stats about books

1.     • One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 2.     • 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college. 3.     • 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. 4.     • 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years. 5.     • 57 percent of new books are not read to completion. 6.       Literacy Statistics

Over 50% of NASA employees are dyslexic. They are deliberately sought after because they have superb problem solving skills and excellent 3D and spatial awareness.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (284 votes)

Dyslexia affects one out of every five children - ten million in America alone.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (169 votes)

44 million adults in the U.S. can't read well enough to read a simple story to a child.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (205 votes)

It is estimated that the cost of illiteracy to business and the taxpayer is $20 billion per year.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (187 votes)

Over one million children drop out of school each year, costing the nation over $240 billion in lost earnings, forgone tax revenues, and expenditures for social services.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (176 votes)

U.S. adults ranked 12th among 20 high income countries in composite (document, prose, and quantitative) literacy.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (153 votes)

More than 20 percent of adults read at or below a fifth-grade level - far below the level needed to earn a living wage.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (276 votes)

More than three out of four of those on welfare, 85% of unwed mothers and 68% of those arrested are illiterate. About three in five of America's prison inmates are illiterate.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (220 votes)

Approximately 50 percent of the nation's unemployed youth age 16-21 are functional illiterate, with virtually no prospects of obtaining good jobs.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (204 votes)

Children who have not developed some basic literacy skills by the time they enter school are 3 - 4 times more likely to drop out in later years.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (192 votes)

60 percent of America's prison inmates are illiterate and 85% of all juvenile offenders have reading problems.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (190 votes)

Nearly half of America's adults are poor readers, or "functionally illiterate." They can't carry out simply tasks like balancing check books, reading drug labels or writing essays for a job.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (171 votes)

To participate fully in society and the workplace in 2020, citizens will need powerful literacy abilities that until now have been achieved by only a small percentage of the population.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (144 votes)

21 million Americans can't read at all, 45 million are marginally illiterate and one-fifth of high school graduates can't read their diplomas.

Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.5   (230 votes) Reading Statistics 56 percent of young people say they read more than 10 books a year, with middle school students reading the most. Some 70 percent of middle school students read more than 10 books a year, compared with only 49 percent of high school students.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (192 votes) Students who reported having all four types of reading materials (books, magazines, newspapers, encyclopedias) in their home scored, on average, higher than those who reporter having fewer reading materials.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (171 votes) The average reader spends about 1/6th of the time they spend reading actually rereading words.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (170 votes) Forty-four percent of American 4th grade students cannot read fluently, even when they read grade-level stories aloud under supportive testing conditions.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (159 votes) 15 percent of the population has specific reading disorders. Of these 15 percent as many as 1/3 may show change in the brain structure.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (153 votes) 15% of all 4th graders read no faster than 74 words per minute, a pace at which it would be difficult to keep track of ideas as they are developing within the sentence and across the page.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (153 votes) Good readers in 5th grade may read 10 times as many words as poor readers over a school year.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (149 votes) It is estimated that as many as 15 percent of American students may be dyslexic.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.9   (147 votes) 50 percent of American adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (252 votes) Out-of-school reading habits of students has shown that even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (215 votes) 46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (215 votes) There are almost half a million words in our English Language - the largest language on earth, incidentally - but a third of all our writing is made up of only twenty-two words.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (213 votes) In a class of 20 students, few if any teachers can find even 5 minutes of time in a day to devote to reading with each student.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (194 votes) In 1999, only 53 percent of children aged 3 to 5 were read to daily by a family member. Children in families with incomes below the poverty line are less likely to be read aloud to everyday than are children in families with incomes at or above the poverty line.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.8   (150 votes) When the State of Arizona projects how many prison beds it will need, it factors in the number of kids who read well in fourth grade.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (246 votes) According to the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), 37 percent of fourth graders and 26 percent of eighth graders cannot read at the basic level; and on the 2002 NAEP 26 percent of twelfth graders cannot read at the basic level. That is, when reading grade appropriate text these students cannot extract the general meaning or make obvious connections between the text and their own experiences or make simple inferences from the text. In other words, they cannot understand what they have read.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.7   (192 votes) First grade children with good word recognition skills were exposed to almost twice as many words in their basal readers as were children who had poor word recognition skills.  Reference 1 2 3 4 5 3.5   (176 votes) An online survey of 1,432 workers, by the TUC for Quick Reads and World Book Day 2006, found that: Only 23% of UK workplaces have borrowing shelves or book clubs. However, more than nine in ten employees (91.4%) would consider using a borrowing shelf or joining a book club if one were to be set up at work. 55.2% read or listened to audiobooks on their way to work, with fictional titles the most popular (32.6%), closely followed by newspapers (22%). In March 2007, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council’s Library and Information Update reported on a survey of 4,000 readers, which found that: A third of those questioned read "challenging literature" in order to seem well-read, even though they couldn't follow what the book was about. Almost half of respondents said that reading classics makes you look more intelligent. 40% said they had lied about having read certain books, “just so they could join in with the conversation”. “Most people” said they would expand on their literary repertoire to impress a new date. OFCOM report The Communications Market 2007 found that: There were over 35 million blogs worldwide in April 2006 and a new one is created every second. In the UK 45% use webpages and blogs as a means to publish their own original material, and over one in ten comment on current affairs and political issues on their homepages and weblogs. sky Arts found that reading is more popular with under-16-year-olds than blogging or "Tweeting", and also reports a huge rise in book club memberships. This figure is accompanied by an alarming insight into the make-up of these book groups: the survey "revealed that out of the 2,000 people we questioned, actually 18% of book club members were men and 13% are women". No further information was available about the identity of the remaining 59%. 28. Graphic design consumes 13.5% of the budget for fiction titles and 3.7% of the budget for nonfiction titles. 29. Other than writing costs, small publishers spend most of their fiction title development budget in graphic design and illustration (13.5% and 20% respectively). 30. Other than writing costs, small publishers spend most of their nonfiction title development budget on illustration and page layout (7.5% and 8% respectively). 31. Advertising consumes most of the small publisher’s marketing costs (36.5% for fiction titles, 29.8% for nonfiction titles). The value of the UK book market in 2008, at end purchaser prices, is estimated to have been £3.4 billion. This was 0.7 less than 2007. The top reasons given for not reading were as follows: too tired (48 percent) watch TV instead (46 percent) play computer games (26 percent) work late (21 percent)  A poll commissioned by Teletext in 2007 questioned 4,000 adults about their reading habits. The survey found a third had not bought a new book in the previous 12 months, while 34 percent said they did not read books at all.  The good news is that 96 percent said they had read at least something in the last week, whether this was books, magazines, newspapers or text messages. Reading material varied according to age with 70 percent of 16 to 24-year-olds choosing magazines, compared to 59 percent of 55 to 64-year-olds. 33 percent of 16 to 24-year-olds had read fiction, compared to 43 percent of 55 to 64-year-olds. An online survey of 1432 workers, by the TUC for Quick Reads and World Book Day 2006, found that 23 percent of British workplaces had borrowing shelves or book clubs. However, nine out of ten employees said that they would consider using such facilities should they be available. Even without such facilities, 84 percent of workers share books with their colleagues. 55 percent of those questioned read or listened to audio books on their way to work. Fiction titles were the most popular at 32 percent, followed by newspapers at 22 percent. 55 percent read during their lunch hour. 62 percent said that lack of time stopped them from reading more. A survey of 4,000 people for the BBC Raw Literarcy Campaign in 2006 found that reading was considered an important activity for 79 percent of those questioned. It was considered more popular than sex (69 percent), TV (67 percent) or computer games (15 percent). However, although 82 percent of the population said that they enjoyed reading, a significant proportion (17 percent), say that they did not. A survey of 1,000 people for Bedtime Reading Week 2002 showed that the most popular place to read is in bed (65 percent), followed by the bath at 25 percent. 10 percent read in the toilet (mostly men), while almost half of us like to read on holiday and a third read on their way to and from work. A third of those interviewed said they wished they had more time to read.