Is Reading Anything Really Better Than Not Reading?

Wendy E. Betts
26 Apr 1996

The question about Stine has received a lot of answers saying "reading anything is better than nothing." This reminds me of a discussion we had a while back, about the lack of scientific rigour in this field. How do we *know* it's better than nothing, other than anecdotally? For the people who feel the opposite, how do *they* know?

I meet so many people who see me reading while I'm waiting for something, who tell me they used to read all the time when they were kids. Reading, unfortunately, seems to be something a lot of people grow out of. I wonder about this: is it because of what they read? If they'd had better books would the habit have stayed? Maybe they couldn't make the transition to adult books? (I found it quite difficult, myself.)

Can anyone really tell if Goosebump readers will carry away a true love of reading? Can anyone really tell if readers of "good" books will? I see as many people waxing nostalgic over Enid Blyton as over Elizabeth Enright in rec.arts.books.childrens.

Wow...I wonder if I have myself a thesis topic here...;-)

Charles Temple
26 Apr 1996

I used to think about that question a lot. I came across three interesting pieces of information that had bearing on it.

One was in a book on child development by Jerome Kagan, in which he made a distinction between standards and conventions in moral behavior. A standard he said (I think he got this from Kant) was a moral precept we wouldn't think of violating (like taking a life, or stealing someone else's dinner). A con- vention was a moral rule we normally would uphold, but not always--dressing up for church, not coming barefoot to dinner, etc. Kagan's research showed that even young children would uphold moral standards, though not necessarily conventions. He worried, though, that with constant exposure to violations of standards portrayed as if standards didn't matter (which is what our popular media seem to have taken as their chief function in society), children and the rest of us would confuse standards and conventions ("We're not USUALLY supposed to kill other people," etc.).

Another was Northrop Frye's THE EDUCATED IMAGINATION (I think)--in which he argues for the value of litereature and the arts in nourishing a creative spirit, out of which every worthwhile thought and invention must eventually come. Frye clearly believes there is an ideal diet for nourishing the imagination, and it includes Greek and Roman myth, the Bible, folktales, great books, etc.

A third was an article by Paul Wilson, in a book I edited. Wilson co-authored a well-known study at the Center for the Study of Reading on fifth grade children's reading habits. You know, the one that found normal readers read for pleasure five minutes a day, "avid readers" read ninety minutes, and turned off readers read (no joke) an average of fifteen seconds a day outside of school. Wilson, who had studied with Northrop Frye, at the U. of Toronto, had been impressed by the research of a South African named Victor Joy (?), who concluded there were two kinds of reading: (I forget his terms) escape reading, and more reflective and analytical reading. Paul was beginning to conclude that maybe we need to learn to do the first kind of reading to develop a strong reading habit, and later develop a capacity for reflective and analytical reading. His informal surveys around his campus at Western Michigan U. had turned up a majority of people willing to admit that they read light books for years like some people eat Fritos, and only later learned to read good books for greater edification.

I remember disagreeing with Paul a littl on this--or at least thinking that if a teacher encourages good book discussions that do something with the ideas in books, maybe children won't have to wait until they reach graduate school to learn to really read. But I don't think Paul disagrees.

I think Kagan's arguments seem cogent; but then again, I've spent time in parts of the world where people at one time or another have done truly horrible things to each other, and they didn't have violent, exploitative media putting them up to it.

Last point: I heard a talk today by a colleague who got a PhD in English literature and one in psychology in the same year. He said the difference between the humanities and the natural sciences are that the former seek to open up interpretaions, to think of more possible meanings; while the scientific method seeks to limit interpretations, to lead to correlations between variables, so that you can talk about cause and effect, or isolate intervening variables. So to complain, as someone did on this strand, that our field has no scientif research basis, may be like complaining that your dog won't cook breakfast.

Enough for one posting.

26 Apr 1996
Gloria T. Pipkin

Wendy Betts challenges the assumption that reading Goosebumps is better than not reading at all. Recently when I asked for help on this list in defending the entire series against a formal challenge in my school district, Teri Lesesne referred me to an article by Catherine Sheldrick Ross of the University of Western Ontario that speaks to this question. The article is called "'If They Read Nancy Drew, So What?'; Series Readers Talk Back" (in *Library and Information Science Review*, 17, 201-236, 1995).

