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“According to the 1998 National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the Nation’s Report Card, the U.S. government’s most comprehensive assessment of American education, 77 percent of twelfth-graders read at or above the basic reading level, but only 40 percent are considered proficient, and only 6 percent read at the advanced level.” – BookMagazine.com.

The TeleRead take: Could one reason for the problem be that schools are relying less on textbooks to impart information? Book Magazine notes that many educators “have become quite ingenious at using lectures, handouts, class projects and activities to convey content about history and science and government without requiring kids to read.”

Wisely the magazine observes that reading should be a skill strengthened throughout K-12, not just in the early grades.

Needless to say, TeleRead could help by supplying books–textbooks and other kinds–that more closely matched the interests and needs of individual students. As Book Magazine notes, the issue isn’t just the performance of one country’s students vs. another’s. It’s the also increased demands of the information age.

And that means we mustn’t neglect reading at any level of K-12. I heartily recommend the Book Magazine article to the citizens of Springfield, Illinois, which cut out funds for elementary school librarians. TeleRead would not replace librarians–quite the contrary. But it would make it possible for schools and libraries to use them more effectively and reduce the number of disgraces like Springfield’s. Some elementary schoolers there can’t even take books home now.

(Book Magazine cite via Library Stuff. Springfield State Journal Register article via LISNews.com.)

 
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