The demise of pleasure reading

There have been many reports recently with headlines such as "Why don't teen read for pleasure like they used to?" or "Why aren't teens reading like they used to?" or "U.S. children read, but not well or often: report". Most of the articles seem to reference this article from Common Sense Media.

The statistics, quoted from Common Sense Media, are not encouraging:

• 53% of 9-year-olds vs. 17% of 17-year-olds are daily reader
• The proportion who "never" or "hardly ever" read has tripled since 1984. A third of 13-year-olds and 45% of 17-year-olds say they've read for pleasure one to two times a year, if that.

Two of the articles linked above also delve into reading proficiency. Did you know that only about 1/3 of fourth grade students read proficiently? Or that another 1/3 read at a below basic level?

As a citizen of the US, this concerns me. As an educator, a language educator no less, this concerns me. As a father of young boys, the oldest of which (2 years 8 months) loves being read to, this concerns me. As an individual who tries to set aside at least a little time for reading every day, this concerns me.

Most of the articles are fairly quick to single out rising rates of media usage as the primary culprit. Rates of television viewing have remained basically stable, but computer and handheld device screen time has risen precipitously. Most articles also mention, however mostly in passing, that screen time could be spent in reading activities.

I would also point to digital (visual) media as a primary culprit. Between watching a video and reading a story, watching videos has a lower cognitive load than reading, and people tend toward lower cognitive loads when they can. Watching videos is more immediately gratifying than the slower process or reading. Together, this is a near death sentence for pleasure reading.

People are quick to bring up the examples of the Harry Potter series and The Hunger Games, forgetting that these phenomena were not primarily a victory of reading. These were primarily social movements, drawing people in because all their friends were reading them, not due to an intrinsic interest in reading. It's that intrinsic interest that defines pleasure reading.

While many young people are reading via social media and the like, I would be loathe to call this pleasure reading. That type of reading only builds language skills for that arena: social media. The language used among peers does not readily transfer to the skills needed to comprehend or appreciate texts of fiction, non-fiction, biography, science, technology, etc.

It is popular today to hear people talk about "digital literacy" and to make trendy assertions that today's students are simply different and have different "learning styles" than students of the past. Reading, however, still does and will form the foundation of an educated society. Reading needs to to be a primary concern of parents, educators, and society as a whole.


Follow Matthew on Twitter @MatthewTShowman

Libraries = accessibility and possibility

“I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.” (Ray Bradbury)

There are unfortunately haves and have nots. It is an inconvenient truth. As much as Americans tend to maintain the image of the self-made man or woman, i.e. the person who worked hard and became successful, the statistics show that upward mobility is increasingly a fantasy in the US. Rags-to-riches stories, while inspiring, are increasingly rare according to socioeconomic data.

In today's economy, access to information is essential. Knowledge truly is power. Libraries offer a place where those who cannot afford to buy books, who cannot afford a computer and internet access, or who cannot pay for tertiary education can access the information, ideas, and skills essential in a knowledge economy. Libraries are hubs of accessibility.

Children born into poverty are known to have less access to reading materials. Krashen (2004) noted that they tend to live in neighborhoods with few bookstores (if they could afford the books) and under-resourced libraries, and they attend schools with poor classroom and school libraries. Children born into low-income households often start formal schooling with a "word gap", in part due this limited access. Hart and Risley (1995) found that 3-year-old children from welfare families had an average vocabulary size of 525 words, compared to 746 words for children from working-class families and 1116 words for children from professional families! Recent research from Stanford has shown that 18-month-old toddlers from disadvantaged families already have a vocabulary gap of several months.

Libraries can and do make a world of difference. The key is access. Krashen, Lee and McQuillan (2012) make a compelling case for the positive effects well-resourced school libraries in addressing the negative the effects of poverty on student learning. For disadvantaged adults who want to work hard and change their lot in life (the American dream), public libraries are essential sources of information, both printed and electronic. For low-income parents of small children, libraries may be the only place to access books to read aloud to children, a major step in children's linguistic and educational development.

Yet for all this, people in poverty often have the worst library resources. More affluent families with the ability to purchase books and ebooks and internet access often have the best, even if they don't really utilize them. Even great ideas like BookMooch require internet access of some kind.

Let's make sure books get into the hands of those who need them. Let's make sure children (who do not choose the families they are born into) aren't punished for simply being born into the "wrong" family. Let's make sure communities and schools have libraries, good libraries. Donate books you don't need. Work to start libraries in communities without. In an age of budget cuts and discussions about how to spark job creation, let's not be so short-sighted as to deny the resources people need to prepare themselves to be the entrepreneurs and visionaries and job-makers of the future.

