Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

> The pre-schooler do not really read books, that is an absurd claim.

And a claim I haven't made.

> They puzzle out words and sentences.

Exactly, which is introduction to reading. They essentially perceive whole words as glyph until some adult points them to the concept of letters (or if they are very smart, they figure it out themselves). When they enter school they start to learn that systematically. After half a year they can typically read short stories. (Here school starts in August/September, and at my family, reading the Christmas story was always the responsibility of the first-grader. Later that year there had been reading competitions and book talks in class.) By the end of class two, you have read tons of books. (Likely still below 100, but still quite some.)

> 4 months which is "forever" at that age.

Exactly and think of what they learn in 6 years. They doubled their age in that time.

> Giving historic books to grade 6 is exactly the absurd thing that will convince them books cant be fun.

I think that really depends on what you mean by historic books. Colloquial books from a century ago are indistinguishable from contemporary books, 200 years ago, they start to have some older words, but are still readable by a young child. 500 years ago is still intelligible, but for a child becomes more something to laugh at, rather then something they read, do to all those words, which are now considered to be improper. Your child likely won't read that on its own motivation, although it can be fun for a few minutes. 1000 years ago, the book will be in Latin, so your child won't even try.

The issue with books in the "native language" classes is much less their raw age, but that they are mostly plays or the new literature genre from that time. To me the play from 50 years ago, was really boring, but the fairy tales from 200 years ago was what I read at night below the blanket, when my parents wanted me to sleep. Yes school lead to me loosing interest in books, but that was not because the book was boring per se, but because we dissected the books until it was like a dead corpse.

> And unless the parents really went out of their way to introduce them to interesting books, to try again and again with different books, you are loosing them with that entirely.

Not really. The issue at that age is more the book supply then the demand. Reading is maybe 35-45% [0] of their wake time at that age. Try reading that much as an adult. At some point I needed to resort to reading the bible (the boring parts), because there was no book in my bookcase I haven't read, after I have already read all the history books in my parents bookcase, that sounded fun.

[0] To do the math:

A child sleeps >10h at night and has 1-1.5h after-lunch nap. So say 14 wake hours, Of this they spend 6 hours in school, which is mostly math or english, so say 40% reading. They take the school bus to and from school, which is mostly talking and reading. After school they also read, so maybe 2h. Then they likely stay on the playground for 3 hours or something, so no reading during that time. Before or after they do homework, most of which involves reading. English anyway and in math you also need to read the exercise descriptions. Then in the late afternoon and before going to bed they still read a bit of their own books, so maybe again 2h.

(6*0.4 + 2 + 2) / 14 = 45.7%

> All the time? Being in a train station,

Phone. Or a wristwatch if you're that type.

> a (class)room (during exam),

My last 7+ exams were all done on a computer. That clock was a lot closer than any that happen to be on a wall.

> in the kitchen, walking on the street, etc.

Phone. Or wristwatch again.

> Again, I got As ... but they were solidly in the "kind of test that convinces you literature is stupid class" kind of questions. Unless there is some kind of actual interesting insight to be had, this question just shows how empty the whole exercise is.

You are not making much sense.

You got As in the type of question that required demonstration of a broad swath of literature ... but that just shows you how empty the question is?

WTF?

If by summer reading assignments, are you referring to Scholastic summer reading programs? I quite enjoyed those as the available options for reading were very wide and I could always get some new Goosebumps books from the book fairs. But those are parent initiated, not something the school assigns. They can't really assign anything over the summer as they have no authority to do so outside of some IEP designed to get a particular student back on track.

First grade kids are still learning letters and are not reading books yet. Your family is an exception. Second grade kids are NOT reading tons of books yet. That is just untrue.

> Exactly and think of what they learn in 6 years. They doubled their age in that time.

I do know what they learn in 6 grade. You seem to start with some imaginary learning.

> Colloquial books from a century ago are indistinguishable from contemporary books

They are 100% distinguishable. By words, by sentence construction, by topics, by the way plot develops. Oh, and mostly by how characters act.

> Not really. The issue at that age is more the book supply then the demand.

Literally the only source of interesting books are parents. And no, english and math textbook does not count as fun reading. Neither does Shakespeare assigned in school. There is no infinite supply of fun books coming to kids.

> They take the school bus to and from school, which is mostly talking and reading

No one reads books on their way to school these days. They just dont.

> After school they also read, so maybe 2h

Kids dont read after school except for homework.

> English anyway and in math you also need to read the exercise descriptions.

This is ridiculous.

> Then in the late afternoon and before going to bed they still read a bit of their own books, so maybe again 2h.

They dont. Because, unless their parents tried again and again and radncomly hit something fun, they dont even know fun books exist.