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Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

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Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#161

Post by watwut »

hgoel wrote: post #78
watwut wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I used to read for pleasure, I did it because it was pleasurable. Not because it would be the hard thing. It was fun and easy. What this particular chain of thoughts shows is that adults don't read for pleasure either, they associate it with an uncomfortable hard thing one should to do "build character".

This is conflating hard with unpleasant. A child just learning to read is going to find it hard to do, yet through adults pushing them to do the hard thing, they learn to read and sometimes begin to find it to be pleasurable. Building most skills is hard, yet that doesn't exclude taking pleasure in it. Many of us taught ourselves to code, the fact that we enjoyed it doesn't mean it wasn't also hard. We've all learned…

I said it waa easy, because it was easy. I am not conflating hard and unpleasant, you ignore my experience that reading for fun was easy.

You did not struggled and it was not hard. Kids books were written to be easy at age they were targetted at.

If the issue was just "hard" videogames woulsndo the job.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#162

Post by watwut »

helterskelter wrote: post #108
larrik wrote: post #33

It's worse than this. I have kids in school. Our school system is one of the top in Connecticut, which is the quintessential "school" state (if any rich kid on TV goes away to school, it's probably to CT). These kids (all of them, not mine) can't really read. Not like when I was young. (I'm not even old! I graduated in the 2000's!) They certainly can't write. They have no stamina to do an essay or a test like when I…

I read an Economist article a few years ago that mentioned a literature professor at Columbia who said that most his undergrad freshmen students have never read a book cover to cover. Of those that have, their favorites were young adult fiction. Most of his students couldn't even focus on a single sonnet. Apparently kids nowadays are having difficulty focusing on individual sentences, and a lot of them are just effec…

Young adult fiction being the fing young adults read the most makes 100% sense.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#164

Post by riffraff »

talon8635 wrote: post #149
lukewrites wrote: post #77

This is a result of living in homes where parents neither read to children nor model reading for pleasure. Thanks to the various waves of “education reform”, there is less literature on offer and less time for pleasure reading. However, if you’re reading them exciting things at home (and telling them about the exciting stuff you’re reading), they will love to read.

Less literature on offer? It seems to me the easiest time in human history to access any information whatsoever, including any and all literature. The quality of modern literature may well be declining, but the is literally endless reading material everywhere

I think GP meant it's not just "laying around", you have to actively look for books.

When I was a kid I had a ton of books from my parents in the house and when bored I could pick one up.

That's not the same as having a computer, tablet or phone, cause kids will gravitate towards non-reading activities.

(If everyone in the family owns an e-reader this obviously would be a different situation)

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#165

Post by globular-toast »

garciasn wrote: post #40

I read for pleasure; ~100 books a year on average. When I go anywhere, I am reading. My daughter informed me that the mothers of her teammates were outright making fun of me for having my 'nose buried in a book,' before every event. I asked her if they were making fun of everyone else for having their nose buried in their phones; she laughed and said they probably were not. Why is reading for fun something that's wor…

It's not about the reading. It's about: a) being different, and b) making them feel guilty for not reading themselves. I used to get the same for being vegetarian, for much the same reasons. These days it's less weird and, oddly, I feel like people are almost envious that I get to have a "cool" label and they don't. It's strange because it's quite easy to get the label yourself if you want it, but it's hard to change habits.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#166

Post by globular-toast »

lukewrites wrote: post #77

This is a result of living in homes where parents neither read to children nor model reading for pleasure. Thanks to the various waves of “education reform”, there is less literature on offer and less time for pleasure reading. However, if you’re reading them exciting things at home (and telling them about the exciting stuff you’re reading), they will love to read.

Nor do they have books in the house. It's a great time to be a book lover because you can accumulate a huge library for next to nothing by harvesting all the stuff people are giving away. But you can go into a house with children these days and see not a single book in sight. It's sad.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#167

Post by reverius42 »

watwut wrote: post #162
helterskelter wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read an Economist article a few years ago that mentioned a literature professor at Columbia who said that most his undergrad freshmen students have never read a book cover to cover. Of those that have, their favorites were young adult fiction. Most of his students couldn't even focus on a single sonnet. Apparently kids nowadays are having difficulty focusing on individual sentences, and a lot of them are just effec…

Young adult fiction being the fing young adults read the most makes 100% sense.

"Young adult" fiction is supposed to be for like 11-15 year olds. By high school I'd think you should be reading regular "adult" material. I think the curriculum generally agrees and assigns what we'd call adult literature in high school English.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#168

Post by madaxe_again »

jrflo wrote: post #157
zhivota wrote: post #115

We recently had some behavior issues with our kids - they didn't want to do activities outside the house, they hated reading, they hated anything that required even the slightest discomfort or effort. We decided to cut device usage way down - they get 1 hour in the morning to play whatever games they want on computer, tablet, console. Then they get 1 hour before bed to watch TV. The rest of the day, no devices. We ar…

It's not even just kids, this is true for all people to be honest. Not saying we should go back to an agrarian society but maybe unrestricted access to dopamine slot machines isn't a good idea for your brain.

I had a really effective inoculation against the Skinner box 20+ years ago, when I became addicted to an MMO. It took my life utterly turning to shit and barely escaping being kicked out of university for me to wake up.

Since, I’ve always been aware of and wary of the possibility of this kind of dopamine cycling.

I see it in others. My wife discovered YouTube shorts a year or so ago, and now she’ll lose entire days to watching 20 second clips of reality TV.

Thing is, with a grown ass adult you can’t limit their screen time. You have to let them dig to the bottom of the pit all by themselves, and only when they ask for help to get out of it can you help - otherwise nothing is learned.

It’s honestly not at all dissimilar to friends who I’ve seen fuck their existences up with drugs. They’ve had to hit rock bottom before they quit - or they died. Can’t think of anyone who just went “actually, today I won’t have any heroin”.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#169

Post by watwut »

reverius42 wrote: post #167
watwut wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Young adult fiction being the fing young adults read the most makes 100% sense.

"Young adult" fiction is supposed to be for like 11-15 year olds. By high school I'd think you should be reading regular "adult" material. I think the curriculum generally agrees and assigns what we'd call adult literature in high school English.

Young adult is NOT 11-15 year olds. By literally any definition.

> I think the curriculum generally agrees and assigns what we'd call adult literature in high school English.

The curriculum assigns what they should read to get overview of history of literature and general education. You are not meant to like most of it, you are meant to learn about the writer and period from it. The curriculum does not assigns what they "should" read for pleasure or like.

Re: Reading for pleasure is sharply down among schoolkids, report shows

#170

Post by sersi »

an0malous wrote: post #49
larrik wrote: post #33

It's worse than this. I have kids in school. Our school system is one of the top in Connecticut, which is the quintessential "school" state (if any rich kid on TV goes away to school, it's probably to CT). These kids (all of them, not mine) can't really read. Not like when I was young. (I'm not even old! I graduated in the 2000's!) They certainly can't write. They have no stamina to do an essay or a test like when I…

Devil’s advocate: what’s the point? Is it important to have reading and writing skills if everything can be transcribed through AI? Or maybe it’s not directly important, but the ability to hold your attention on something for 30-60 minutes is? Is reading the best medium for education, or something more like Kahn Academy videos? I also wonder how the Montessori schools are doing, since I believe they focus less on rot…

At the Montessori school my kid goes to, children read a lot. They have access to the Library, can ask the teacher to go there when they need/want to. The school has a no phone policy, children are not allowed to bring them to school. Computers are only in the computer room for children to access when they want to do research and there are no laptops in the class room.

It works well and the children are both happy and do well academically

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