TV Watching Seen Harming Schoolwork

Television watching, that familiar whipping boy of education, took a few more licks Tuesday at the Anaheim convention of the National Catholic Educational Assn.

Archie Lapointe, executive director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, told the convention that surveys clearly show that the more time a child watches TV, the poorer he does at school--especially in reading.

“Television viewing, which is everybody’s scapegoat, apparently deserves to be,” said Lapointe.

“The more television that students watch, the more negative an effect it seems to have on their reading performance. Nine-year-olds . . . were watching about 30% more television in 1984 than (that age group did) in 1975. They were watching six hours or more a day (in 1984).”

Lapointe noted that the reading ability of 9-year-old students declined from 1975 to 1984, especially among minority children. The national survey found that the number of black 9-year-olds able to read even rudimentary material had shrunk from 30% to 16% from 1975 to 1984.