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Owning Two of a Certain Object Indicates Your Kids Will Do Well in School. Can You Guess What It Is?
Why we were reading instead of playing video games? Nobody told us to read, but you copy what your family do.
Said that, yes, I've always been sourrounded by more than one bookcase. Easy access to books encourages reading, kind of obvious, don't?
Did the study control for that?
Those families who were given books had books, but they didn't value knowledge, so the books had no effect on the kids' success n school. How many of those homes had TV's? How many had video games?
As my parents used to tell us, it's not about how much money you have; it's about the choices you make about what you do with that money. Those choices are based on and reflect your family's values - and those values have a lot to do with how well the kids do in school.
But I get it -- the idea that, if you think books are important enough that you need bookcases to hold them, then you value reading in some way. Learning to read (and, by indirect inference, learning to write) involves a lot of the skills that can be applied to almost any learning discipline.
There are no studies that indicate actually reading the books is important. Just being able to buy the books is the important part.
It is possible for parents that value knowledge and are successful in life to afford books but don't necessarily need to read them to their kids in order for their kids to grow up to be successful and value knowledge (just like their parents).
There was a study in the states where low-income families were given free books and it made no difference whether the families read the books to the kids or not, they still didn't fair any better in school. (See the book Freakonomics or check out their blog post on the topic: http://www.freakonomics.com/2007/06/15/the-benefits-of-reading-to-children-tested-by-a-data-pool-of-one/)
As someone pointed out to me the other week, e-readers won't make all books obsolete. They will replace the titles of the moment, the best sellers or compulsive reads like pulps and serial fiction. But there will always be some titles that will have to exist in the physical world, left open on a table or browsed regularly.