Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class • Hacker News Board

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#231

Post by spicyusername » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 11:35 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #122

spicyusername wrote: post #115

I never understand where these anecdotes come from. I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less reading, and my kids, and many of their friends, read full books all the time and have since they were quite young. The curriculum in our public school regularly requires kids to read full books for class, and the kids you'd expect from the homes you'd expect read plenty. So whatever the problem is, if there eve…

Okay, now what's the literacy rate in your county? What does the data actually say?

A quick Google search says 67% of elementary school kids scored at or above reading proficiency in my county. 73% for high school.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#232

Post by ruszki » Sun, Dec 14, 2025, 11:53 PM UTC

spicyusername wrote: post #115

I never understand where these anecdotes come from. I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less reading, and my kids, and many of their friends, read full books all the time and have since they were quite young. The curriculum in our public school regularly requires kids to read full books for class, and the kids you'd expect from the homes you'd expect read plenty. So whatever the problem is, if there eve…

> The curriculum in our public school regularly requires kids to read full books for class

That doesn’t mean that kids really need to read any single of those books any time in history.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#233

Post by tomcam » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 12:02 AM UTC

eimrine wrote: post #86

tomcam wrote: post #38

To me the ability to read a whole book is a competitive advantage in the job market.

For what industries?

Any. Even if you're doing a blue collar job, understanding the fundamentals (or at least the specifics about a particular subfield) makes you "the guy" and adds some job security. As a programmer I often got ahead just because I'd read all of the C standard library, the Windows API docs, etc.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#234

Post by credit_guy » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 12:59 AM UTC

How about us, the adults?

In the latest "War on the rocks" podcast [1], Ryan Evans asked his guest, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson, what books he has read lately (he often, maybe always, asks that question). The guest answered basically that, as a politician, he does not have time to read books anymore, because he is very busy with other things.

I think most listeners of the podcast are absolutely ok with this. Pål Jonson is an important guy, who has a job to do. That job is to keep Sweden safe, and, as Sweden is now part of NATO, by extension to keep NATO safe as well. If he does his job well, then Sweden and NATO together might be able to deter aggression by Russia. If taking time to read books means he has less time to do his job well, then he should not read books.

But if you replace Pål Jonson with somebody else, who are we to say that their job is less important? And if we take a kid, the way the kid understands their jobs is that they need to get ready for life,for their actual, paid, job when the time will come. And if in doing that, they are more efficient by using ChatGPT, then why should they read entire books?

[1] https://warontherocks.com/2025/12/getting-faster-stronger-re...

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#235

Post by eudamoniac » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 1:02 AM UTC

serf wrote: post #230

eudamoniac wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an aversion to giving bad grades to the inevitable bulk of students who just won't read it.

something still changed; i've been in classes where the bulk of the students got bad grades and that never stopped the instructor from handing them out. if we use grades as a yardstick for elementary progress and efficacy then you'd think it would be a bigger deal if a single cog in the system decided to systematically add inaccuracy to the measure simply because a failing student irks them.

You have the principal actors reversed. Teachers would generally love to fail more students. It is the administration that prevents or disincentivizes it.

Grades are a yardstick merely for which district gets more prestige and funding. There is absolutely no incentive for anyone with authority to fail bad students. Reprimands or terminations result from a teacher giving consistently below average grades.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#236

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 1:04 AM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #234

How about us, the adults? In the latest "War on the rocks" podcast [1], Ryan Evans asked his guest, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson, what books he has read lately (he often, maybe always, asks that question). The guest answered basically that, as a politician, he does not have time to read books anymore, because he is very busy with other things. I think most listeners of the podcast are absolutely ok with this.…

[deleted]

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#237

Post by j7ake » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 1:41 AM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #234

How about us, the adults? In the latest "War on the rocks" podcast [1], Ryan Evans asked his guest, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson, what books he has read lately (he often, maybe always, asks that question). The guest answered basically that, as a politician, he does not have time to read books anymore, because he is very busy with other things. I think most listeners of the podcast are absolutely ok with this.…

Literature is like classical music. One can argue Beethovens 9th symphony is one of the greatest pieces of music of all time, but that doesn’t mean we all have time to sit through 70 minutes a day listening to it.

