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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

#171

Post by fatnoah »

As the parent of a 16 year old, I find this discussion fascinating. My son used to love reading books, from when we started with the "Bob Books" in Kindergarten, through somewhere around 5th or 6th grade.

He still loves reading, but mostly for items of topical interest. He does it for fun, to entertain himself, and to learn new things...but it's not books! He scarfs up online content like it's going out of style.

TBH, I had no idea just how much he was reading until I paid attention to how much mispronounced advanced vocabulary he was using, which was a sign of seeing and not hearing the words. The other evidence is just how well he does on crosswords, Wordle, etc. The vocabulary is definitely there.

All of this is to say that the article seems to focus on "books" rather than "content." Are kids not reading for fun, or are they not reading _books_ for fun?

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

#172

Post by SpaceManNabs »

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.

Teachers are leaving the profession en masse because they feel unsafe, unsupported, underpaid, and harassed by national organizations.

Teacher unions list book bans as one of the primary reasons for leaving. They have data and testimony backing that up. We see legislation and organizations all over America.

Here is a quick article describing the number of books being banned and the effects it has on teachers [1]. It list numbers. There are numerous articles all over the internet from well respected organizations like the NYT saying the same stuff.

The numbers are already presented by them. We see the teachers leaving. We know education is suffering from systematic national pressures from both political sides. Feel free to look it up. hell on first principles, book banning has a direct effect on libraries teachers can have when they include such classics. Again, what numbers do you have? Or just first principles logic to dismiss them at all?

[1] : https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/educators-fi...

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

#173

Post by pomian »

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…

I would up vote trying audiobooks. They are great for traveling, also cleaning up and other chores. Classic narrators make everything fun to listen to. There are voices for lulling you to sleep. Others to make the stories exciting. The Harry Potter books have two narrators -they are both great, in different ways. Lord of the rings is much more fun in audiobook format. Try to find audiobooks read by Simon Vance, for example - he reads the Master and Commander series, and the original James Bond series. Have fun.

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

#175

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#176

Post by wonger_ »

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…

I'm not an avid reader, but I've rediscovered reading in the past couple years. A few tips that help me:

1) Keep a list of book recommendations mentioned from HN, podcasts, friends, etc. Eventually, some will be recommended twice or more, and that may be enough to tell your brain "this will be worth it."

2) Try non-fiction if you're usually a fiction person, or vice versa. I grew up enjoying only fiction. But now I realize I enjoy non-fiction a lot more.

3) Don't stick with boring books for more than a couple chapters. I've been using thriftbooks.com, so it's affordable to toss a few dollars away and try again.

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

#177

Post by rossant »

farceSpherule wrote: post #110

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.

Ha! Same.

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

#179

Post by tigen »

lostlogin wrote: post #104
tigen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, ju…

That pen.org article focuses on "number of bannings" but mixes together state law (predominantly Florida alone) and individual school district policy choices.

It also avoids discussing which age is appropriate for these topics. Most of the support for including explicit sexual violence seems to be about high school, and even there it's not clear that explicit content is necessary to these purposes (I'm not familiar with the books in question).

Then there are the books by Kendi etc. and an example where that was required reading in an AP course (college-level). Sure, that's debatable but isn't of much relevance to reading, reading for enjoyment in particular, by young kids, which is the topic of this HN post.

The pen.org article says "books aren’t harmful—censorship is." So it gives no credence to any kind of concern about age-appropriate topics.

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

#180

Post by kevindamm »

boringg wrote: post #128
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…

When can we change our education to promote better educational outcomes instead of training for the test or alternatively being devoid of fundamental knowledge/skills? It feels like we should be progressing in this area much faster then we are. Yes - i know - its way to broad of a question.

I'm sure it's more complicated than this but something that definitely has had an influence -- when budgets for a school district are determined by how many students pass vs being left behind, there is an outsized incentive to prepare students for the test instead of for more broadly reasoning or for enjoying the practice of learning.
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