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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

#381

Post by theshrike79 »

Detrytus wrote: post #137
inasio wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the opposite way, at least from the point of view of absorbing information. I often have a hard time with podcasts and often youtube videos because I feel I could have read the info there in a few minutes vs watching/listening to something for much longer

On the other hand, reading a novel can take you a few days, but watching a movie based on the same novel takes 90 minutes.

On the other hand, reading a tutorial on how to do something is faster than watching a video of someone doing it.

It's a lot easier to skip over the bits you already know in written form, with video you need to seek forward, listen a bit, seek forward, listen, whoops too far, seek back a bit etc.

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

#382

Post by theshrike79 »

microflash wrote: post #161
animal531 wrote: post #3

I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media. Add in the fact that you can also only read for so long before your eyes get tired and then people just naturally veer away from it.

> I think the big problem with reading is that it's much slower compared to other media. Speed is subjective. I read way faster than consuming the same thing with audio or video. Reading also gives me opportunity to wander at a pace I'm comfortable with.

You can skim through text - a skill many kids today don't have. They really think you need to READ every word.

Just skimming through a long-ass tutorial finding the bit you need seems like a superpower nowadays with the younger generation resorting to watching a 45 minute video instead.

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

#384

Post by DavidPiper »

> “I’m hoping that the tent expands. I’ve always kind of hated it when there’s only one tentpole, like Harry Potter or whatever. I want there to be more tentpoles with room for more people underneath.”

There already are? Deltora Quest, The Old Kingdom, The Chronicles of Narnia, Goosebumps, Percy Jackson, Keys to the Kingdom, Artemis Fowl, Tamora Pierce, David Eddings, Robin Hobb (depending on reading level and expectations) ... And there are plenty of non-series books for that age group as well - Kiki's Delivery Service, Howl's Moving Castle - they mentioned Bridge to Terabithia too...

The idea that reading isn't possible for young kids without the next black swan publishing/cinematic/theme-park experience, or that there just isn't anything other than Harry Potter to read seems crazy to me.

But I guess I'm not 9 anymore. Interesting that they didn't actually ask any 9-year-olds either it seems.

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

#385

Post by pests »

somenameforme wrote: post #160
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 had a similar, but different, experience. My issue is that in school I approached reading as a task to be completed in the most efficient manner possible - consuming as much as I could, as rapidly as I could, while ensuring an ability to regurgitate on demand. So I never really got to experience the joy of actually reading; in many cases I never even actually thought about what I was reading. So many books have ama…

Any book or movie that I enjoy I end up doing a deep dive on it's author, their situation in life, what was going on in the world at the time it was written, etc just to get a context for what may have inspired the creation. Sometimes a single detail about someone's past can instantly click the meaning or moral or conflict they were trying to portray.

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

#386

Post by PeterStuer »

From what I observed with my own kids, the books that were either mandatory or on the selection list to read for assignments were shockingly bad, and on top of that 100% targetted at the girl half of the class. Wether this is the result of teaching having become almost exclusively female or other cultural drives is hard to say.

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

#387

Post by knallfrosch »

Modified3019 wrote: post #344
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…

Another thing is the mandated reading comes with punishment attached. One goes into it knowing that they’ll have to puke out some key points, contort bullshit into an intro-body-conclusion format, or worse, overanalyze it for “meaning”. Early in high school among other things I had to read was “The Veldt”. Of course I hated dealing with it like everything else. I couldn’t have even told you who the author was a few w…

>>overanalyze it for “meaning”.<< I doubt overanalyzing actually happens. But pupils, including younger me, just don't understand how much more work and thought have gone into the legends they are reading. Yes, it's a 500 page tome. No, neither the blooming flower nor its color on page 356, line 38 are "random" and them symbolizing the meaning of life isn't "bullshit." Yes, a work like this happens only once a decade on one continent. That's exactly why it's one of the maybe 20 books that you read in full during your schooling.

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

#388

Post by arvinsim »

65 wrote: post #68

Another issue is books are too long. Especially non-fiction books. Book publishers know no one is going to buy a 50 page book, so there has to be filler and excessive detail to make a book long enough to be sellable. It ends up just being the same thing over and over again. The author explaining minute details about the day they interviewed someone, what the weather was like, extreme details of the interviewee's faci…

Now that we have LLMs, it's possible to trim the fat out of books and condense them to a more concise version.

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

#389

Post by gregjor »

zarzavat wrote: post #365
kqr wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Home schooling is illegal in my jurisdiction but this entire discussion is making me think about it more and more. A question though: does homeschooling require essentially that the entire family can be supported on one salary? (Either by one parent working and the other teaching, or two parents working but paying a full time tutor which becomes a 2-1=1 sort of thing anyway.)

> does homeschooling require essentially that the entire family can be supported on one salary? Yes. The main purpose of government schools is to provide a place to park children so that their parents can be more economically efficient. At least in my country, the “learning” supposedly provided is a secondary priority (your country may be different). My government is very concerned that children go to school, they ar…

Yes that sums up the actual priorities. Day care first, obedience and indoctrination second, learning anything last.

Montessori maybe a good option, but expensive and many schools have long waiting lists.

I understand homeschooling doesn’t work economically for a lot of families. It did for us. We more or less unschooled without a specific curriculum — homeschooling doesn’t have to mean imitating what goes on in schools. Read John Holt and Ivan Illich for inspiration.

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

#390

Post by red_admiral »

nevdka wrote: post #366

Maybe the books that they're trying to market aren't books that kids want to read. There are a couple of quotes that point to that: > Connor was more blunt: “Maybe you think a book about a school shooting is really important,” she said, “but kids want to read a fun book. That’s what kids want today—they want to have fun.” > But if you’re a new author who’s written a quiet, issue-oriented debut, “you might have to thi…

I think this is a big part of the problem. Publishers are looking for the next Harry Potter as if they were Y Combinator picking startups based on who's most likely to become the next unicorn.
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