Reading Skills Down
Study reported in the New York Times says that the reason reading and writing skills are down among both children and adults is that time spent pleasure reading is down in general.
Americans — particularly young Americans — appear to be reading less for fun, and as that happens, their reading test scores are declining. At the same time, performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is dipping for students whose access to books is limited, and employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills.
I don’t really have much to say about this. I think in general schools are not educating as well as before. I think part of it actually has to do with grade inflation. Everyone wants to get into a good college so everyone “needs” an A. Teachers feel pressure from parents to do that, and every school wants their students to go to great schools. So they are giving out As without them actually being earned. Without the incentive, students don’t work as hard to earn that A and don’t learn. There is also the unprecidented level of visual entertainment with computers, movies, HDTV, etc. that most people just simply read less. When you do anything less you become less proficient at it. The larger question is: Is this lack of reading indicative of lower intelligence overall?
