This report contains the best national data available to provide a reliable and comprehensive overview of American reading today. While it incorporates some statistics from the National Endowment for the Arts' 2004 report, "Reading at Risk," this new study contains vastly more data from numerous sources. Although most of this information is…

A survey of the reading choices made by academically gifted secondary school students was conducted in 1978 to determine if these choices differed from those revealed in a survey undertaken at the same school in 1973. It was hypothesized that there would be only minor changes in patterns of interest by grade. A total of 172 students completed the…

Research has shown that reading ability is positively correlated with the extent to which students read recreationally. Educators are increasingly encouraging their students to read and write on their own, outside of school. Changes in the frequency with which students (in grades 4, 8, and 11 in studies conducted from 1984 through 1994) read and…

In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts published "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America." This detailed study showed that Americans in almost every demographic group were reading fiction, poetry, and drama--and books in general--at significantly lower rates than 10 or 20 years earlier. The declines were steepest among…

This monograph contains a discussion of a telephone survey conducted to gain more knowledge about the job-related reading, functional reading, and leisure reading habits of a representative sample of adults from Anderson, Indiana. The discussion highlights survey results by demographic variables, reports specific analyses of survey items, and…