Whether Ray Bradbury is right about the cause being TV or not, it appears that U.S. adults don’t read very well:

In the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) assessment, 1994-98:

• The mean prose literacy scores of U.S. adults with primary or no education, ranked 14th out of 18 high-income countries;
• The mean prose literacy scores of U.S. adults with some high school, but no diploma or GED, ranked 19th out of 19 high-income countries;
• The mean prose literacy scores of U.S. adults with a high school diploma or GED (but no college), ranked 18th (tie) out of 19 countries;
• The mean prose literacy scores of U.S. adults with 1-3 years of college, ranked 15th out of 19 countries; and
• The mean prose literacy scores of U.S. adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher, ranked 5th.

— The Twin Challenges of Mediocrity and Inequality: Literacy in the U.S. from an International Perspective, Sum, Andrew, Irwin Kirsch, and Robert Taggart, Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ, February 2002. Quoted in Fact Sheet Overview, National Institute for Literacy, accessed 7 June 2007.

Apparently U.S. adults only really learn to read in college, and not all that well even then. And if they can’t read very well, it’s a safe bet that they don’t read very much. Continue reading →