I grew up in a reading family.

My mother read often, my father read often, my grandmother read often, so, it was passed down to me. I read a lot.

Not as often as I did when I was younger, but I still tend to average one book a month. And while I enjoy fiction (Stephen King is my favorite), the past few years I’ve leaned more and more toward non-fiction. Specifically, religious non-fiction. Theology, methodology, Christian living, etc. – you name it and I’ve probably either read it or, at the very least, own it (I’ve got a few stacks of books to work through).

But I digress.

Back to my childhood and teen years.

I thought I was the poor kid in school, because we shopped at Walmart instead of the mall; because I wore Levi’s, Lee and Wrangler’s instead of Girbaud, No Fear and Mossimo; because I was still using a cassette Walkman when everyone else had a CD Walkman.

I didn’t realize it then, but I was actually privileged.

I had a mother who hounded me on my grammatical and spelling skills and pushed me to read everyday. She would limit how much time I could watch TV, forcing me to do things that actually stimulated brain activity (reading, writing, playing guitar, having discussions, etc.). It wasn’t until my freshman year in college that I realized just how privileged I’d been.

Do you remember, in grade school, that kid in class who, when called upon to read aloud, would act like they were having problems reading? And yet we all knew they could read just fine?

There were several of those in my English 101 class at ULM.

Or so I thought.

It wasn’t until our professor tried a little experiment that the truth came out. Our professor split us into groups of four or five and had us exchange rough drafts of a paper we’d all been working on, so we could grade each other. I and three other students in our group were graduates of local high schools. The fifth student in our group was an exchange student from a country in Eastern Europe (I can’t remember which one). After class our professor pulled me aside and asked about the papers I’d read. All I could tell her was, “The exchange student, who can barely speak the English language, has a better understanding of writing it than the others in that group.”

I’m not joking.

The guy who could barely speak English could read and write better than several “English as a first language” students in our class. What’s worse is I couldn’t even finish one paper because I literally could not decipher what words the student had attempted to spell, and it wasn’t a handwriting issue! HOW DO YOU MAKE IT TO HIGH SCHOOL, LET ALONE GRADUATE, IF YOU CAN’T READ OR WRITE YOUR NATIVE LANGUAGE!!!

Why am I harping on this subject nearly ten years later? Because, sadly, things haven’t improved. I know teens who actually believe leet speak (the version of shorthand originally used in instant messaging programs, AKA text speak) is part of the English language!

On top of that, I’ve seen some reports and statistics lately that were a bit intriguing. Some were good…… and some were downright scary. Here’s some to read over:

• Long-term studies have shown that mentally stimulating activities (reading, writing, crossword puzzles, board & card games, group discussions, crafts and playing music) lead to a 30 to 50% decrease in the risk of developing memory loss compared to people who did not do those activities. Those same studies show that participating in mentally stimulating activities at least twice a week leads to a much lower risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s. – from Preventing Dementia: Mental Stimulation
• Delays in learning to read result in delays in the accumulation of reading volume. This places the child behind his or her peers in developing cognitive skills such as vocabulary, background knowledge, and familiarity with complex syntactic structures. – from Can Reading Make You Smarter?
• “In studying reading volume over against more general abilities such as IQ, it was found ‘that even when performance is statistically equated for reading comprehension and general ability, reading volume is still a very powerful predictor of vocabulary and knowledge differences. …and is not simply an indirect indicator of ability.”’ – from Can Reading Make You Smarter?
• “Students who get off to a fast start in reading are more likely to read more over the years, and, furthermore, this very act of reading can help children compensate for modest levels of IQ by building their vocabulary and general knowledge. In other words, IQ is not the only variable that counts in making a child smarter. Those who read a lot will enhance the IQ that they were born with; that is, reading will make them smarter.” – from Can Reading Make You Smarter?
• Reading books is an active mental process, improves your vocabulary, concentration, focus, creativity and memory. – from 10 Benefits of Reading!
• “The educational careers of 25 to 40 percent of American children are imperiled because they don’t read well enough, quickly enough, or easily enough.” – Committee on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children of the National Research Council
• “It is estimated that more than $2 billion is spent each year on students who repeat a grade because they have reading problems.” – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• “Since 1983, more than 10 million Americans reached the 12th grade without having learned to read at a basic level. In the same period, more than 6 million Americans dropped out of high school altogether.” – A Nation Still At Risk, U.S. Department of Education, 1999
• “Over one million children drop out of school each year, costing the nation over $240 billion in lost earnings, forgone tax revenues, and expenditures for social services.” – McQuillan, 1998
• “It is estimated that the cost of illiteracy to business and the taxpayer is $20 billion per year.” – Illiteracy: A National Crisis, United Way
• “More than three out of four of those on welfare, 85% of unwed mothers and 68% of those arrested are illiterate. About three in five of America’s prison inmates are illiterate.” – Washington Literacy Council
• “Approximately 50 percent of the nation’s unemployed youth age 16-21 are functional illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.” – U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• “44 million adults in the U.S. can’t read well enough to read a simple story to a child.” – National Adult Literacy Survey, U.S. Department of Education
• “60 percent of America’s prison inmates are illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems.” – U.S. Department of Education
• “U.S. adults ranked 12th among 20 high income countries in composite (document, prose, and quantitative) literacy.” – Educational Testing Service
• “More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level – far below the level needed to earn a living wage.” – National Institute for Literacy
• “Children who have not developed some basic literacy skills by the time they enter school are 3 – 4 times more likely to drop out in later years.” – National Adult Literacy Survey, U.S. Department of Education
• “46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine.” – Journal of American Medical Association
• “21 million Americans can’t read at all, 45 million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can’t read their diplomas.” – Department of Justice
• 1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. – Para Publishing
• 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college. – Para Publishing
• 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year (2007) – Para Publishing

HT: Donald Miller and Kari Calhoun