I bet important people don’t even have time to sit and watch a full movie.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#238

Post by brightball » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 1:45 AM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #208

brightball wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it wasn't a threat. He knew exactly what he'd been struggling with from 1st grade on (officially minor ADHD) and we were trying really hard to keep him off of medication. Since the program has finished he's asked to do it again several times (but we haven't because it's expensive). I've thought about teaching him programming by having him build his own clock trainer. It's hard to explain to random people on the…

Well that is interesting and if you had results then that's all that matters for your family of course. But sorry to clarify I'm still hung up on the "8 handed clock" thing - what does that mean? What information is displayed on the clocks other than hours, minutes, and seconds?

I didn’t sit in on it so I can’t say for sure. My son got up to the 2nd version of the 6 handed clock. You have to have perfect accuracy within a certain amount of time to advance to the next tier.

Even with the 6 handed I don’t remember exactly what each was though. I asked Grok and this is what it said.

> In the Arrowsmith Program’s Cognitive Intensive Program (CIP), the primary exercise is the Symbol Relations exercise, commonly known as “Clocks.” This involves reading analog clock faces that progress from 2 hands to up to 8 (or sometimes more) hands. Each hand on the clock represents a separate time (an independent position pointing to a specific hour/minute on the clock face). Participants must interpret the positions of all hands simultaneously, understand the relationships between them (e.g., angles, relative positions, and sequences), and record the times accurately under time pressure. The multiple hands do not represent different concepts symbolically (like hours, minutes, seconds); instead, they increase cognitive load to train the brain’s ability to process and relate multiple pieces of information at once. This strengthens the Symbol Relations cognitive function, which supports logical reasoning, comprehension, seeing connections between ideas, cause-and-effect understanding, and abstract thinking. Progression adds more hands as mastery is achieved, making the task more complex to build capacity in handling interrelated symbols and concepts. The CIP focuses intensively on this exercise to accelerate improvements in reasoning, processing speed, and related skills.

Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#239

Post by marbro » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 1:49 AM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #161

spicyusername wrote: post #115

I never understand where these anecdotes come from. I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less reading, and my kids, and many of their friends, read full books all the time and have since they were quite young. The curriculum in our public school regularly requires kids to read full books for class, and the kids you'd expect from the homes you'd expect read plenty. So whatever the problem is, if there eve…

> I live in a rural Red State, a place you'd expect less reading, and my kids, and many of their friends, read full books all the time and have since they were quite young. > The curriculum in our public school regularly requires kids to read full books for class, and the kids you'd expect from the homes you'd expect read plenty. Reading the expected books for school is very different from reading a lot privately at…

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Re: Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

#240

Post by phil21 » Mon, Dec 15, 2025, 2:18 AM UTC

credit_guy wrote: post #234

How about us, the adults? In the latest "War on the rocks" podcast [1], Ryan Evans asked his guest, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson, what books he has read lately (he often, maybe always, asks that question). The guest answered basically that, as a politician, he does not have time to read books anymore, because he is very busy with other things. I think most listeners of the podcast are absolutely ok with this.…

Modern society has gotten so “efficient” and expectations so insane that yeah, anyone at that level of a professional career - especially with a family - I would in no way expect to have time to read anything. Every last inch of their life is going to be hyperscheduled to oblivion.

We have systematically removed any chance for “unproductive” downtime for any high performers if they want to continue to be seen as a high performer.

Not surprising in the least to me, and society as a whole is worse off because of it. Good luck when this person needs to make a hugely impactful and thoughtful decision for society while in their position of power.