Scores in Standardized Test Drop as Recreational Reading Declines

Recent articles in The Boston Globe and The New York Times report that as students read less for enjoyment, their scores on reading tests also decline. However, this drop in standardized test scores is not confined to reading tests -- performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is also declining. The Globe and Times cite a report from the National Endowment for the Arts -- To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence, a new and comprehensive analysis of reading patterns in the United States published on November 19.

Among the reports findings are these highlights:

• Only 30 percent of 13-year-olds read almost every day.
• The number of 17-year-olds who never read for pleasure increased from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004.
• Almost half of Americans between ages 18 and 24 never read books for pleasure.
• The average person between ages 15 and 24 spends 2 to 2 1/2 hours a day watching TV and 7 minutes reading.

Reading relates to more than educational success as measured by standardized tests. According to NEA chairman Dana Gioia"The habit of regular reading awakens something inside a person that makes him or her take their own life more seriously and at the same time develops the sense that other people's lives are real." Not only are our own lives enriched by reading, but we're more likely to be involved in community/civic service activities: "The poorest Americans who read did twice as much volunteering and charity work as the richest who did not read," Gioia said.

Improve your educational results, enrich your personal experience and life, and make the world a better place by your presence -- READ.

The Globe article is here, the NYT article is here, and a summary of the NEA report is here.

More Recent Acquisitions

Here are summaries of recent acquisitions to the library collection. Some of these have been selected by faculty, some by my assessments of curricular holes, and some because they are recent winners of various literary awards.

Non-fiction:

• The Canon : a Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science by Natalie Angier / Summary: Award-winning science journalist Angier takes us on a "guided whirligig through the scientific canon." She draws on conversations with hundreds of the world’s top scientists, and her own work as a reporter for the New York Times, to create an entertaining guide to scientific literacy--a joyride through the major scientific disciplines: physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. It’s for anyone who wants to understand the great issues of our time--from stem cells and bird flu to evolution and global warming. It’s also one of those rare books that reignites our childhood delight in figuring out how things work: we learn what’s actually happening when our ice cream melts or our coffee gets cold, what our liver cells do when we eat a caramel, how the horse shows evolution at work, and that we really are all made of stardust.
• In the Beat of a Heart : Life, Energy, and the Unity of Nature by John Whitfield / Summary: Traces the scientific community's efforts to discover an underlying unity to nature that will explain the remarkable similarities and differences between all things on Earth, profiling key figures who are triggering a scientific revolution that will change how people view the world.
• The Storm : What Went Wrong and Why During Hurricane Katrina : the Inside Story from One Louisiana Scientist by Ivor van Heerden and Mike Bryan / Summary: As deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, Ivor van Heerden had for years been warning state and local officials about New Orleans’s vulnerability to flooding. But like Cassandra’s, his predictions were ignored—until Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005. Suddenly, van Heerden found himself at the center of a media maelstrom. Stepping forward to challenge the official version of events, he revealed the truth about the city’s shoddy levee construction. Now, in The Storm, van Heerden shares up-to-the-minute reporting from his investigations and connects the dots among the Army Corps of Engineers, the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the chain of events—both natural and human—that culminated in catastrophe. An epic of cutting-edge science and systemic bureaucratic failure, The Storm is the first book from a major player in the Katrina disaster and a riveting narrative that brings expertise, passion, and a human viewpoint to America’s greatest natural disaster.
• The View From the Center of the Universe : Discovering our Extraordinary Place in the Cosmos by Joel R. Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams / Summary: Draws on scientific research and recent discoveries in the fields of astronomy, physics, and cosmology to argue that humans are central to the universe in profound and important ways that are directly related to science.

Biography:

• I, Rigoberta Menchú : an Indian Woman in Guatemala edited and introduced by Elisabeth Burgos-Debray ; translated by Ann Wright / Summary: Recounts the life of Rigoberta Menchu, a young Guatemalan peasant woman who turned to catechist work as an expression of political revolt and religious commitment after her brother and parents were murdered by the Guatemalan military; and sheds light on everyday life in Latin America's Indian communities.

Fiction:

