Reading does not appeal to public
- posted: 16 Oct. 2007
- scrollnews@byui.edu
Approximately 44 percent of Americans are aliterate. Aliteracy, not to be confused with illiteracy, refers to an increasing number of people who can read but choose not to, according to an article in the Washington Post.
In a 2002 poll conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts, only 56.6 percent of Americans reported reading a book for leisure when asked if they had read a book independent of school or work in the last 12 months.
“There is so much low-quality entertainment that doesn’t take much time or energy, like TV or movies. People want quick-fix entertainment, and you have to put a lot of time into reading,” said Charles Buechele, a junior studying English.
Julie Clark, a professor in the English Department, said students choose not to read because they feel like they can’t relate to literature.
“We give them the classics to read and that appeals to only a small percentage of students,” Clark said. “What we need to do is start students out on books that are a little closer to them and their experiences and then bridge to the classics.”
Julie Engstrom, director of the Reading Center at BYU-Idaho, had a different idea about aliteracy in America.
“I would guess that many people who choose not to read…don’t find the text very rewarding,” Engstrom said.
This might be, in part, because some people who can read have difficulty with comprehension.
“Most of those students can decode words easily (they can read words just fine), but they are not making meaning out of what they are reading. When this happens, reading isn’t fun, it doesn’t provide information, and it is frustrating,” Engstrom said.
Resources are available to help people improve their reading comprehension both nationally and at BYU-I in the Reading Center. 