Ross starts with a look at the Nineteenth Century forerunners of series books for children, including dime novels, and the library literature that accompanied their publication. She also chronicles the early attacks by librarians on the Stratememeyer series books, and one could easily substitute Goosebumps in some of the diatribes against Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. The rhetoric is almost identical.

The second part of the Ross study is devoted to an analysis of open-ended interviews with 142 avid adult readers and with others who participate in the rec.arts.books newsgroup. Even though the interview did not include specific questions about the role of series books, 62% of the committed adult readers mentioned them as playing a significant role.

In the final section of her paper, Ross looks at the texts of series books themselves (Goosebumps among them) as "evidence for how series books teach beginning readers about the process of reading itself -- strategies for making sense out of extended text." She concludes that series books are for some readers "an essential stage in their development as powerful literates."

Through Ross's article I also sought out a book called *The Power of Reading*, by Stephen Krashen (1993), which takes a look at a large number of American research studies on what contributes to the development of good readers and writers. Krashen found one major factor to be what he calls "free voluntary reading," and although he doesn't address series books directly, he does look at the contribution comics and other "light reading" make.

Incidentally, the review committee that examined the Goosebumps challenge here -- with the help of Ross's article -- has just recommended that the books be retained. Now the superintendent makes her recommendaiton to the school board, which has the final decision.

26 Apr 1996
Perry Nodelman

Wendy wrote:
"The question about Stine has received a lot of answers saying "reading anything is better than nothing." This reminds me of a discussion we had a while back, about the lack of scientific rigour in this field. How do we *know* it's better than nothing, other than anecdotally? For the people who feel the opposite, how do *they* know?"

Excellent question, Wendy---and one I've been asking myself as I've read those posts. Obviously, they can't, and we can't. For one thing, what does "better" mean? More moral? More acceptable to adults? More educational and uplifting? Is it therefore better to read a Playboy than to watch a Shakespeare play on TV? Is it therefore better to read a Goosebumps than to read nothing and instead of reading spend one's time as a volunteer helping people in need? My point, we can't simply assume reading in itself is a moral imperative, a good without question. It is, surely, possible to be a good thoughtful, happy person, and not read anything ever at all. And it's possible to spend a lifetime voraciously reading great literature and nevertheless be hateful, narrowminded, and morally repugnant (I am remembering some bad graduate school experiences here, with teachers who obviously read a lot).

And then, also, would the same logic apply in other areas of human existence? For instance, is eating anything better than eating nothing at all (perhaps it would be, for an anorexic--but would we then extend "anything at all" to include, for instance, school glue, or even the still-warm and pulsating flesh of other humans?) Or, is having any kind of sex better than not having sex at all (I leave the specific repugnant examples to your imagination)? Or, is having any politcal philosophy, including, let's say, fascism or dictatorship, better than having no political philosophy at all? ls it in fact ever possible to generalize about any human activity, including reading, to the extent of saying that any version of it at all is better than no version? Surely not. And there's a blind acceptance of the value of reading per se here that need to be explored.

And then, on top of that: are we simply assuming that reading anything, including stuff we don't approve of like Goosebumps, is more likely than no reading to lead to reading we approve of? It might--but we'd need some long-range, carefully designed studies to confirm that, one way or the other. And I suspect the answer would be, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't--depends on the particular child, depends on the circumstances, depends on why and how the junky books were being read in the first place and how adults and other children talk with children about those books during and after they've been read, depends on access to other books and people who know ways of being interested in other kinds of reading, and so on and so on.

The aspect of this that particularly interests me is this: the longer "Goosebumps" remain popular, the less adults seem to object to them. In the months after the books first became popular, there were many media reports about parents and other adults objecting to them. But in a class I taught last term, the students who did some research on adult responses to the series couldn't find a single adult willing to be very distressed by them. This so surprised them--they had heard of the earlier controversy and expected to replicate it in their own work--that they began an extensive and unproductive search for objecting adults. While everyone they spoke to expressed some concern over the fact that children enjoyed reading the books, they all concluded, as here recently on Childlit, that any reading was better than no reading at all. This is fascinating. Why has the popular tune changed so much so quickly? Is Scholastic running sublimal messages on TV? Or what? Anyone have any ideas?

