According to Daniel Willingham, this study says that Americans are reading more than ever.
But our scores aren’t going up? Why is that?
Willingham says it’s because the richness of our reading has declined.
The number of words read from conventional print sources (books, newspapers, magazines) has plummeted. In 1980 these sources accounted for 26 percent of the words read. In 2008 that figure was 9%. People today spend just 36 minutes each day reading traditional print materials.
Practice in reading lightweight material won’t improve your reading much. Reading content-rich material will. Thus, it’s not surprising that we’re reading more yet reading scores are stagnant.