Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class
- Comments here are very strange, “Reading books should go the way of cursive! Education is more like childcare anyways.”
It’s bizarre stuff to say. What would you have the education system do? Put iPads in front of kids all day?
by stevewodil
5 subcomments
- I don’t know if this matters much. When I was in school it was rare to actually read a book assignment anyways, and I’m sure with LLMs now it’s less.
I’ve started to have a positive association with reading only in the last few years, I wish schools didn’t force books onto children and make them think they hate reading for their whole lives.
- All of the literature we recommend in school is outdated, so it makes sense to me that kids would not want to read them.
More school districts should experiment with contemporary novels that make sense in a modern context.
- Kids are either into reading or not. There's a critical mass when kids read because they like it, to the point where I need to remind them to read less.
by functionmouse
1 subcomments
- Maybe I would've had something intelligent to say about this article, had I been allowed to read it.
- I’ve noticed some of these kids can’t tell time on analog clocks nor read cursive handwriting.
- When I was in high-school 20 plus years ago excerpt based reading assignments were fairly common in non-honors/advanced placement classes. Except there were whole textbooks full of excerpt based assignments instead of computer software for this purpose. Anecdotally I took honors and AP English and those classes destroyed my desire to read for years. I only read a few of the assigned books cover to cover because they were either dreadfully boring or the expectations for how quickly we should read them were more than I, a very average student, could manage. Usually some combination of both. Rather than relying on cliffnotes and sparknotes alone I would typically read the first chapter, the last chapter, and then some chapter in the middle so I was prepared for tests and discussions.
At the end of the day the AP exams didn't test you on your knowledge of The Scarlet Letter or The Great Gatsby. The exam tested you on your ability to read an excerpt and answer questions about it as well as your ability to write a multi-paragraph essay from a prompt while a proctor wearing the most hideous smelling blackberry perfume bathed you in an olfactory assault every time they walked by. In-classroom writing assignments were the most effective way to prepare and we did them frequently. As a reward for doing well you got to skip a couple of 100 level English credits in college.
Sure there are lots of brainrot distractions available to kids today, but it feels like the education system never takes a moment to look inward and acknowledge that The Scarlet Letter and My Antonia are dreadfully boring reads. It took me three tries to finish 1984 because the beginning is such a slog. It is strange to say kids aren't interested in reading (from the article) when a lot of the subject matter is objectively dull. Four of the six books in the article header are books I don't even want to think about let alone read.
- It just seems to me that the entire purpose of school is not clear. What precisely is the purpose of "English" class? What? To read and speak English? Ok, then why can't kids test out of it most of the time? Is the purpose to be knowledgeable about a canon of literature? Why can't people test against that?
The truth is that pedagogy and instruction is just a lazy way of providing childcare. So who cares what they do with their time.
- To me the ability to read a whole book is a competitive advantage in the job market.
- Un-paywall'd: https://archive.ph/lcAZ3
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