Slashdot Mirror

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41...

http://jlr.sagepub.com/content...

http://works.bepress.com/leah_...

http://www.npr.org/2009/08/28/...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03...

http://www.literacytrust.org.u...:

Educational programming has also aimed to elevate knowledge of texts and literacy as in the programmes Barney and Friends (Guofang, 1999) and Reading Rainbow (Wood and Duke, 1997), which offer content on reading books and raising childrenâ(TM)s knowledge of books. This is important since researchers at the University of Sheffield have also suggested that pre-schoolers who develop an ability to talk about texts become familiar with literacy and have greater success with learning to read once they enter school (Hannon, 2000; Hannon, Weinberger and Nutbrown, 1991). "

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb =true&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&ERICExtSearch_Searc hValue_0=EJ370876&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_ accno&objectId=0900000b80060cbb

http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/povertyre search.html#crucial

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/madon/so cialpsychology280/extrareadings/Genes.htm

      http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ent3c/papers2/Turk heimer%20psychological%20science.pdf

Amongst other sources. Of course, the fact that quite large parts of the world don't have access to clean drinking water (let alone libraries) makes this a bit of a no-brainer, if a rather depressing conclusion.

Sales of books (in the UK, at least) have actually increased, despite many books here being much more expensive:

Book Marketing Literacy trust