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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

#101

Post by gwbas1c »

octobus2021 wrote: post #10

Don'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 real…

Consider an activity that requires reading. For example, my 8-year-old plays "Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom," which involves a lot of reading. She gets stuck and then Googles hints.

Remember: All children are different. I have 3 kids, and their interest level and approach to reading is very different. My oldest loved being read to starting around 6 months, and we started getting into chapter books when she was 5-6. My other two wouldn't sit still for books until around 18 months, and my almost-6-year-old doesn't have the attention span for a chapter book.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#102

Post by imzadi »

bluerooibos wrote: post #99
gwbas1c wrote: post #88

Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have. I went to a private "college prep" high school, and the amount of assigned, mandatory reading was insane. I spent so much time reading assigned novels that I just didn't have time to read for pleasure. (And why read for pleasure if I already spent 30+ minutes reading a boring / awful novel as part of my home…

> rediscovered reading Any tips? I didn't, somehow. After leaving high school, then university, my brain went into full on "be productive all the time" mode. My brain somehow doesn't think reading is a good use of my time, so I've settled for audiobooks when falling asleep or on long drives. The last book I was able to devour and actually enjoyed was the Harry Potter series, which ended just before I went to universi…

Well, first, audiobooks totally count.

Have you tried Dungeon Crawler Carl?

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#103

Post by MisterBastahrd »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #35

My daughter is 12 now, and reading tons more than when she was 9. The difference is now she has twice daily access to the high school library versus once a week access to an elementary library. Not sure how much it generalizes, but what would have had her reading more then would have been a well stocked manga section in the elementary library and daily access. Manga really is an accessible way to get used to reading,…

One of the problem with a lot of schools is their layout. Yes, they have libraries. But many students have no way to access those libraries during lunch hours except by way of special passes. All school libraries should, by default, be necessarily directly adjacent to the common area so kids can browse during recess in the same way that they are adjacent to school cafeterias.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#104

Post by lostlogin »

tigen wrote: post #96
SpaceManNabs wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah this sounds false. I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?

What is the case, they literally are not allowed to have (any) books in the classroom? Can you be specific as to the mechanism here? Do you yourself have any link to any evidence? You (the article) are making the claim.

I think the argument is quite subtle.

There is a lot of book banning occurring and the rate seems to be increasing fast (see links below).

There are penalties in some jurisdictions and zero teachers want to face the kind of shit that has gone on with parents and politicians, churches and local body meetings.

So rather than search out each book they have and keep track of its status, then recheck a few weeks later, just remove the lot. Teachers do not have time for this crap, and why risk their jobs?

It’s chilling and it’s hard to see how this isn’t the aim. ‘Who ever needed more than a bible?’

https://pen.org/report/narrating-the-crisis/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/16/books/book-bans-public-sc...

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#105

Post by WalterBright »

gwbas1c wrote: post #88

Take a closer look at how much homework children have, and how much assigned, mandatory reading children have. I went to a private "college prep" high school, and the amount of assigned, mandatory reading was insane. I spent so much time reading assigned novels that I just didn't have time to read for pleasure. (And why read for pleasure if I already spent 30+ minutes reading a boring / awful novel as part of my home…

I avoided all optional English class in school. But I still read at least one book a week, sometimes two.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#106

Post by lupusreal »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #30

I can only speak to my own personal experience, but I was a voracious reader as a child and then sorta just... stopped. The longer life went on, the more I was instructed to ignore or hide my personal feelings and so I just didn't find the characters in the books for my age group, who were largely written by women, to be relatable. There was as large a stretch between the main characters' behavior and what I was taug…

> I just didn't find the characters in the books for my age group, who were largely written by women, to be relatable

Were you reading contemporary books or older books? I found that there's lots of fiction for boys, written by men, from the 19th and 20th centuries. A lot of it is very good, many popular classics like Treasure Island. Edit: I see you mentioned that one.

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#107

Post by [deleted] »

tigen wrote: post #96
SpaceManNabs wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah this sounds false. I have quite a few teacher friends in Georgia and NYC, and I can tell you that this is the case for them. Organizations that represent teachers have said so themselves. Hard evidence is best though. Do you have numbers to dismiss their claims?

What is the case, they literally are not allowed to have (any) books in the classroom? Can you be specific as to the mechanism here? Do you yourself have any link to any evidence? You (the article) are making the claim.

[deleted]

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#109

Post by rimunroe »

tigen wrote: post #84
janalsncm wrote: post #56

> Indeed, several people I spoke to mentioned that middle-graders’ lack of phones created a marketing problem in an era when no one at any publishing house has any idea how to make a book a bestseller other than to hope it blows up on TikTok. “BookTok is imperfect,” said Karen Jensen, a youth librarian and a blogger for School Library Journal, “but in teen publishing it’s generating huge bestsellers, bringing back th…

The defunding thing sounds like a bit of obligatory politics. "In some states, teachers can’t even keep a classroom library because they have to protect themselves from book bans" Yeah this sounds false.

What sounds false about it?

A (very straightforward) search surfaced this article https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmq54/florida-teachers-are-...

Re: Book people think they know why 9-year-olds stop reading for fun

#110

Post by farceSpherule »

My idea of reading for fun as a kid, and even now, included(s) reading technical manuals, research papers, encyclopedia, or other materials where I am gaining knowledge.

I have always hated reading fiction and never saw the point in wasting time on it. I would prefer to waste that same time on watching a movie.

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