U.S. children read, but not well or often: report | Hacker News Reader

U.S. children read, but not well or often: report

reuters.com

44 pointskevin81856 comments

Recently, I stopped over a friends house. And, I was surprised to see a group of 7 or so 9-11 year olds all watching their computers or devices. At first I thought they were having a lan party, playing a game. So, I asked them what they were doing, and they said they were watching youtube videos. I observed them for a while and watched as they'd go back and forth between each other, sharing different links then sitting in silence, watching. Then, they'd get together and talk about it. I'm not sure what they were looking up, but they were all engrossed, sharing in some sort of learning experience.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad (who can really say?). But, I see it in my son, who is 9. I get frustrated that he's not reading at the level I was, when I was his age. And, we certainly have lots of books around the house and encourage good reading habits. However, he likes his videos and audio.

Didn't Marshall McLuhan predict this back in the 60s? The 'book' as we know it has only been around for a few hundred years. And, certainly it's been quite important to our progress and exchange of information. But, information has been communicated for thousands of years, in different means, with success. I'm fairly optimistic that new generations will rely on different types of communication to exchange ideas and to learn. Books will not be irrelevant, but books (and reading) are being replaced, in importance. What will happen when we re-evaluate all of our knowledge outside the context of the 'Gutenberg mind'?

"... reading scores among young children have improved since the 1970s, according to one test that measures reading ability. The reading scores among 17-year-olds, however, remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s. ..."

The article complains about reading ability among children being the same as before. They lament lack of progress, they do not lament decline in ability. Maybe your reading abilities were above what 9 years old could do back then.

Thank you. What I wanted to say.

I would also add one of the more important means of communication that we really do not know how to use well - code.

> I'm not sure if this is good or bad (who can really say?).

Actually, there are many people who can say whether it's good or bad.

> Didn't Marshall McLuhan predict this back in the 60s? The 'book' as we know it has only been around for a few hundred years. And, certainly it's been quite important to our progress and exchange of information. But, information has been communicated for thousands of years, in different means, with success. I'm fairly optimistic that new generations will rely on different types of communication to exchange ideas and to learn. Books will not be irrelevant, but books (and reading) are being replaced, in importance. What will happen when we re-evaluate all of our knowledge outside the context of the 'Gutenberg mind'?

I suggest you pick up a copy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shallows:_What_the_Internet... to broaden your outlook.

What I mean is: who can predict the future?

The 'book' had certainly impacted the structure of Human thinking, and McLuhan suggested that this resulted in things that weren't necessarily 'good' (maybe some good? some bad?). Likewise, new technologies will again change the structure of Human thinking. But, we can't presume to know how this will turn out.

Exactly, nobody can. When we were drawing in horse crap - a car was a life saver. Now everyone complain it's killing us with cancer and drawing us in the future melted ice caps. Nobody can tell what impact it will have on human brains in 100 years... I deff know that watching cartoons all day is bad. And a lot of parents do just that - here is an iPad, just shut up and let me be. But if it used for study... Who knows?!

Seriously, read the book or the essay it is based on. The 'we don't really know anything so who can say what ?' stance isn't that productive and gets old real fast.

yeah, but when I was that age you'd have a good chance of seeing my friends and I just sitting around the television watching videotapes. Is it really different?

Interesting anecdote, but in my circles the kids all just play together when they're forced to group, up to and including the pre-teens (actual teens are simply not there - they're doing homework or socializing outside our friend/family group meetings).

I really wish Apple would mimic Amazon's playtime functionality - right now we use a digital timer (TimeTimer when she was younger) for our eldest, but if we're not watching she gets more time than she's allotted.

That or some way of blocking access at the wifi-router level that was easily configurable. Hell even an big "play time" physical switch situated high on a wall that you could turn on/off to control access to youtube/netflix would be nice :)

It's not just kids. About 6 months ago, I started reading "Constellation Games," a really fun and clever sci-fi novel. Yet it now sits on my desk about 2/3 complete. I didn't lose interest or anything -- I simply find it increasingly difficult to set aside time for pleasure reading, for a variety of reasons. Even though I enjoy long form reading, it's now something I have to schedule and force myself to do.

