Essay On Literacy

Almost all people nowadays do not read much or at all. In “From Reading at Risk,” it states that “reading in America has declined by all groups, and the rate of decline has accelerated.” According to the statistics from that article, between 1982-2002, the percent of adult population reading literature went from 56.9% to 46.7%, that is a 10.2% drop in 20 years. That is a massive decline. In that same statistic (do you mean article) it shows (deleted ‘that’) the number of literary readers between 1982-2002. The number of literary readers increased by 4 million from 1982-1992 and decreased by 4 million from 1992-2002. The article “From Reading at Risk, also states that “Literary reading has decreased by all ages and education groups. “ The chart about Literary Reading by Education (From Reading at Risk) shows that from 1982-2002 the grade school grade levels went from (Went from what?)21.2 to 7.2 and high school graduates went from 54.2 to 16.5 within the same time period. (do not use I) The most interesting part from that same chart was the part about college graduates. It shows that college graduates went from 82.1 to 15.4 between the years 1982-2002. To me it should be that college students should be reading more and not having a decreasing level, they need to have the ability to think critically when writing essays, etc..but, without that ability, they won’t be very successful with college life. (Look at the number you used. You are looking at the chart wrong.) I stopped here because the number are off so you might change what you say after this once you have the right numbers listed.
Traditional reading competes with an array of electronic media, and often loses . The percentage of American adults reading literature has decreased significantly over the last two decades Due to diminishing literacy, our mode of thinking has become lost. People aren’t making enough time to read, which is also a reason for the decreased amount of traditional reading.
Mitchell Stephens , the Author of “Death of Reading”,states that “We are “losing a sort of psychic habit, logic and sense of complexity, and the ability to spot contradictions and even falsity.” Alberto Vitale, Chairman of Random House writes in the above article, statedthat” people who used to read a lot of books, read less now.” From my experiences of reading a book when I was little until now, I have gained an obscene amount of knowledge. Reading a book gives you better comprehension and when you stop reading, all of that is lost. I don’t read many “adult” books anymore, but I do read to my children at least once a day, or my oldest one will read to me. Reading to my children helps them gain knowledge and better comprehension, which helps me too. Students’ SAT scores have decreased in percentage, and it could get worse due to the lack of reading and comprehension. (Death of Reading).Now that I am in college, I am finding that my comprehension is coming back better than what it was before. I am also gaining a lot more knowledge. I felt like I lost my ability to focus and become interested in reading books, but now that I am compelled to read, all of what I lost is coming back. There are many distractions that keep us from reading, family life being one of them, but people also read while watching television, playing video games, or commuting, thus they aren’t paying full attention to what they are reading , so their comprehension has come to a lull. Mitchell Stephens from “Death of reading” brings up a good question, “if dramatically increased exposure to an educational system based on printed word can’t get us to read, what will?” I find this to be a very important question. I think that instead of taking advantage of technology to “teach us” what we want to learn, we need to consider teaching ourselves the things that not only we need to learn, but also want to learn, by picking up a book and learning from it. With that said, 27% of Americans spent the last year bookless.
In conclusion, I think that people need to make time to pick up a book and read, whether itbe just for fun, or for school. Instead of depending on the internet, we need to make time to read , whether it be for 30 minutes before bed, reading to a child, a newspaper, something other than reading off the Internet. Not reading while you’re traveling, or have other distractions, would certainly help with the comprehension and focusing. Also, by reading a book it will help gain back the knowledge and comprehension that you once lost from not reading, and help you develop critical thinking skills.