For the class I'm taking this week our assignment tonight was to read a book about oral learners. I learned some interesting facts. I'm not going to quote the numbers from the book since I can't get their web address sources to work, but I did find a survey that was taken back in 2002 called Reading At Risk. Anyways, here are some stats for 2002 I bet none of you knew:
*Only 46.7% of all American adults had read at least one book in the past 12 months.
*Only 37.6% of these adults were male.
*Only 37.7% of high school (with no college education at all) graduates read at least one book in the 12 months prior to the survey.
*63.1% of college graduates read at least one book in the past year.
*95.7% of adults watched at least one hour of television per day (on average).
*46.2% of adults watched 3 hours of television per day (on average).
*Only 42% of Southerners had read a book in the last year.
*Between 1992 and 2002, the percentage of 25-34 year-olds who had read a book in the last year decreased from 23.1% to 17.6%.
Aren't those statistics crazy? I love to read...I can't imagine people not reading at least one book per year! And 3 hours of television per day? We don't even own a TV! The whole point of this is just to show that people are getting more and more of their information through oral means: television, radio, podcasts, and so on. People aren't reading as much as they used to. So this is why we need to start being able to verbalize things that for so many years have only been in print. We need to rethink how we educate. Oh, and one more statistic: 4 billion of the world's people are considered illiterate. That's two-thirds of the people in the world. 4 billion people are oral learners. 4 billion people would understand an oral story better than a 1-page story that was written for them. 4 billion. Wow.
"...yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior." -Habakkuk 3:18
That is interesting data. Because I am hearing impaired I am a better visual learner than I am an oral learner. Meaning I read more to get the info I need. Can't understand the radio, so I don't get it there. I keep track of the books I read in a notebook, with one page per author. Each New Year's Day I count how many books I read over the year and how many new authors. When I started this over 10 years ago I used a 1/2 inch binder. Now I use a 1 inch binder and will eventually need to go to a bigger one. In 2007 I read 26 books adn read 6 new authors. This is handy for when I want to read an author again, I can look and see what I already read and find one I have not. My mom does this and now so does my daughter.
ReplyDeleteI was shown similar statistics when I was teaching school. They were teaching us to use more non-fiction material, because that is what does get read...TV guides, newspapers, magazines, intruction manuals. I think it's sad, because I get such joy from reading.
ReplyDeleteYou know, Sunday School was started to teach people to read so they could read the Bible.
Hmm.
I like your recipe blog. I hadn't seen it in a while until just now. I have a suggestion, though. You should do a little blurb on each recipe to describe it. That's usually what gets me sold on trying a recipe because tantalizing blurbs that describe the recipe make me want to try it.
ReplyDeleteThe alfredo sauce I made last night tasted better as leftovers with a ton of pepper. I might try a fat-free cream cheese alfredo sauce recipe, too.
what i don't understand, is the idea of spending 30-90 dollars per month for TV. huh?!? just to flip through the channels and complain that nothing is on?
ReplyDeletewe don't watch that much programming, but if we do, we go to the broadcast stations online and watch it at our convenience. better yet. it's free.