings began trying to write not
moving poems or compelling stories but salable
memoirs. The sheer number of NEA-defined literary
readers remained constant at about 132 million
Americans -- a smaller percentage of a larger
population. But let's not quibble. Reading for
pleasure was once a majority pursuit, and now it
isn't.
I feel bittersweet about this myself. I'm writing a
novel. I've published poems. Nothing feels quite so
discomfiting to me as walking into someone's home and
realizing that there is not a single book to be found
in it. But nearly everything that was around in 1982
is less central than it used to be: broadcast
television, the Big Three automakers, the major record
labels. And in the February Harper's, Ursula K. Le
Guin suggests the larger pattern: For much of history,
hardly anyone read, and even fewer read for pleasure
rather than necessity. Then, for a while, many people
read. (Le Guin sees "a high point of reading in the
United States from around 1850 to about 1950 -- call
it the century of the book.") Now fewer do.
Against the long pull of this tide, the NEA's Big Read
program looks like mere sentimentality. "Each
community event lasts approximately one month," the
Big Read materials state, "and includes a kick-off
event to launch the program locally, ideally attended
by the mayor and other local luminaries." Even though
the mayor probably reads nothing but fundraising memos
himself.
The list of books is unobjectionable -- Job One given
the NEA's vexed history with Republicans. It really
does look like your 11th-grader's summer reading list:
from F. Scott Fitzgerald to Amy Tan. Who could
complain? But who could be inspired? Oprah's
much-maligned book list is more adventurous. The major
chains and remaining independent bookstores sponsor
book clubs across the country. Publishers have been
making reading group materials available for selected
titles for more than a decade.
America has not lacked for opportunities to read "A
Farewell to Arms" or "The Great Gatsby.” According to
the NEA's own figures, pleasure reading has been
declining (in percentage terms) despite all these
public and private reading drives. The idea that a few
million dollars and speeches by a few hundred mayors
are going to make pleasure reading "central" again is
too silly for, well, words.

Jim Henley's poems and reviews have appeared in the
Hudson Review and Reason, among other journals. He
runs the weblog Unqualified Offerings
(highclearing.com).