How helping kids slow down and learn to enjoy books can help their academic achievement and encourage a love of reading.
The problem. The New York Times recently reported, “the reading skills of 12th graders tested in 2005 were significantly worse than those of students in 1992.” The study, conducted by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, went on to add, “The share of those proficient in reading dropped to 35 from 40 percent in 1992.” While heartbreaking, this is probably not surprising to many people in education. For a while, it has been evident that more and more kids are losing interest in reading. Why?
Poor comprehension skills. Difficulties with reading can be easily missed if a child’s decoding skills are good. Many kids are able to decode and pronounce the words quite fluently, which looks an awful lot like reading. But looks can be deceiving. When a reader is asked, ‘Can you tell me what happened?” and the answer indicates a poor understanding of the material, there may be a problem with comprehension. For some kids, this may indicate a learning disability; for others, it may be a matter of motivation or effort.
Habits of Mind. Reading is a demanding mental task that requires skills such as being able to focus, persevere, cope with frustration, and delay gratification. It also requires that the reader actively and purposefully engage with the text, rather than passively waiting for meaning to appear. Unfortunately, many teen activities in our current culture, such as TV viewing, video game playing, and other high stimulation activities, promote opposing skills and behaviors. Many kids have simply never learned the skills for working their brains around the depths of difficult content.
The Consequences. In the early grades, children learn to read; in middle school and beyond, they read to learn. Without good comprehension skills, kids lack the ability to manage more difficult text, and their progress across the curriculum suffers. Sadder still, they often lose interest in reading. The process has become more difficult, yet their skills have not caught up. They view reading as tedious, boring, and useless. It doesn’t offer the immediate reinforcement they crave. Unfortunately, reading for pleasure has become somewhat of a rarity among kids.
How You Can Help. Model and encourage reading any way you can. Introduce kids to high interest materials and read along with them. Let them hear you talking about interesting or exciting stories you’ve read. Form a book club: let the kids choose the books, and make it a point to meet regularly to discuss them. Be sure to bring any concerns you have about a child's reading skills to the attention of a parent, so they can follow up with school personnel, if necessary.
For specific strategies to encourge reading for all ages, check out Raising a Reader and Still Raising a Reader.