I'm not sure whether I'm actually reading less in total (I don't believe so), or simply whether reading novels has been displaced by reading, say, HN and blogs. If I find it difficult these days, I can't imagine how difficult it might be for kids with (presumably) much shorter attention spans.

Maybe people simply have less free time these days? I know I find it hard even keeping up with paying bills at times.

tldr; Our ability for deep reading is being affected by the internet medium we are operating in.

[Coming from a person who grew up without internet]

In this internet age, there is SO much text that we are forced to skim over, deciding whether it is relevant or not. If we didn't , and devoted 100% attention to every article/tutorial we came upon, we'd never get our tasks done.

We're retraining our brains from the slow-paced deep reading required of an offline novel.

Kids have no previous neural wiring that required deep immersive concentration into a static simple book of tatooed dead tree leaves. The first thing they are encountering is swaths of internet text, flashing, changing, interaction - too much stimulation for a developing brain. No wonder they can't concentrate, let alone, sit still and be engaged with a single text for a half hour or so.

> If we didn't , and devoted 100% attention to every article/tutorial we came upon, we'd never get our tasks done.

I don't seem to have this problem. I frequently dismiss articles as not interesting, but I also make a point of reading stuff and then reflecting on it for a minute or two. I do the same kind of thing when I go to the movie theater; I watch the film, and then I let the credits roll while I think about what I just saw.

I consider this basic mental hygiene. It's not clear to me why so many people excuse themselves from it in the name of convenience and efficiency.

We are reading more crap. I read tons of blogs, HN, reddit, and useless stuff every day. Seems important, but not. We are overloaded with shallow information. When I was young and there was no internet, getting access to information, especially one with depth was a delight. It opened up a new world, where your imagination went to work. Today, there are very few things that wow and have my mind racing as it did when I was much younger. The same applies to kids today, with TV/Internet they have somehow seen it all, even if it's just at the surface level, so very few get drawn to dig in deeper.

I find my active creativity is _much_ higher when reading well thought out print material like the New Yorker, fiction OR non-fiction book. My mind races with new creations and combinations. This rarely happens with online material which favors the NOW instead of the good. One cannot subsist off of newspapers and blogs along, they are deficient in all the nutrients the mind needs.

The thoughts are shallow and hurried with repetitive easy to digest truisms. A single sentence expanded to fill an entire article.

Reading something deeply takes work. Writing it even more.

I only read using audiobooks now on my commute. It's kind of sad, but I'm also cognizant of the fact that kids and increased self-service training and my own coding projects tend to eat up all of my non-work time (and sometimes, my sleeptime).

The zenith of my book-reading seemed to happen in college/uni.

btw, thanks for the tip on your current book. I'm off to see if there's some audiobook version of it.

Subtext:

"About 46 percent of white children are considered “proficient” in reading, compared with 18 percent of black children and 20 percent of Hispanic kids.

Those gaps remained relatively unchanged over the past 20 years, according to the report."

I.e., it's likely that the change in the average is driven by a change in the proportions of the components, not a shift in the by-component means.

Doesn't the following quote from the article contradict the title's assertion that kids are not reading as well?

"Despite the large percentage of children with below-basic reading skills, reading scores among young children have improved since the 1970s, according to one test that measures reading ability.

The reading scores among 17-year-olds, however, remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s."

This should have been communicated in some sort of chart.

Maybe children are progressing at a slow rate in their earlier years but making it to the same plateau as 17 year olds? Our reading proficiency might have been more of a step function / trapezoid, arrived early and then grew slowly, vs constant slower growth.

Am I the only one that finds it ironic that this article is in the "one sentence per paragraph" form that I tend to associate with bad writing (or perhaps writing aimed at people who don't read long form)? I imagine the journalists are somewhat to blame for this. I'm looking at you, Buzzfeed.

