Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
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Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#2Growing up - we had a lot of programs externally to encourage us to read. I wonder if kids still have the same kind of things
For example, we had things like a Six Flags reading program, Pizza Hut Book It for free pizza, and hand picked Texas Bluebonnet Books. We also had book fairs.
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#3I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media.
Add in the fact that you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired and then people just naturally veer away from it.
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#4I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media. Add in the fact that you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired and then people just naturally veer away from it.
I gravitate to text forums because watching/listening is too slow. Videos/images are good for instruction on how to do something though.
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#5Personal experience: when I was a kid, I instinctively knew when a book tried to "teach" me something or instill some world view and I immediately know the intention and found that boring. The really exciting books were those that either didn't try to teach anything or those that didn't make it so obvious. Might it be that the contemporary literature for children is constantly trying to push an educational agenda and kids instinctively despise that (as I did)?
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#6I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media. Add in the fact that you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired and then people just naturally veer away from it.
If you read more than a little, it's much faster compared to other media.
True about eyes getting tired, though: I try to take a break every few hours.
> If I wanted to read, I'd go to school —B-H
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#7Before I looked at the article I guessed it was because schools are making reading as un-fun as possible
That's why I stopped reading for fun, probably when I was 15 or so. Seems they've just accelerated it
Sure enough, that seems to be their guess too. Maybe our school systems kinda suck
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#8I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media. Add in the fact that you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired and then people just naturally veer away from it.
If you read more than a little, it's much faster compared to other media. True about eyes getting tired, though: I try to take a break every few hours. > If I wanted to read, I'd go to school —B-H
Nice Mike Judge ref there...
Agreed about being faster than a lot of other media - at least in terms of density. Also, the tired eyes thing can be a bonus too. For years I had trouble falling asleep at night and I'd stay up later because I didn't like going to bed until I knew I would conk out immediately.
Now I get in bed and read about a half hour or hour before I want to be asleep. It gives me something to focus on while relaxing and when my eyes get too tired or my mind starts to wander, I know it's time to sleep.
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#9When you can read for fun, it's fun.
When your teacher criticizes you for not reading the boring book he/she ordered you to read, you stop enjoying reading and stop reading.
It's the teachers' faults.
Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun
#10Don't know why this is on HN but anyways.
My youngest will be 9 soon. Finding books for him is pain. I started trying more in the last few weeks, grabbing more or less random things from my local library (beginning chapter books, chapter books). Most of them are series, he liked a few (Galaxy Zack, Time Jumpers, Desmond Cole books), did not like others (Magic Tree House, something called Byte, Code Breakers, and really anything else I gave him). He mostly outgrew Geronimo Stilton books.
They do have book fairs at school and we always go, but we rarely buy anything as it's mostly gifts. We're trying to get book from libraries as opposed to buy them.
They do have an awesome library at school and he spends a few hours per week there and I see that he's taking some books from there, but it's mostly Captain Underpants, Stick Dog, and other comics.
I absolutely DESPISE Dan Pilkey's books (Captain Underpants and Stick Dog) as well as My Weird School (and other Dan Gutman's products), they really dumb things down and basically lead kids away from "regular" (ie long-form) books. I my opinion they can lead to behavior issues in kids, however it's possible that kids simply start reading them during that period when hormones start kicking in.
I have a bunch of books from DK Publishing (coffee table encyclopedias) and leave them an frequented areas of the house, and notice that kids check them up every once in a while, at least that's something. They are designed for people with decreased attention span, if you want to learn about a subject, you read a page or two and you're good.
My older kids stopped reading a lot around that time (~10yo), mostly after reading My Weird School and Captain Underpants and similar crap.
Older kids did go through the entire Lemony Snicket series though (way before NetFlix series came up) so that's something.
My 8yo has an iPad from school (we were forced to get one from school when he did kindergarten remote) but his time is very strictly controlled, and it's only for studying (no games). He does have access to an old XBox but only on weekends and for a limited time. He will not have a smart phone for a long time, that's where we lost our older kids (around 13).
So yeah, it's a major problem...