f yo paywall

​

>These days, when I explain to a fellow parent that I write novels for children in fifth through eighth grades, I am frequently treated to an apologetic confession: “My child doesn’t read, at least not the way I did.” I know exactly how they feel—my tween and teen don’t read the way I did either. When I was in elementary school, I gobbled up everything: haunting classics such as The Witch of Blackbird Pond and gimmicky series such as the Choose Your Own Adventure books. By middle school, I was reading voluminous adult fiction like the works of Louisa May Alcott and J. R. R. Tolkien. Not every child is—or was—this kind of reader. But what parents today are picking up on is that a shrinking number of kids are reading widely and voraciously for fun.

The ubiquity and allure of screens surely play a large part in this—most American children have smartphones by the age of 11—as does learning loss during the pandemic. But this isn’t the whole story. A survey just before the pandemic by the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that the percentages of 9- and 13-year-olds who said they read daily for fun had dropped by double digits since 1984. I recently spoke with educators and librarians about this trend, and they gave many explanations, but one of the most compelling—and depressing—is rooted in how our education system teaches kids to relate to books.

What I remember most about reading in childhood was falling in love with characters and stories; I adored Judy Blume’s Margaret and Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse. In New York, where I was in public elementary school in the early ’80s, we did have state assessments that tested reading level and comprehension, but the focus was on reading as many books as possible and engaging emotionally with them as a way to develop the requisite skills. Now the focus on reading analytically seems to be squashing that organic enjoyment. Critical reading is an important skill, especially for a generation bombarded with information, much of it unreliable or deceptive. But this hyperfocus on analysis comes at a steep price: The love of books and storytelling is being lost.

This disregard for story starts as early as elementary school. Take this requirement from the third-grade English-language-arts Common Core standard, used widely across the U.S.: “Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.” There is a fun, easy way to introduce this concept: reading Peggy Parish’s classic, Amelia Bedelia, in which the eponymous maid follows commands such as “Draw the drapes when the sun comes in” by drawing a picture of the curtains. But here’s how one educator experienced in writing Common Core–aligned curricula proposes this be taught: First, teachers introduce the concepts of nonliteral and figurative language. Then, kids read a single paragraph from Amelia Bedelia and answer written questions.

For anyone who knows children, this is the opposite of engaging: The best way to present an abstract idea to kids is by hooking them on a story. “Nonliteral language” becomes a whole lot more interesting and comprehensible, especially to an 8-year-old, when they’ve gotten to laugh at Amelia’s antics first. The process of meeting a character and following them through a series of conflicts is the fun part of reading. Jumping into a paragraph in the middle of a book is about as appealing for most kids as cleaning their room.

But as several educators explained to me, the advent of accountability laws and policies, starting with No Child Left Behind in 2001, and accompanying high-stakes assessments based on standards, be they Common Core or similar state alternatives, has put enormous pressure on instructors to teach to these tests at the expense of best practices. Jennifer LaGarde, who has more than 20 years of experience as a public-school teacher and librarian, described how one such practice—the class read-aloud—invariably resulted in kids asking her for comparable titles. But read-alouds are now imperiled by the need to make sure that kids have mastered all the standards that await them in evaluation, an even more daunting task since the start of the pandemic. “There’s a whole generation of kids who associate reading with assessment now,” LaGarde said.

By middle school, not only is there even less time for activities such as class read-alouds, but instruction also continues to center heavily on passage analysis, said LaGarde, who taught that age group. A friend recently told me that her child’s middle-school teacher had introduced To Kill a Mockingbird to the class, explaining that they would read it over a number of months—and might not have time to finish it. “How can they not get to the end of To Kill a Mockingbird?” she wondered. I’m right there with her. You can’t teach kids to love reading if you don’t even prioritize making it to a book’s end. The reward comes from the emotional payoff of the story’s climax; kids miss out on this essential feeling if they don’t reach Atticus Finch’s powerful defense of Tom Robinson in the courtroom or never get to solve the mystery of Boo Radley.

Not every teacher has to focus on small chunks of literature at the expense of the whole plot, of course. But as a result of this widespread message, that reading a book means analyzing it within an inch of its life, the high/low dichotomy that has always existed in children’s literature (think The Giver versus the Goosebumps series) now feels even wider. “What do you call your purely fun books for kids?” a middle-grade author recently asked on Twitter. A retired fifth-grade teacher seemed flummoxed by the question: “I never called a book a fun book,” she wrote. “I’d say it’s a great book, a funny book, a touching book … So many books ARE fun!!”

And yet the idea that reading all kinds of books is enjoyable is not the one kids seem to be receiving. Even if most middle schoolers have read Diary of a Wimpy Kid, it’s not making them excited to move on to more challenging fare. Longer books, for example, are considered less “fun”; in addition, some librarians, teachers, and parents are noticing a decline in kids’ reading stamina after the disruption of the pandemic. You can see these factors at play in a recent call for shorter books. But one has to wonder whether this is also the not-entirely-unsurprising outcome of having kids interact with literature in paragraph-size bites.

