You bring up many good points here, but there is one more to add: If parents want their children to read and be more literate, then the parents themselves need to set an example. Children learn much more from watching what their parents do than from what their parents TELL them to do. I became a reader because my mother spent many hours ignoring the housework and reading, and she made it seem so pleasurable that I started reading, too. What troubles me is the high percentage of parents I see who are on their phones in the library while they're expecting their kids to pick out books, and the number of parents I see buried in their phones instead of chatting with their children when they're in a park or playground. You can't expect your children to acquire--and enjoy--language without that kind of modeling.
Your comment really hit home for me. I realized that I never, ever, saw either of my parents read a book! I was, however, very lucky to have an older brother who entered me in a monthly science book club and I started to enjoy reading in my teens.
100% in agreement with Holly's views 🫡 Modeling reading habits is something we have to get back to: if the act of reading is framed as a school thing or a chore, not a regular part of a healthy life of the mind, then the battle's over before it's begun.
This piece had a ton of emotional resonance: Tolkien and Hergé and Brian Jacques were not only touchstones of childhood for me, but sites where my sense of myself and my world could expand in four-dimensional Technicolor. "A good book is an adventure into a world that is a lesson unto itself" was the standout insight - the best way into a person's head is through the heart.
It’s hard to quantify and worth exploring but I think kids could be reading more than ever, just not books. Every notification, post, comment section, frozen text captions during a video, meme text on a video, the sometimes very long captions on social media videos etc IS all reading.
Probably not effective for critical thinking skills and long form thought though…
I could not stop looking at the "then and now" photos in this post. Perhaps not much has changed. When people are out in public with strangers (Oh the Horror!) the tendency seems to be, shut everyone out and stay stuck in ones own personal world! Loved your Back to Basics comments.
I loved this article. Not so much the beginning of the article with all the terrible statistics, but you're clearly from my generation, and I had forgotten all about the Scholastic news from the book fairs! 🥲 It’s really great that R.L. Stine is still writing/publishing - I had my fair share of “Goosebumps” - and gives credence to Stine’s writing advice. This was total nostalgia for me, oh, and why I’ve wanted to get certified to teach since Covid. There's just that math part…
You bring up many good points here, but there is one more to add: If parents want their children to read and be more literate, then the parents themselves need to set an example. Children learn much more from watching what their parents do than from what their parents TELL them to do. I became a reader because my mother spent many hours ignoring the housework and reading, and she made it seem so pleasurable that I started reading, too. What troubles me is the high percentage of parents I see who are on their phones in the library while they're expecting their kids to pick out books, and the number of parents I see buried in their phones instead of chatting with their children when they're in a park or playground. You can't expect your children to acquire--and enjoy--language without that kind of modeling.
Great point! Lots of research shows that phone-based parenting produced a phone-based childhood.
Your comment really hit home for me. I realized that I never, ever, saw either of my parents read a book! I was, however, very lucky to have an older brother who entered me in a monthly science book club and I started to enjoy reading in my teens.
Wow, what a great brother to have! It's true that our siblings can influence us as much, or sometimes even more, than our parents.
100% in agreement with Holly's views 🫡 Modeling reading habits is something we have to get back to: if the act of reading is framed as a school thing or a chore, not a regular part of a healthy life of the mind, then the battle's over before it's begun.
This piece had a ton of emotional resonance: Tolkien and Hergé and Brian Jacques were not only touchstones of childhood for me, but sites where my sense of myself and my world could expand in four-dimensional Technicolor. "A good book is an adventure into a world that is a lesson unto itself" was the standout insight - the best way into a person's head is through the heart.
It’s hard to quantify and worth exploring but I think kids could be reading more than ever, just not books. Every notification, post, comment section, frozen text captions during a video, meme text on a video, the sometimes very long captions on social media videos etc IS all reading.
Probably not effective for critical thinking skills and long form thought though…
Good point - almost like a contextless literacy.
I could not stop looking at the "then and now" photos in this post. Perhaps not much has changed. When people are out in public with strangers (Oh the Horror!) the tendency seems to be, shut everyone out and stay stuck in ones own personal world! Loved your Back to Basics comments.
I loved this article. Not so much the beginning of the article with all the terrible statistics, but you're clearly from my generation, and I had forgotten all about the Scholastic news from the book fairs! 🥲 It’s really great that R.L. Stine is still writing/publishing - I had my fair share of “Goosebumps” - and gives credence to Stine’s writing advice. This was total nostalgia for me, oh, and why I’ve wanted to get certified to teach since Covid. There's just that math part…
So true ...... I hope a lot more folks read this (while their phones are recharging at least ....)