科学美国人60秒 SSS 家中未读过的书仍然会激发孩子的读写习惯

（单词翻译）

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。

We know that reading is good for children and presumably for adults as well. Now a new study suggests that just being around books has its benefits—even if you don't make a point of reading them a lot. A team of researchers in Australia finds that growing up in a home with a sizable library enhances literacy, number sense and even technological¹ know-how² in later life. You can read all about it in the journal Social Science Research.

我们知道阅读对孩子有好处，大概对成年人也有益处。现在一项新研究表明，仅是待在图书周围也有好处——即使你没有特意大量阅读。澳大利亚的一个研究小组发现，在拥有大量藏书的家庭中成长，有助于提高之后人生中的读写能力、数感、甚至是技术能力。你可以在《社会科学研究》期刊上看到这项研究的所有内容。

The researchers were exploring the advantages of scholarly culture. In particular, they were interested in a curious observation that some call the "radiation effect."

研究人员正在探索学术文化的优势。他们对某些人称之为“辐射效应”的奇特观察尤为感兴趣。

"Radiation effect is a situation where children grow up around books, but they don't read books, but somehow books benefit them even though they don't read them as much as maybe their parents would like them to."

“‘辐射效应’指儿童在书的周围成长却并不读书，但书却以某种方式使他们获益，尽管他们的阅读量可能并未达到父母的期望。”

Joanna Sikora, a sociologist³ at the Australian National University. She and her colleagues parsed⁴ data collected between 2011 and 2015 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The survey assessed the literacy, numeracy and technological competency of more than 160,000 adults from 31 different societies, and it included a question about how many books participants had in their homes during adolescence⁵.

澳大利亚国立大学的乔安娜·西科拉说到。她和同事分析了经济合作与发展组织在2011年至2015年间收集的数据。这项调查评估了来自31个不同社群的16万余名成年人的读写能力、计算能力和技术能力，调查问题包括参与者在青春期时家里有多少书。

"What we were able to demonstrate was that people who grew up around books had better literacy, numeracy and digital problem-solving skills than people who had fewer books growing up but had similar education levels, similar jobs and even similar adult habits in terms of reading or engaging in various numeracy-enhancing activities."

“我们能够证明，在有书环境长大的孩子，与家中没有多少藏书的孩子相比，即使二者教育水平和工作相似，甚至在阅读或参与各种提升数字能力活动方面拥有类似的成人习惯，前者在读写能力、计算能力和数字解决问题技能上的表现也要好于后者。”

In fact, teens who only made it through high school but were raised in a bookish environment fared as well in adulthood⁶ as college grads who grew up in a house bereft⁷ of books.

事实上，那些只读完高中却在书香环境中长大的青少年，其成年后的表现和在无书环境中长大的大学毕业生一样好。

Now, how might mere⁸ exposure lead to intellectual enrichment?

那仅仅是接触书怎么就能丰富智力呢？

"So if we grow up in a house, in a home where parents enjoy books, where books are given as birthday presents and cherished and valued, this is something that becomes a part of our identity and gives us this lifelong incentive⁹ to be literacy oriented, to always kind of steer¹⁰ towards books and read more than we would otherwise."

“如果我们成长于父母喜欢看书的房子和家庭里，那书籍会被当作生日礼物，而且会受到珍惜和重视，这会成为我们身份特性的一部分，激励我们终生注重文化，永远将我们引向书籍，并让我们读更多书。”

So keep those shelves stacked with books. Your kids will not only be grateful, they'll be more likely to be able to spell grateful correctly as well.

所以，让书架上一直放满书吧。你的孩子不仅会充满感激，他们还更可能将grateful这个词拼写正确。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Karen Hopkin.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。