We need to meet kids where they are; for the time being, I am writing stories that are shorter and less complex. At the same time, we need to get to the root of the problem, which is not about book lengths but the larger educational system. We can’t let tests control how teachers teach: Close reading may be easy to measure, but it’s not the way to get kids to fall in love with storytelling. Teachers need to be given the freedom to teach in developmentally appropriate ways, using books they know will excite and challenge kids. (Today, with more diverse titles and protagonists available than ever before, there’s also a major opportunity to spark joy in a wider range of readers.) Kids should be required to read more books, and instead of just analyzing passages, they should be encouraged to engage with these books the way they connect with “fun” series, video games, and TV shows.

Young people should experience the intrinsic pleasure of taking a narrative journey, making an emotional connection with a character (including ones different from themselves), and wondering what will happen next—then finding out. This is the spell that reading casts. And, like with any magician’s trick, picking a story apart and learning how it’s done before you have experienced its wonder risks destroying the magic.

Anecdotes by a person passing along more anecdotes is not the most convincing basis for an article.

Here’s a study that actually has some data behind it. Seems like there was a much larger drop in teens than preteens according to this data. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if a big cause of declined reading is the increased curricular workload that is common nowadays. I know that when I’m tired and more busy I will rarely read for fun. Also, social media seems like it probably wouldn’t help reading rates, and I imagine/hope that kids aren’t getting on social media until their teens.

Pay wall, yo.

The whole world's telling them that fun is something you buy and if something doesn't pay off instantly, it's not worth doing.

That's not really cultivating a reading mindset.

I didn’t get past the paywall, so pretty much just a comment on reading in general.

This is how it works at my house. The school library will only let kids check out books from “their” grade level. None of my kids read at the level expected for their grade, they either fall above or below it. Our public library opens after they leave for school and closes before they get home. If you can get all the stars to align, all the extra-curriculars cancel everything, and you can make it during the 2 hours they are open on Saturday, they don’t have anything on the page long list of books you are looking for. If you download the Libby app, the list of books for kids is pretty slim in our library system and the wait times are long.

So then you are stuck buying the books. And there’s only so much time, money, and space in your house.

Part of the reason I fell in love with reading was there was more room to have FUN reading in school. Class took a bi-weekly trip to the library with freedom to choose a book and write a few lines about what the book was about. Taught me what I liked and should continue to seek out vs. what I wasn't into.

That joy is taken away when kids are limited - my mom let me read whatever I wanted because she knew I wouldn't understand certain words, was at the limit of my own imagination. I tried reading Stephen King at a super young age because the allure of "mom's books" was so intriguing.

There are also a lot people who insist their kids don't like reading, but then insist that what their kids like isn't "real reading" and admonish choices like graphic novels, video game/movie tie ins that get them to buy in, etc. There are a lot of reasons "kids don't read."

I teach high school and a lot of my kids are also reading, just maybe less "traditionally." A lot of my students love fanfiction, creative writing, etc. It may not be perfect but they ARE reading. To the naked eye, I wasn't reading a lot for fun in high school (and I was a voracious reader too) but I also wasn't going to openly express I was reading horny fanfiction either. Sometimes kids ARE reading but might be a little embarrassed about what they're exploring.

I've been to Reading and it's really not that bad.

I'd be interested in an international study on this, since the article is implying it's an international issue and yet says a big part of the problem is the American "SAT-passing factory" approach to education.

So I found out today that the Atlantic is owned by Steve Jobs’ widow. Which feels worth considering when reading about how it’s not screens turning kids off reading.

Its peer pressure. Monkey see, monkey do, and MOST children do not read novels or nonfiction text unless assigned homework. Also, US adults read less books these days toos. Kids grow up seeing their peers and their adult role models NOT reading and develop similar habits.

Now that being said...I would not be surprised if youth today actually read more words per day than previous generations ..We are staring at our screens all day and the internet needs to be read in many places still.

As a kid myself, I found this article rather droll. Aside from the asinine premise (how, exactly, does one measure an entire group's "love" of reading?) I found it to be irritatingly verbose and irrefutably short-sighted.

Anyway, I have to get back to class now that I've boofed my last whip-it for my tiktok scribers.

I guess I’m pretty lucky because my kid is super into reading. We will even read books together so we can talk about them.

Currently reading Out of the Dust with her and I’m surprised at how well she has handled some of the darker themes.

My now-10 year old reads a lot so 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

If you read, your kid probably will want to, too.

Kids don't just "fall in love" with reading out of thin air. This falls on the parents. When I was a child, my father read me a story every night before bed. On weekends, my mother would take me to the library. Had I not been exposed to books, stories, and physical books on shelves, would I have grown up loving to read? Probably not.

I can do all the reading I want for free online in the comment sections.

