Reading Ecosystem

© Through the Magic Door
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Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. - John Adams
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.
- Albert Einstein
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
- Benjamin Franklin
Prepare for the unknown by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and the unpredictable.
- George S. Patton

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I cannot live without books
- Thomas Jefferson
A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
- Frederick Douglass
When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.
- Desiderius Erasmus
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read a book of quotations.
- Winston Churchill
Any reading not of a vicious species must be a good substitute for the amusements too apt to fill up the leisure of the labouring classes.
- James Madison

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It is wonderful that even today, with all the competition of radio, television, films and records, the book has kept its precious character. A book is somehow precious.
- John Steinbeck
The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
- Abraham Lincoln
Anyone who has a library and a garden wants for nothing.
- Cicero
There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration.
- Andrew Carnegie
It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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Take up and read, take up and read!.
- Confessions (397) by Saint Augustine
Yet if my name were liable to fear,
I do not know the man I should avoid
So soon as that spare Cassius. He reads much,
He is a great observer, and he looks
Quite through the deeds of men
- Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
Reading maketh a full man.
- Essays (1625) by Francis Bacon
There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it, the other that you can boast about it.
- The Conquest of Happiness (1930) by Bertrand Russell
My early and invincible love of reading, which I would not exchange for the treasures of India.
- Memoirs of My Life and Writing (1796) by Edward Gibbon

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Context
This document solely focuses on those parties that have an interest in the fostering of a vibrant and enthusiastic reading culture. Specifically, we are not examining education at large, schools in particular, assigning blame or seeking to advance any particular agenda, pedagogical technique, policy or solution.
The effort here is to agree on some boundaries of the issue (how to define and measure), identify root causes for any perceived shortfall, propose solutions to rectify those root causes, and determine where there might be opportunities for the various stakeholders to collaboratively work towards a a shared goal of a larger population of Self-Motivated and Self-Supported Habitual Readers.

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Situation
10% of the population does 80% of the reading.
50% do no elective reading in a given year.
Aside from the personal loss this represents to individuals, this high concentration of reading bodes ill for effective participation in an economic and world environment predicated on high levels of knowledge, imagination, empathy/collaboration, critical and analytical thinking, and social and moral judgment; all attributes fostered by habitual reading.

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How Does Reading Help You?1
Desirable
Life Outcomes
Behaviors &
Traits
Accelerated
School Skills
Actions
Empathy
Sustained Focus
Curiosity
Imagination
Pattern
Recognition
Forecasting
Social and Moral
Judgment
Critical Thinking
Analytical
Thinking
Health
Income and Wealth
Status
Employment
Opportunities
Career Choices
Options
Stability
Education
Civic roles
Etc.
Decoding
Vocabulary
Numeracy
General
Knowledge
Conversation
Reading
Storytelling

Proposed Problem Statement

Too few children (and adults) are self-motivated and self-reliant habitual readers.

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Reading Intensity Among HS Seniors and Adults
Population
Books Read
100%
10%
80%
40%
60%
80%
40%
50%
20%
No Elective Reading
20%

Potential Measures of Progress

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Potential Measures
Number of books read (per year)
Number of books purchased
Number of magazine subscriptions
Number of newspaper subscriptions
Hours spent reading
Pages read
Library circulation
Etc.

Potential Root Causes

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Personal
School
Not expected
Not pleasurable
Not useful
Work, Social, TV, Sports
Social issues
No time to
read
Unfamiliar with
variety of books (A)
Don’t value
Reading (B)
Infrequent
training
Ineffective
instruction
Don’t understand
causative relationship
Inconsistent
instruction
Not valued (B)
Eyesight
Unfamiliar (A)
No examples
Not interested
Unqualified
Reading
environment
Administration
Don’t enjoy
Unfamiliar with
Don’t know how to
support reading
Too little
instruction
Too few
children read
to their
greatest
advantage
Low reading
Time
constraints
Little social
enrichment
Restrictions on
reading
ESL
Poor vocabulary
Doctrinal
purity
Low home talking
Unfamiliarity with
Can’t recognize
Not valued
(B)
Ideology issues
Budget
No good
books
No
bookstores
Can’t afford to buy books
Don’t have time to check out
No books in
classroom
Don’t know what like
Can’t choose
Too many
interruptions
No room
Restrictive school
library policies/hours
Don’t know how to
coach/instruct
Not valued
(B)
No books in
home
No expectations
Hours
Unfamiliar with
reading
No public
library
Social
isolation
Can’t afford
Don’t value
Reading (B)
Location
No examples
Home
Access

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Assumptions
While there is certainly a potential issue around the efficiency with which the US education system produces readers and while there are pockets of real illiteracy, by and large the issue is not one of incapability of reading but rather disengagement from reading. The school systems are bringing the horse to the water but the horse isn’t drinking.
Reading is a gateway skill to academic and life success. 2

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Assumptions (cont’d)
Data and experience support the proposition that the first six years are crucial to the establishment of a reading culture.3
The root causes can be aggregated into five key issues standing in the way of establishing a reading culture:
Unsupportive school reading environment
Poor family communication
Lack of familiarity with books
Low valuation of books and reading
Access

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Assumptions (cont’d)
Self-motivated, self-supporting habitual reading exists among all economic quintiles.
Habitual readers are a greater share of the population in the higher quintiles but are a minority in each quintile.
The probability of habitual reading is most closely correlated with the education levels of parents regardless of race, residence (country versus urban), income, etc.

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Habitual Readers (the 10% of total population) as a Percentage in Each of the Income Quintiles (estimate)
100%
4.5% of ΣPopulation
22.5% of Quintile
80%
3% of ΣPopulation
15% of Quintile
60%
7.5% of Quintile
40%
2.5% of Quintile
20%
0.5% of Σ
Population
2.5% of Quintile

Reading Ecosystem

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Reading Ecosystem
Who has an interest in fostering a reading culture?
What are the vehicles of their influence?
What are the activities they support that might foster a culture of reading?
How do those activities mesh with the identified root causes?
If those root causes are addressed, will they foster the desired outcome of a population of self-motivated, self-supported habitual readers?
What opportunities for rationalization, refocusing and identification of new activities exist to achieve this goal?

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Current Reading Ecosystem

Assessment of Reading Culture Activities

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For Each Organization, a Review of Existing Initiatives Against the Root Causes Constraining a Reading Culture
Illustrative Example

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Footnotes
See Why Habitual Reading is Important, Through the Magic Door, 2008.
See Why Habitual Reading is Important, Through the Magic Door, 2008 and Growing a Reading Culture, Through the Magic Door, 2009 for citations to research.
Ibid.

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Contact Information
Should you have any questions about this presentation, please contact us.
Charles Bayless
Through the Magic Door®
1579 Monroe Drive
Suite F150
Atlanta, Georgia 30324
E-mail: charles.bayless@ttmd.com
Office: (404) 898-9096

Reading Ecosystem

by Charles Bayless on Jun 26, 2009

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