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.” (Walter Cronkite)


Resources
Hart, B., and Risley, R. T. 1995. Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
Krashen, S. 2004. The power of reading. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, and Westport, CONN: Libraries Unlimited (second edition). 
Krashen, S., Lee, S.Y. and McQuillan, J. 2012. Is the library important? Multivariate studies at the national and international level. Journal of Language and Literacy Education, 8(1): 26-36.

Libraries have media and are social: The original social media!

Shhhhh! This is a library!

Isn't this the stereotype? Libraries are quiet places for independent reading and study, not places of for socializing. Libraries certainly can be this if you want them to be, and I'm sure some libraries are filled with cavernous silences. But that is far from true in many, if not most, modern libraries.

Libraries are often hubs of activity. Libraries are often sites of public lectures on any variety of topics. They also often host public forums. You can usually find a bulletin board posted with flyers and announcements of community events. Lots of public libraries also host reading times for children. If you're lucky, you may even find authors stopping by a library to read from their own books.

Informal discussions also abound. Want to discuss books? Librarians are often happy to talk with you, when they're not busy, of course. Do you see people browsing through books you've read or perhaps the recent additions? Strike up a conversation. Most people are happy to converse. You already know you share an interest in books; just take it from there. It's social the way social was always meant to be.

I haven't even mentioned clubs. Many libraries have book clubs. There are books clubs for adults. There are books clubs for youth. There are manga clubs. Given that libraries have now become digital hubs as well, there are clubs for online and computer gamers. Even non-media clubs such as boy scouts and quilting guilds meet at libraries. It's truly a community center.

I've heard people say that once they're out of school, bars and churches tend to be the only places to go and meet people. I beg to differ. Make your local library a new habit. It was the original social media source.

Libraries: Gardens of discovery

“Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book...” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

I keep lists of books I want to read. Do you? Some of the books on my list come from friends' recommendations. Some of these come from references in other books. Some of these simply come from walking in the library, gardens of literacy.

One thing I love about libraries is that I inevitably come across books I never would have looked up nor would people I know be likely to recommend. Walking through the stacks, whether looking for a specific book or simply browsing, I inevitably come into contact with books about topics or with viewpoints that I never would have considered. They all mingle together, whispering, "Read me." And joy of joys, I can (for free).

Why are libraries better than bookstores? Aside from new volumes, do you see libraries trying to promote recent bestsellers? Do you see libraries trying to push you toward "bargain bins"? Libraries: the place where every book gets equal air time. Libraries: the place where the old and the new, the pulp and the significant, the popular and the repulsive take their places together and invite you to chat.

What are libraries better than Amazon? Amazon tries, bless them, to make recommendations: "Related to items you've viewed"; "Customers who bought this item also bought"; "100 books to read in a lifetime." It's useful. It brings to light other books I might like. It helps Amazon make a profit. But where are the book recommendations for topics I never imagined? Where are the books I might actually hate (but would be good for me)? At libraries they all sit side-by-side, welcoming me to try.

Where but libraries can ideas and opinions rest on equal footing? Where but libraries can the democratization of ideas reach its zenith? Where but libraries can all people of all ages from any educational or socioeconomic background commune with the both the greatest (and sometimes perhaps the feeblest) of minds to their hearts content or disgust? Indeed.

"In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Sometimes books are the best teachers?

Most expat families I knew in Changsha homeschooled their children. Generally this was done for linguistic reasons, the children not speaking Chinese well enough. Even those families whose children did go to Chinese schools often provided extra lessons at home. This would be homeschooling by virtual necessity.

In the US homeschooling is understandably less common. Recently, however, I've found myself in conversation with several families who teach their children at home. Their reasons have varied, but at least two of these families have chosen to homeschool, at least in part, because their children were not being challenged in their previous public schools. I've been very impressed with the curiosity and knowledge of these children and by their willingness and ability to interact well with adults. One thing has stood out for me with all of these families: the prominence of reading.

All of these kids read a lot. Two parents (different families) remarked that their children often grab books and teach themselves. One child likewise told my wife he often just gets a book and teaches himself. These parents are not lazy, but rather these students are motivated, curious and have the reading skills needed to pursue their interests. It reminds me of a family I met in 2003 whose daughter chose to study Latin (as an extra subject) once pulled out of the local school.

In a post last week, Stephen Krashen discussed the role access to books plays in promoting literacy. Jeff McQuillan also has also authored a study on the effects of print access. As common sense would seem to make obvious, students with higher literacy tend to perform better academically, as they are better prepared for texts, both written and aural. Overall, the importance of reading and of creating a culture of reading at home and at school has been reinforced over the past two weeks.