I do think parents take some responsibility here too. School is there to teach you TO read. Parents have to encourage a love of reading and demonstrate it. If I ask my friends who don't read, if their parents read, the answer is no.

I picked up reading becuase my dad reads. He would read the hobbit to me at night, and lord of the rings. I would SEE him reading and ask about the stories and be so fascinated by these other worlds. And then at 8/9 when I started reading novels, he would share HIS books with me, and read the things I picked up and we would discuss Harry potter and eragon and whatever else I'd picked up. He was always happy to take me to the book shop and buy me books, never complained that I read them too fast or that they were too expensive, never told me I couldn't read something becuase it was adult fantasy and not child or young adult.

And if non of that had happened, if he hadn't of cared or shared that with me, I probably never would have picked up a book, and I certainly wouldn't be a reader to the extent I am now.

I think one reason is, kids are forced to read things by other people. One of the quickest ways to get me to lose interest in something or actively dislike it, is to tell me I have to do that thing or else. Kids need more independence and time to discover things on their own.

When you're assigned reading and you hate it, that's what you remember. It will just be one of those things you had to do, that once you're in adulthood you're grateful you don't need to anymore. Kids need to be empowered to make their own choices about what to read.

Kids aren’t really falling in love with reading because of less free time, technology, and being forced to read stuff they don’t want to

Not every kid doesn't read, tween here, my best friend and I both love reading, and my bookshelf is completely filled to the brim. I'm currently reading The Giver, by Lois Lowry, and waiting to get Ruin And Rising from the Shadow And Bone trilogy. Have a lovely day/evening/night!

Kids aren't reading because adults aren't reading. Parents might say "you have to read because it's good" but then they don't do anything to facilitate a love of reading.

Different things are contributing to this, but I think technology is the main culprit. And not so much in an "it makes kids too stupid to read!" sense (though I have my concerns about tech addiction and how it might damage the attention span) but in the sense that it competes for their time. Any time you introduce a Cool New Thing, that's going to mean less time for the old things. These days it's normal for teens and even preteens to have smartphones, books have a hard time competing with that.

I'm also thinking that it's a problem that perpetuates itself. Like, they're reading less as preteens, which means that they aren't developing reading skills as well as they otherwise could. This causes them to read less and less over time, because reading is boring when it's too difficult.

With their reading choices now being restricted to pretty either the Bible or the Gun Lover's Almanac, I can kind of see how they're falling out of love with it.

But according to the rightwingers, kids don't have brains anyway and therefore don't need to use them, or comprehend how the real world works.

More child abuse is being committed in the name of book banning than by all the Catholic priests combined.

Dude how can you expect people to read nowadays with an attention span of less than a minute?

Do kids get these paywalls too?

Honestly I'm sure people wanna blame smartphones but having active shooter drills and seeing that your nana and papa did nothing about climate change, while realizing how fucked everything is might have something to do with it.

Is this really that complicated? Video games and tv that have engineered to be as fun and addicting as possible >>> using mental energy to read boring words off a page.

[deleted]

Look this is happening everywhere but it is genuinely worse in the USA and your idiot politicians want use banning books to "make America great". Your country is screwed

[removed]

Strange books these days.

Not one mention of Harry Potter series in the Atlantic article. This is why the kids aren't falling in love with reading.

I just walked downstairs to my computer from telling my kid to turn off the flashlight and put his book away... some things never change.

There is stuff in books not delivered in the same way in any other format. I’ll teach my kids to love yo read to the extent I can influence them.

I would guess that part of the problem is due to the relative needs of subject matter. Science and math are perceived as more important than they used to be. Partly parents don’t read as much, too, and kids mimic their parents.

The way I fell in love with reading must have been back in primary school, I stuck to the same few books until I discovered Doctor Who and realised that Doctor Who books existed. That is almost certainly why I'm such a bibliophile today and most of my collection remains Doctor Who books. Basically, I found a genre/series that I was interested in and that allowed me to branch out into all kinds of books. I'm still mainly fantasy and sci-fi but I did recently read 1984.

My brothers hated reading because of all the assigned reading in elementary school where you had no control over what you had to read. They were interested in captain underpants back then and now barely read any books. Where I would do the reading to get it out of the way and then go read what I wanted. I currently read a lot having multiple books of different reading levels going at a time.

Reading requires effort and concentration and most kids lack both qualities.

Because parents are not teaching them to fall in love with reading. Most teachers aren't doing their job the right way because they chose the wrong profession. But it's also not for everyone, it depends on the person.

Everything has to be right now! Kids have no patience to read a book…

Unfortunately, we're onto the 4th generation of kids that have gone through a post Thatcher education system. This was her end goal.

I think she’s already married to Michael Kramer.

[removed]

Kids aren’t reading because they’re addicted to TikTok, Facebook and YouTube. They’re right where the globalists and the American Left want them: pliant, subservient and stupefied. Amen.