Used Books Blog

The 2008 Kids and Family Reading Report by Yankelovich and Scholastic contains some interesting statistics that may provide insight about the future of books in the digital age.

• 75% of kids age 5-17 agree with the statement, “No matter what I can do online, I’ll always want to read books printed on paper”
• 62% of kids surveyed say they prefer to read books printed on paper rather than on a computer or a handheld device.

Those are some pretty shocking(ly good) statistics given the prevalence of online media and handheld devices. I’ve blogged previously that eBooks and the Kindle have an uphill battle because of the passive nature of books and the lack of a motivating agent of change for the medium. Books are already portable, can be printed in color, and don’t get better due to new technology (e.g. - Dolby or HD.)

To be fair, there does seem to be a place for digital books.

• Two thirds of kids age 9-17 believe that within the next 10 years, most books which are read for fun will be read digitally – either on a computer or on another kind of electronic device. Eighty-seven percent of kids think people will be able to tag and share their favorite parts of books with others.

So perhaps there is room for both eBooks and the musty regular old book. The problem may be whether the digital book market can be a large enough and viable business.

Ready for some more good news?

• A majority of kids say they like to read books for fun and that reading books for fun is important. Most kids perceive a correlation between reading and success.
• One in four kids age 5–17 reads books for fun every day (high frequency reader), and more than half of kids read books for fun at least two to three times a week.

A part of me doesn’t believe these statistics given all the doom and gloom you often hear about reading and literacy. But the study was done to a 90% confidence level. It’s gratifying to see books still being linked to success.

The U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS), which tracks the progress of more than 20,000 American schoolchildren from kindergarten through the fifth grade, showed a correlation between the number of books in a child’s home and their test scores. This was referenced in Freakonomics and also cause for some sniping regarding correlation versus causality.

The crux of the report was this finding:

• A child with at least 50 kids’ books in his home, for instance, scores roughly 5 percentile points higher than a child with no books, and a child with 100 books scores another 5 percentile points higher than a child with 50 books.

Yet, there was no correlation between a parent reading to the child and test scores. This led many to believe that books, and the number of books, in the home wasn’t the primary factor, but instead was linked to the parent’s income and education.

I find that a weak argument for a couple of reasons. The first being the difference in scores between 50 books and 100 books. If you believe this argument, then the parents of the 100 book group are richer and better educated than those in the 50 book group. I’d be surprised if this was the case. It would have been a major finding in the report had this been true.

The second reason is that the environment has so much to do with a child’s growth and development. Akin to the Montessori idea of the prepared environment, it makes sense that having books around greatly increases the chance that they’ll seek them out on their own.

Parents reading to their child might not be correlated to success, but having access to books for children to seek out and explore on their own makes sense. You could be rich and intelligent parents, but if you’re feeding your kids a diet of Halo 3 on a daily basis you might get some odd results.

So how am I linking these two reports together? I know, it seems like a stretch, right? Here’s how.

• Most kids say there are not enough really good books for boys/girls their age, and they say finding books they like is one of the key reasons they do not read for fun more frequently.

This important statement comes from The Reading Report, making it clear that finding books is a key to reading. The odds of you finding books is far higher if you’ve got them in your home.

The Reading Report goes on to show the dramatic effect Harry Potter had on reading habits and attitudes. Again, I’d offer up the question: would a child be more or less likely to read Harry Potter if the books were in the home?

Yeah … parents, buy more books.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 5:01 pm and is filed under eBooks, Book News, Book Statistics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.