[Code_Poet]

Even if YOU don't have children, this is a big deal—this essentially means a highly-illiterate work force for the future. As an educator, I can read with students in a classroom, have them read aloud, and even assign reading outside of class (which they generally don't do, mind you), but it doesn't help if adults and parents aren't making an effort to encourage by example.

If I'm a kid who wants to be a web developer one day, and I decide to follow Paul Irish on Twitter, you had better bet your buttered biscuits it makes an impact when Paul is doing nothing but tweeting links to industry articles left and right. This goes beyond the simple need of just having mommy read you a bedtime story...

[zhemao]

It would be worrying if reading ability was actually getting worse, but the article mentions that this is not the case.

> Reading scores among young children have improved since the 1970s.

> The reading scores among 17-year-olds, however, remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s.