What’s Amazon’s Kindle got to do with kids and literacy?

What’s a “Kindle”? It’s an amazing new wireless e-book reading device from Amazon. Click here for a brief introduction:

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• “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free” - Frederick Douglass
• “To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” - Victor Hugo
• “A man is known by the books he reads.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

In addition to being a cool new piece of technology, the Kindle represents a breakthrough development in the effort to combat an alarming trend: declining levels of literacy among Americans. Although there has been measurable progress in recent years in reading ability at the elementary school level, all progress appears to halt as children enter their teenage years.There is a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans. Most alarming, both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates. These negative trends have more than literary importance. The declines have demonstrable social, economic, cultural, and civic implications. How does one summarize this disturbing story? As Americans, especially younger Americans, read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they have lower levels of academic achievement. (The shameful fact that nearly one-third of American teenagers drop out of school is deeply connected to declining literacy and reading comprehension.)With lower levels of reading and writing ability, people do less well in the job market. Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement. [Taken from To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence, National Endowment for the Arts, November, 2007]

http://www.nea.gov/research/Research_brochures.php

To see an introduction of the Kindle, by Jeff Bezos of Amazon, click below:

For an inspirational message about children’s literacy, click on this video:

Connect2books.org is a non-profit organization that aims to combat declning U.S. literacy skills by distributing e-books and e-readers (such as the Kindle from Amazon) to low income families. Read on to learn more..

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