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie ; art by Ellen Forney / Summary: In his first book for young adults, bestselling author Sherman Alexie tells the story of Junior, a budding cartoonist growing up on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to take his future into his own hands, Junior leaves his troubled school on the rez to attend an all-white farm town high school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, coupled with poignant drawings by acclaimed artist Ellen Forney, that reflect the character's art, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of one Native American boy as he attempts to break away from the life he was destined to live.
• March by Geraldine Brooks / Summary: As the North reels under a series of unexpected defeats during the dark first year of the war, one man leaves behind his family to aid the Union cause. His experiences will utterly change his marriage and challenge his most ardently held beliefs. Riveting and elegant as it is meticulously researched, March is an extraordinary novel woven out of the lore of American history. From Louisa May Alcott’s beloved classic Little Women, Geraldine Brooks has taken the character of the absent father, March, who has gone off to war, leaving his wife and daughters to make do in mean times. To evoke him, Brooks turned to the journals and letters of Bronson Alcott, Louisa May's father -- a friend and confidant of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. In her telling, March emerges as an idealistic chaplain in the little known backwaters of a war that will test his faith in himself and in the Union cause as he learns that his side, too, is capable of acts of barbarism and racism. As he recovers from a near mortal illness, he must reassemble his shattered mind and body and find a way to reconnect with a wife and daughters who have no idea of the ordeals he has been through. Spanning the vibrant intellectual world of Concord and the sensuous antebellum South, March adds adult resonance to Alcott's optimistic children's tale to portray the moral complexity of war, and a marriage tested by the demands of extreme idealism -- and by a dangerous and illicit attraction. A lushly written, wholly original tale steeped in the details of another time, March secures Geraldine Brooks's place as an internationally renowned author of historical fiction.
• The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories / Summary: Contains over thirty selections of vampire fiction written between 1816 and 1984.
• Slam by Nick Hornby / Summary: Just when everything is coming together for Sam, his girlfriend Alicia drops a bombshell. Make that ex-girlfriend -- because by the time she tells him she's pregnant, they've already called it quits. Sam does not want to be a teenage dad. There's only one person Sam can turn to -- his hero, skating legend Tony Hawk. Sam believes the answers to life's hurdles can be found in Hawk's autobiography. But even Tony Hawk isn’t offering answers this time -- or is he? In this wonderfully witty, poignant story about a teenage boy unexpectedly thrust into fatherhood, it's up to Sam to make the right decisions so the bad things that could happen, well, don't.
• Three Vampire Tales / Summary: Three classic works of vampire literature [The Vampyre / John Polidori -- Carmilla / Sheridan Le Fanu -- Dracula / Bram Stoker] come together for the first time in one volume. Complementing the complete texts are background essays as well as additional selections by the three authors and others. Because the vampire novel has proven so influential in film, an extensive filmography is included.
• The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elise Blackwell / Summary: Louis Proby is an old man now, sitting in his study in New Orleans awaiting what they say is a huge storm, Hurricane Katrina. As he watches the skies darken, he remembers his earlier life, as a watchful, curious young man filled with hunger and desire in Cypress Parish, the life that was washed away when the Mississippi River flooded in 1927. He remembers exactly how the Parish was sacrificed to those waters-because the city fathers said it was expendable. They said that flooding Louis's home was necessary to save New Orleans. He has long known that was never the truth. The Parish could have been spared. And he has always known the part his father played in that decision. But what he thinks on now is the dearest cost extracted from him on the day they dynamited the dikes and let the waters flow. He thinks on his first love, Nanette Lançon.
• Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher / Summary: There's bad news and good news about the Cutter High School swim team. The bad news is that they don't have a pool. The good news is that only one of them can swim anyway. A group of misfits brought together by T. J. Jones (the J is redundant) to find their places in a school that has no place for them, the Cutter All Night Mermen struggle to carve out their own turf. T. J. is convinced that a varsity letter jacket--unattainable for most, exclusive, revered, the symbol (as far as T. J. is concerned) of all that is screwed up at Cutter High--will be an effective carving tool. He's right. He's also wrong. Still, it's always the quest that counts. And the bus on which the Mermen travel to swim meets--piloted by Icko, the permanent resident of All, Night Fitness--soon becomes the cocoon inside which they gradually allow themselves to talk, to fit, to bloom. Chris Crutcher is in top form with a cast of characters--adults, children, and teenagers--fighting for dignity in a world where tragedy and comedy dance side by side, where a moment's inattention can bring lifelong heartache, and where true acceptance is the only prescription for what ails us.
• The Wolf by Steven Herrick / Summary: Sixteen-year-old Lucy, living in the shadow of her violent father, experiences a night of tenderness, danger, and revelation as she and Jake, her fifteen-year-old neighbor, search for a legendary wolf in the Australian outback.

Videos:

• America's Working Poor [DVD] / Summary: Presents an examination of the working poor in the United States. Several families including single mothers as head of households describe their lives as members of the working poor community where one unexpected expense, sudden illness, or a missed payment could mean financial ruin.
• Malcolm X [DVD] / Spike Lee’s film presents the life and times of Malcolm X, who, through his conversion to Islam, overcame his deprived and criminal past to become an influential civil rights leader.
• The Odyssey [DVD] / Summary: Aided by the goddess Athena, warrior-king Odysseus braves the terrors and temptations of a fantastic array of creatures as his return from the Trojan War becomes a decade-long quest to reach his homeland and his faithful wife, Penelope.
• Stress & Relaxation Explained [DVD] / Summary: This DVD explores all aspects of stress reduction, including: how stress is a natural part of our lives; different types of stresses and their symptoms; chronic and acute health risks associated with stress; responding positively to stress and anxiety; real life case study; sample of immersive, nature-based guided imagery relaxation exercise; mind/body medicine overview; benefits of relaxation therapies; choosing the best techniques; physical and cognitive relaxation techniques; demonstration of effective relaxation exercises.