Michael Joseph
26 Apr 1996

I think the ambiguity here is not a matter of sloppiness of thought, but, elegantly allows a degree of individual freedom and tolerance to define the word as one might like, within a certain scope. I would understand the truistic statement 'reading anything is better than nothing' as an affirmation of the value of exercising the imagination, or sheathing life in language.

"Is it therefore better to read a Playboy than to watch a Shakespeare play on TV?"

It might be. Is it not better (more enjoyable, enriching, morally superior) to read a really good story in Playboy than to watch a really dull version of Titus Andronicus (or Hamlet) on tv?

"Is it therefore better to read a Goosebumps than to read nothing and instead of reading spend one's time as a volunteer helping people in need?"

Of course, at the proper time.

"My point, we can't simply assume reading in itself is a moral imperative, a good without question... (long quote snipped -- fr).

Why automatically equate reading with moral rectitude or inner peace or popularity, though? How does one even begin to determine the effect of reading upon one's character? What is the control? Do you imagine that your graduate school teachers read themselves into being narrow-minded, morally repugnant and hateful people? Should they have abandoned reading in the hope of rehabilitating themselves?

"And then, also, would the same logic apply in other areas of human existence? For instance... (long quote snipped -- fr)"

I think what's being lost in the analogy is the notion of timeliness. Surely, if one understands the axiom to mean it is preferable to include the act of reading as a part in one's life, regardless of the quality of the reading matter, then, as I think one must, then, yes, if the alternative is starvation,

"Or, is having any kind of sex better than not having sex at all (I leave the specific repugnant examples to your imagination)?"

Repugnant? I can't imagine a single sexual act that is repugnant.

"Or, is having any politcal philosophy, including, let's say, fascism or dictatorship, better than having no political philosophy at all?... (long quote snipped --fr)"

Margaret Mead once said that the hardest thing for people was to generalize. It is hard, she said; but she didn't say it was impossible. When Hannah, my daughter, began to read, she would read anything, the fares painted on the sides of taxi cabs through restaurant windows, with absolute intensity and pleasure. She didn't know her forks, yet. But she *knew* reading was good, even in its most basic, bare bones, sense of making order out of chaos, or privileging her intelligence and comprehending her surroundings and culture. Surely it is not hard to agree that if reading something is NOT good, then reading anything can never be good, not the philosopher's best thought, not tomorrow's headline.

27 Apr 1996
Elizabeth H Wiley

In the March/April _Horn Book_, Diana Lutz, "Science is What Scientist Do", describes how good science and good literature are not mutually exclusive, and presents _The Case of the Mummified Pigs and Other Mysteries in Nature_ by susan Quinlan as an example. She contrasts this books and others with science books written for children, that are not written by real scientists. "These are the stories ecologists are telling their students and one another today." She ends that a child "reared on science fiction has a better chance of growing up to understand and appreciate science than on reared on informational books for young readers". To me this ties in with the conversation about historical fiction. The best historical fiction over years - though a child may not understand as an adult while he is reading- inputs valuable insight into the story of civilization. I don't think "looking for correlations between variables etc." are the exclusive property of science or that "looking for more possible meanings" is the exclusive property of the humanities.

Sat, 27 Apr 1996
Bonita Kale

Fascinating thread.

Look, I didn't know you guys were talking about -moral- good, or about a lifelong love for literature.

Reading has its good and its bad side. I think it's wonderful, but then, I would, wouldn't I? According to recent info, I might not have needed glasses so early if I hadn't read so much, so there's at least one health dis-benefit. And there are more in that line; those of us who spend time reading aren't spending that time exercising (usually).

BUT, in this society, a certain level of comfortableness with the written word is necessary. If you can't read a paper, read a tax form, read a do-it-yourself manual--everything is more difficult. If you can't write a coherent paragraph, you're handicapped.

