At the American Library Association mid-summer conference in Chicago in 2005, I bought a packet of 50 bookmarks bearing the message, "Reading. . . It Becomes You." Of course it's a pun. Reading shows you off in a flattering light-just as wearing a becoming article of clothing does. But more importantly reading enters into you and becomes you. You are what you read and through reading you discover who you are. All the stories, all the plots, all the words, all the fictional people, all the information about people and places encountered in books-they settle into your memory, layer upon layer, to be drawn upon later. One of the interviewees in Ross's study, Ivor, summed it up when he said, "whenever I read, I feel as though I'm assimilating what I read into this-almost like a one-man folk memory" (Ivor, graduate student, age 26).
Which is why we felt encouraged, just as we were finishing our book, Reading Matters, by a new national study on reading for pleasure sponsored by Heritage Canada that surveyed a random sample of 1,963 Canadians, 16 years of age and older. Unlike the 2004 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) study Reading At Risk which classified reading among the endangered species (see section 1.3 on Myths about reading), the Canadian study Reading and Buying Books for Pleasure found pleasure-reading holding its own among all age groups. In this survey, 87% of those polled said that they read at least one book a year and about half, or 54%, said that they read for pleasure almost every day. Heavy readers, who read more than 50 books a year, make up 13% of the Canadian population. Here are two prominent findings from the study that tackle head-on the myth of the death of reading:
Contrary to certain alarmist claims that there is a trend towards a lower reading rate in our society or that the Internet has had harmful effects on reading habits, this national survey has shown that reading for pleasure remains a solidly established and widespread habit with little or no change over the last 15 years.
Contrary to a widely held fear or belief, there is nothing to indicate that the incredible popularity of the Internet, video games, chatting over the Internet and downloaded music has impinged on the rate of, and time devoted to, reading. (Heritage Canada 2005, 4).
As we have seen, other myths about reading are yielding to new research-based insights. We know that our understanding of what reading is and what it means to read needs to be expanded to include a variety of formats and a variety of activities from a baby's chiming in on Patty-cake to a scholar's poring over a document. We know that reading begins almost at birth and is a lifelong activity. We know that what reading means to an individual reader changes over the course of a reading life, as more books and stories and materials make up the reader's repertoire. We also know that it's never too late to start reading for pleasure. While many, perhaps the majority, of avid readers come from reading families, some others come late to reading, often introduced to the pleasure of the text by a reading mentor. The gift of reading can best be given by another reader, who models what it is like to get pleasure from reading.
This new research on reading is reassuring for librarians, parents, and teachers alike. For librarians, it legitimates what you are doing to support reading for pleasure as a central function of a public library. You can stop feeling apologetic when it turns out that the biggest use of your collection is by readers who borrow popular fiction. For parents, the research confirms that you have unrecognized expertise and naturally do the things that research has shown to be critical: reading stories aloud in a context where stories are treats to be savored and prolonged at bedtime and not tests to be evaluated. You can also stop worrying over those series books that your child is consuming voraciously, one after the other; they are teaching him crucial lessons in reading. For many beginning readers, series books are an important part of their apprenticeship in reading. For community members, the research confirms that the activities that booklovers do naturally all the time anyway—giving books as gift, borrowing books from the library for other family members, talking about books with friends—are important in keeping others among the community of readers. For teachers, the research confirms the importance of making time for voluntary free reading, by which we mean giving readers the chance to choose what they want to read. It also confirms the value of reading aloud, not just in the early years of elementary school but right on into high school.
For the avid reader, reflecting on reading is a pleasure in itself—which explains the mini-boom in books by readers who report on their reading experiences, book clubs, book recommendations and the like. We hope our readers find this book useful in their own reflections on reading and why they find reading such a lifelong source of pleasure.
References
Department of Canadian Heritage. 2005. Reading and Buying Books for Pleasure: 2005 National Survey. Final Report. CH44-51/2005E http://www.canadianheritage.gc.ca/study/pdf/study.pdf [Accessed July 12, 2005]
National Endowment for the Arts. 2004. Reading At Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America. Research Division Report #46. Washington, DC. http://www.nea.gov/news/news04/ReadingAtRisk.html. [Accessed June 16, 2005]
This is a copyrighted excerpt from Ross, Catherine Sheldrick, McKechnie, Lynne E. F. and Rothbauer, Paulette M., Reading Matters: What the Research Reveals about Reading, Libraries, and Community, forthcoming, December 2005 (Libraries Unlimited).
Catherine Sheldrick Ross, Professor and Dean of the school of Library and Information Studies, University of Western Ontario, teaches a course in readers' advisory, and is involved in ongoing research on reading for pleasure.