My family recently relocated to the US. Most of the books in our wall-o-books had to be left in China. Amusingly, I brought so many of my sons' Chinese language children's books back to the US with me, that two bags were searched in the airport to make sure I wasn't transporting "illegal literature". Now in the US, we go to the library a lot, but I miss the heavy physical presence of books in our home. We may end up homeschooling our children, also partly for linguistic reasons. Whether we do or not, literacy will remain a theme in our home.

How do you foster reading in your homes or classrooms?

Follow Matthew on twitter at @MatthewTShowman

A few other interesting articles
Cullinan, B.E. (2000) Independent reading and school achievement. Assessment of the role of school and public libraries in support of educational reform, Rockville, MD: Westat, Inc. [Accessed 5 January 2014].

Cunningham A.E. and Stanovich, K.E. 2001. What reading does for the mind. Journal of Direct Instruction, 1(2), p.137-49, [Accessed 5 January 2014].

Dickinson, D.K., Griffith, J.A., Golinkoff, R.M. and Hirsh-Pasek, K. 2012. How reading books fosters language development around the world. Child Research Development [Accessed 5 January 2014].

Duursma, E., Augustyn, M. and Zuckerman, B. 2008. Reading aloud to children: the
evidence. Arch Dis Child, 93(7), p. 554-57, [Accessed 5 January 2014].

All reading is not equal

When it comes to pleasure reading, what should your students or children be reading? What do you encourage them to read? Classic or modern? Fiction or non-fiction? Academic or non-academic? Newspapers? Magazines? Comic books? The backs of baseball cards?

What about physical vs. digital?

As Common Core State Standards (CCSS) begins to roll out across much of the country (for better or worse), the debate about what students read and should read has increased. CCSS calls for more exposure to informational texts and deemphasizes literature. Some support the change, others do not. What I do not see in the debate is how to create lifelong readers, which all but requires pleasure reading.

I'm a firm believer of self-selection. Readers naturally tend to gravitate towards readings that not only suit their interests, but also match their relative language ability. That is, while I may enjoy a comic book or a youth fiction now and again, or while I may occasionally challenge myself with a text like James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses, I generally and naturally tend to read texts that fit my level of skill and comfort. I'm sure other readers do the same. Whatever genre your students or children like to read is probably just fine, just so long as they're reading and learning to love their reading experiences.

The issue becomes a bit more muddled when we talk about medium. Is reading from online, on e-readers, or on tablets equal to reading from physical formats? There are mixed answers to this question, with some studies showing equal or better results from electronic and hyperlinked (especially those with leads) text but the majority showing reduced recall (learning) from non-paper sources.

So what is the answer? For now I think the most prudent thing would be to encourage paper reading as much as possible without totally discounting electronic formats. Despite the the fact that hypertext and electronic formats intuitively seem ideal for learning, the research just isn't there yet. Below are listed some mixed resources that fall on either side of the debate.

What genres do you encourage for your students or children? Based on the research you've read, where do you fall along the digital-paper continuum?


Some articles for further reading
Antonenko, P., Dale S. Niederhauser, D.S. and Thompson, A. (2007) Optimization of cognitive load in conceptually rich hypertext: effect of leads. Cognitive science journal  [Accessed 29 December 2013]. 

Cagnoz, B. and Altun, A. (2012) The effects of hypertext structure, presentation, and instruction 

types on perceived disorientation and recall performances. Contemporary educational technology, 3(2), p.81-98. [Accessed 1 January 2014].

DeStefano, D. and LeFevre, J. (2007) Cognitive load in hypertext reading: A review, Computers in human behavior, 23, p.1616-41. [Accessed 29 December 2013].

Genç, H. and Gülözer, K. (2013) The effect of cognitive load associated with instructional formats and types of presentation on second language reading comprehension performance. Turkish online journal of educational technology, 12(4), p.171-82. [Accessed 2 January 2014].

Miall, D.S. and Dobson, T. (2001) Reading hypertext and the experience of literature. Journal of digital information, 2(1). Available through: Texas Digital Library [Accessed 29 December 2013].

Şahin, A. (2001) Effects of linear texts in page scrolling and page-by-page reading forms on reading comprehension introduction. Turkish online journal of educational technology, 10(3), p.94-100. [Accessed 2 January 2014].

Zumback, J. and Mohraz, M. (2008) Cognitive load in hypermedia reading comprehension: Influence of text type and linearity. Computers in human behavior, 24, p.875-87. [Accessed 29 December 2013].