Is Reading Fundamental?

Almost 5 years ago I blog a short article, on a now defunct blog, about the lack of reading in our country. I did so in conjunction with the goal of reading 10 books for 2005. Since then I've made that goal, lately with ease. I'm reposting the article because the topic of aliteracy seems to be recurring.

RIP - RIF
"The Reading is Fundamental program isn't in trouble as the title implies indeed it is sorely needed. While I was at the NYWC one of the speakers noted among other sobering statistics that most high school graduates will not read another non-fiction book. That struck me as odd since I've read 6 just this year - not counting textbooks.

As Teri and I talked we began to wonder what percentage of the population reads 10 or more books each year. While I haven't found the answer to that here's some statistics that shed some light on the sad problem of America's literacy.

• Only about a third of the nation's public school children read proficiently
• Circulation of English-language papers in the United States has declined 11 percent since 1990.
• One-third of high school graduates never read a book for the rest of their lives.
• Fifty-eight percent of the U.S. adult population never reads a book after high school.
• Forty-two percent of college graduates never read another book.
• Eighty percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
• Seventy percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• Fifty-seven percent of new books are not read to completion. Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.
• Of the people who do read books 53 percent read fiction 43 percent nonfiction.
• Of the top 50 books fiction outsells nonfiction about 60 percent to 40 percent.
• Each day people in the U.S. spend four hours watching TV three hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.

NEA chairman Dana Gioia said 'We have a lot of functionally literate people who are no longer engaged readers. We're seeing an enormous cultural shift from print media to electronic media and the unintended consequences of that shift.' According to an NEA study only 57% of adults read any book at all during 2002. While the drop in reading is wide spread it was marked for adult men of whom only 38% read any literature.

Of course none of the statistics answered my question "What percentage of the population reads at least 10 books a year(a high volume of books)?" (for children who are encouraged to read by their parents 63% read more than 10 books a year and 51% of children whose parents leave it up to them)