Recently, some Midwestern relatives visited us in California and, much to my surprise, the three children ranging in age from 8 to 10 sat in our living room, pulled out books, and immediately started reading them. After lunch, they asked their mother if they could return to their books.
I was stunned. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw children reading books under similar circumstances.
Many times, especially in restaurants, I have seen entire families glued to their cell phones before, during, and even after their meals. A closer look at those cellphone screens often revealed cartoon characters, not reading text.
When I asked the parents who were visiting what had created their children’s deep love of reading, they responded: “We have hundreds of books in virtually every room in our house.” They added, “And we encouraged them to read. Now they do it on their own.”
I know from experience that many homes today have very few books. In some homes I have visited, it is difficult to see a single book.
When I talked with our relatives’ children, I sensed immediately a quality of thinking that far exceeded what I had experienced in many other children their age. Their advanced reading skills clearly contributed to their advanced thinking skills.
One of the reasons for their deep love of books was undoubtedly the same as what I experienced during my own youth. In the Midwest, especially during the extremely cold winters, reading was often the only way to escape from the desolate, snowbound world by immersing oneself completely in a book.
However, this family had taken other measures that guaranteed their children would become avid readers—and, indeed, equally proficient thinkers. Withstanding the pressures of cell phone usage, they had eliminated the electronic gadgetry that is so immersed in youth culture and activities everywhere today.
After our family visit, an article soon appeared in the Los Angeles Times, titled “English, math scores lag in L. A., state, nation on annual ‘report card’.” The article reported, “Not only are few students scoring as advanced or proficient, but fewer are achieving a ‘basic’ ranking, the next level down, according to the overall results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress.” Furthermore, “The percentage of eighth-graders reading below ‘NAEP Basic’ level was the largest in the assessment’s history, and the percentages of fourth graders who scored below NAEP-Basic was the largest in 26 years.”
Most teachers and professors would not be surprised by these low reading scores. We have seen reading proficiencies drop in our own classrooms. Many students today will openly admit they “really don’t like to read.”
I decided to consult my shelf-worn 1977 World Book encyclopedias to see how reading was viewed five decades earlier. Those books are often my time capsules into another time and place. The description, spread across 9 pages, celebrated reading as “one of the most important skills in everyday life.” It added that “99 percent of all United States citizens over 14 can read and write.”
In 1977 reading skills were universally acknowledged as essential to any type of job or learning. Yet, today, we see the role of reading diminished in our culture, schools, and homes.
Another article regarding reading, titled “Short Books Are Perfect for Our Distracted Age,” appeared in The New York Times. Margaret Renki, the author, expresses strong support for shorter books that can be read “in full on a rainy Sunday afternoon or in the lamplight hours between supper and bedtime.”
I agree. Shorter books may be the preferred books of the future. But I am still concerned about the implications.
Many authors often wrote shorter novellas along with their epic-length novels. The difference is the readers of their times could and would read these longer novels. Many students today, as Renki’s article suggests, are too “distracted.” They are often reluctant to read longer literary works and prefer to read plot summaries on the internet.
There are many suggested reasons for the lower reading scores. Columnist Dan Walters believes school shutdowns during the pandemic are a major factor. He also questions whether the elimination of phonics-based reading instruction contributed to California’s low reading scores.
Still another possible factor in the plummeting reading scores is that literature has been deemphasized and even removed from many schools. As a result, students today often can’t or won’t read books. They want them to be summarized by the teacher, professor, or an internet source.
Academic Problems and Skills Essential Reads
Another question is whether it really matters if children read on-screen or printed text. Evidence suggests that it does. In an article titled, “Will you learn better from reading on screen or on paper?,” Avery Elizabeth Hurt points out, “if you really need to learn something, you’re better off with print. Or at least that’s what a lot of research now suggests.”
The emphasis on the word learn in this title is crucial. Reading not only involves information gathering. It also involves generating the brain to assimilate and ponder new ideas, not just gathering superficial information.
The reading process contributes greatly to cognitive development. Every word on the printed page is a symbol of an idea. When that word intermingles with all the other words and ideas in the young reader’s cognitive universe, it creates new ideas and insights that constantly expand into more profound ideas.
This all begins very humbly when a child sits on a couch or elsewhere in the home and reads a book that explores the inner potential of their vast, intellectually expanding universe.
The factors that affect lower or higher reading scores are many and varied. However, as I learned only a few weeks ago, parents who encourage reading and make books available to their children will inevitably place them at the higher end of the reading and learning spectrums in our schools—and ultimately in life.
