Sunday, February 26, 2017

Celebrate March Is Reading Awareness Month



March is Reading Awareness Month.  It sounds great, on the one hand, that a whole month is dedicated to turning people onto reading.  Yet, on the other hand, it sounds, pathetic that we need to call special attention to what should naturally be taking place everywhere, for everyone. However, our nation still has unmet challenges when it comes to reading.

ReadAloud.org shares some sobering statistics:


  1. Some children begin kindergarten having been read to as few as 25 hours while their peers may have been read to as many as 1,000 hours.
  2. If a child is not reading at grade level by the end of the first grade, then there is an 88% probability the child will not be reading at grade level by the end of the fourth grade.

The site encourages every child and parent to read aloud for 15 minutes a day.

National Education Association (NEA) celebrates Read Across America Day on March 2, the birthday of the beloved children’s book author Dr. Seuss.  The NEA says:  “Motivating children to read is an important factor in student achievement and creating lifelong successful readers.  Research has shown that children who are motivated and spend more time reading do better in school.”

According to a 2013 study conducted by the U.S. Dept. of Education and the National Institute of Literacy, 32 million adults – or 14% of the adult American population read below a 5th grade level and 19% of high school graduates can’t read.

No doubt there are many reasons why we have tens of millions of reading-deficient adults, so what can be done about it?  What can be done to prevent others from growing up illiterate?

For those of us who are literate, we have the obligation to contribute to the teaching of others.  If you don’t have time to dedicate to help others read, support them with donations, books, encouragement, and other resources or rewards.  You can be the difference in someone’s life.

For those who can read or are learning to read, it’s important we teach them about the following:

1.      Comprehension
2.      Genre variety
3.      Length variance
4.      Speed
5.      The art of skimming
6.      Retention
7.      Applying what was read
8.      How to choose what to read
9.      How to question and double-source our readings
10.  Becoming better writers by reading

RIF.org (Reading Is Fundamental) states “There is a significant literary crisis in America today.” It says 43% of American adults are functionally illiterate and that “93 million adults in the U.S. read at or below the basic level needed to contribute successfully in society.” 

They also say: “There are currently 16 million children living in poverty in the United States, two-thirds who don’t have a book to call their own.  Since 1966, RIF has distributed more than 412 million books to more than 40 million children across the country, improving their ability to read, learn and grow.”

RIF notes: "Helping someone develop a passion for reading is as important as providing them with the mechanical tools to become independent functional readers."  

New readers should want to read and enjoy the many rewards it can bring Let's all celebrte by sharing the gift of reading..

“When a writer dies, he becomes his books” 
--Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths (1962)

“You can’t tell a book by its movie.”
--Louis A. Safian, The Book of Updated Proverbs (1967)

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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog 2017©. Born and raised in Brooklyn, now resides in Westchester. Named one of the best book marketing blogs by Book Baby http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blo

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