And even before that, you get into trouble. Kids who would once have dropped out of school at 6th grade are graduating and going on to more education. They -have- to be able to read, and read fairly quickly without suffering too much.

Which is, for me, the reason why reading anything at all, for some time during the day, is better than reading nothing. The practice at grabbing groups of words and turning them into meaning, is all I had in mind. It takes a -lot- of practice to come to the point where reading is as easy as talking.

Charles Temple
27 Apr 1996

Guess that was a little unspecific, wasn't it--about humanities and science I mean? But look at what we do with a book these days: We get kids to bring their own associations to it, we get kids to debate what they thought was in it, we explore the threads to other works and other ideas, we take its main assumptions about the world and human nature and question and debate and maybe reject them, we do the same with its assumptions about us as implied readers, we pair it up with other books and see what both are saying about bravery and right behavior and how, we find out what we can about its author and the machineries that produced and published and marketed and sold it and who bought it and how much money was made. We could do more-- but this much already illustrates what my friend was saying, that sharing a text together is an act of nearly unlimited possibilities. And when we think of those multiple possi- bilities, multiplied by everybody's subjectivity, we're thinking in a different direction from the person who asks, "Hmmm. I wonder what the effect of GOOSEPIMPLES is on my kid." I take back the part about asking your dog to cook breakfast.

27 Apr 1996
Louise Meyers

I too, have been disturbed by the recent thread on the Goosebumps series popularity with kids. Not because I worry about kids reading "garbage", though. I worry more about adults deciding what is "good" literature and trying to force kids to like it, in spite of evidence that children know what they like, read what they like and resist reading what is "good" for them. Jim Trelease, noted expert on reading, has said that even a comic book is reading. Each one contains over 5000 words, and and a kid who is not allowed to read comics, or other books of their own choosing, is not going to enjoy reading, will resist reading, and probably won't become a reader. It has been proven that we learn and improve reading skills by practice, just as we learn sports and music, so those who don't read will not improve, and eventually it will be just a chore, so they will not read as adults. If children are allowed to read what they like as often as they like, and are encouraged to read everything, even "easy" books, they will see reading as fun, interesting, entertaining, and will be more likely to read for pleasure as adults. I was a voracious reader as a child, but found the "Readers" we were stuck with in grade school to be dull and repoitious. Fortunately, my second grade teacher was ahead of her time(this was in the '50s) and provided a drawer full of comic books for those who were finished with their work. I read Porky Pig, and Superman constantly. Now I know that the reading level of those comics was way above my grade, but at the time I just liked them. I saw many other children stop reading, who are not readers as adults, because they were forced to read books that someone lese chose,or because it was mad into a chore. Many reading experts have determined that readers are made one step at a time,by a series of positive experiences, not by the content or even quality of what they read, but by volume and rewarding outcomes. Every time I hear a parent tell a kid they can't have what they have chosen because it is junk, or too easy, or because they should read the "classics" or good books--I cringe, because that parent has just said "Don't read for enjoyment". And kids won't. I also think the Goosebumps series is very funny!

06 May 1996
Sandra Olen

I found the comments on this thread very interesting and wanted to comment on 30 April but there were problems with the computer network at the University. The comments show again that when we read we bring our own culture, context, world view etc to the reading of text. Charles Temple referred to the research by Victor (Joy?) of South Africa. Actually the name is Victor Nell and he is a professor of psychology at the University of South Africa. Krashen also refers to his research. The book which describes Nell's research on reading is entitled "Lost in a book: the psychology of reading" and it was published in 1988 by Yale University Press. The two types of reading he refers to are ludic reading and work reading.

One of the three antecedents for reading which Nell identifies is reading for pleasure. Margaret Meek also stated that adults who attended adult literacy classes in London all had one thing in common. They had gone to school but had never learned that reading could be enjoyable.

Although "better" is a vague word I would interpret this statement not from a "moral" viewpoint, but simply that if children do not have access to appropriate books it is better to read advertisements, comics, etc anything which they enjoy reading as long as they learn to read. You see I come from an environment where more than half the population is illiterate and where the majority of children learn to read in a language which is not their mother tongue. How else will children develop their reading skills?