The “down-grading” of American reading?

The “down-grading” of American reading?

Are Americans’ reading tastes trending towards simpler books?

Does that include school reading assignments replacing more complex books with ones that are more accessible?

According to this

NPR article

referencing research from
Renaissance Learning

both assertions are true.

The

Full Report (pdf)

substantiates what might seem like depressing statistics. For example:

“…the complexity of assigned texts has sharply declined, from about [grade] 9.0 in the early 20th century to just over 6.0 in the early 21st century. This finding echoes other studies that have concerned policy makers about whether students are presented with sufficiently challenging material to help them prepare for college and career.”

I think, like most serious readers, my immediate, emotional, gut reaction to that is that it’s a bad thing and a depressing indicator.

However, as my more rational (and contrary) mind kicks into analysis mode, I wonder if that’s really the case.

Let’s accept as a postulate that the bestsellers tend to be at a lower grade level now than they were fifty years ago, and that teachers are assigning books that are at a lower grade level than they used to do.

The first question: is the grade-level assessment process a reasonable one? Is it providing an appropriate measurement?

You can do grade-level assessment analysis on anything you want. Microsoft Word will do it for you. I used to teach people that, when writing for the general public, go for fifth-grade level. That was my sense of what would reach the most people. Now, it is different if you are trying to influence a specific group of peers (coworkers, for example) where credibility can be more important than comprehensibility. When I train trainers about credibility, one thing I’ve said (in a light way): “When in doubt, use big words.” 😉 That tends to make it seem like you know more than the other person…that isn’t when you are explaining how to do something, but why you would do it.

Interesting, word length is one of the things that Word uses to determine grade level. Word Help says

“Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level test

This test rates text on a U.S. school grade level. For example, a score of 8.0 means that an eighth grader can understand the document. For most documents, aim for a score of approximately 7.0 to 8.0.

The formula for the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score is:

(.39 x ASL) + (11.8 x ASW) – 15.59

where:

ASL = average sentence length (the number of words divided by the number of sentences)

ASW = average number of syllables per word (the number of syllables divided by the number of words)”

More syllables and longer sentences are judged to be at a higher grade level.

For example, this sentence

“The quick red fox jumped over the lazy brown dog.”

is assessed at grade level 2.4.

Changing it to this:

“The rapidly moving scarlet fox jumped over the unmotivated brown canine.”

ups it to grade level 11.2.

Looking at that, though, which one seems like the better sentence to you?

I think that’s important, here: I’m not sure that a higher grade-level work means inherently better writing.

Mark Twain’s writing will tend to be assessed at a lower grade-level than Oscar Wilde’s…does that mean it is less desirable for students?

However, I do think there is a real value in understanding the more complex words and sentence structures. It’s like doing exercise…people like their athletic challenges to be difficult. They want to up the speed on the treadmill, do more repetitions, throw farther…they want to approach and then extend their limits, even though they don’t always need to perform at that peak.

Perhaps it’s like designing a city. You want to make the walkways as accessible, as easy to use, as possible. That may be what’s happening with reading. On the other hand, your city may have a skatepark for those athletes…and making things more difficult there is better.

Gee, did I just make reading geeks like me cool like Tony Hawk? 😉

Why would this have changed over time, though? Why would there have been harder books assigned decades ago?

There may be several reasons involved in that.

One is that many more people are going to school (especially higher grades) than did a hundred years ago. I’m not suggesting that there is a difference in capability, but there may be a difference in situation. It could be that people who went to high school in the 1910s (and the Renaissance Learning data goes back beyond that) were people who were going to be able to concentrate on reading, even outside of class. Would I have been as much of a reader in elementary school if I was also spending several hours a day in a field doing manual labor? If I’m being honest, I’d have to say no.

So, high schoolers today may have less experience, less practice, reading than high schoolers a hundred years ago.

Let’s move away from the school for a minute.

What about popular books having become simpler, if we accept that as a postulate?

Reading holds a different place for us than it used to do. Simpler books may be better suited to being part of a multimedia experiential mix which wasn’t available even fifty years ago. It might be simpler to switch in and out of The Hunger Games than it is War and Peace. If we do more activities for shorter sessions (instead of reading a book for three hours straight, we read two books, a magazine, a news site, e-mail, tweets, listen to music, watch video…all in that three hours), that might impact our preferences.

It’s also, perhaps, a sign that more people are reading. We are seeing the sales of books go up, from what I’ve seen. Maybe what is happening is that there are more people reading as part of what they do in their lives. So, you get less experienced readers (who therefore want simpler, more familiar material…I’ve read a lot of 19th Century stuff, so the vocabulary has become relatively easy for me…the first time you read Sherlock Holmes, it can be tough), who don’t read as much as the “serious readers”, but read more than they used to read, impacting the bestseller list.

One of the interesting things in the Renaissance Learning study was that popular culture drives reading. If a movie comes out, based on a book, sales of that book go up considerably. How many people will read The Great Gatsby this year who wouldn’t have considered it last year?

That may be increasing the overall amount of reading…even if the works chosen are not always particularly complex. I wouldn’t look for a Gravity’s Rainbow blockbuster any time soon. 😉 Higher grade-level books may be inherently more difficult to adapt to visual media…which would mean they wouldn’t get that readership boost.

I guess I’m a reading athlete: I like complex works. I also do like simple ones, no question…and I think it’s a good thing that (as I believe) more people are reading books. Perhaps assigning simpler books is actually a sign of a democratization of literature.

What do you think? Did you stomach fall when you read the beginning of this story? If people really aren’t going on to more and more difficult books in the way that they used to do, is that a sign of cultural decay? Do you find yourself reading more “popcorn” books than you used to do? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.