No.

According to Jim Trelease's book, "The Read-Outloud Handbook", one of the most important things to with your kid is to read to them every night.[1] The book, from what my recollection, discusses how students in other countries, such as Finland, perform better overall because their parents tend to read to them every night.

Even someone like Warren Buffet focuses on reading - spending "80 percent" of his workday ready.[2]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Trelease#The_Read-Aloud_Han... 2. http://theweek.com/article/index/248655/the-warren-buffett-f...

Even if YOU don't have children, this is a big deal—this essentially means a highly-illiterate work force for the future. As an educator, I can read with students in a classroom, have them read aloud, and even assign reading outside of class (which they generally don't do, mind you), but it doesn't help if adults and parents aren't making an effort to encourage by example.

If I'm a kid who wants to be a web developer one day, and I decide to follow Paul Irish on Twitter, you had better bet your buttered biscuits it makes an impact when Paul is doing nothing but tweeting links to industry articles left and right. This goes beyond the simple need of just having mommy read you a bedtime story...

It would be worrying if reading ability was actually getting worse, but the article mentions that this is not the case.

> Reading scores among young children have improved since the 1970s.

> The reading scores among 17-year-olds, however, remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s.

The New York Times article on this study had a comment suggesting that kids "text" but don't read. I thought it funny that the author thinks that kids only write text messages, but don't ever read them!

Actually, this Reuters article touches on this:

"Rideout cautioned that there may be difference in how people encounter text and the included studies may not take into account stories read online or on social media."

And therein lies the problem with the study. Kids probably do more reading- online, on social media, text messages and in video games.

Granted, the quality of writing encountered is likely substantially lower (certainly a subjective claim), I think kids are probably reading a lot more than this study suggests.

"Rideout cautioned that there may be difference in how people encounter text and the included studies may not take into account stories read online or on social media."

IOW, the study is completely invalid, but we'll report it anyways.

The reading scores among 17-year-olds, however, remained relatively unchanged since the 1970s.

Interesting. At least they catch up.

Isn't this just another casualty of the war on public education and teaching for these stupid common core tests?

Another quote: "... reading scores among young children have improved since the 1970s, according to one test that measures reading ability. ..."

I do not see the problem. I have never read books for pleasure. Most of the books I own are technical or reference material that have practical applications. Why would I want to read for pleasure? I did not find anything interesting about The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, or To Kill a Mockingbird which were standard readings when I went to school. Maybe I do not have the imaginative capacity like those people that "get lost" in books.

Standard assigned readings may not interest you precisely because they're assigned. You're telling me you've never read a novel on your own? Not Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, nothing?

>You're telling me you've never read a novel on your own?

I have never read a novel. I was curious whether I could finish one, so I tried to read the first Harry Potter book. I did not continue after the fifth chapter since it felt like work.

Not every adult finds Harry Potter fun to read.

>I have never read a novel.

Wow. This is like someone telling me "I've never used the internet.". You're cutting yourself off from a huge supply of information.

It takes the right book, the right mood and the right stimulus. I used to think like you. I can tell you that after you enjoy the first novel, you "get" it. You get why everyone says the book is better at the end of a movie session.

What changed my perception of fiction books was the passion of a friend of my mom about a particular book, and the fact that the book was around during some particularly boring summer vacations.

I imagine such a collusion of events in nowadays fast paced world is more difficult. I do understand where you are coming from, though.

Wow.

Reading for pleasure is a skill that works like a muscle that must be exercised. The more you train it, the easier it becomes. If you never read as a kid, I can understand why you'd find it difficult as an adult.

I'm curious, though: do you watch TV for fun, i.e. not to learn something but just to enjoy the story?

Not even Neuromancer? Snow Crash?

A lot of people don't really like the first few chapters of the first Harry Potter book when they first read it. It is not uncommon for people to stop reading the first book at a few chapters in. Perhaps you should try something different for your first novel. I like the Chronicles of Narnia series by CS Lewis, his writing is short and to the point, but very descriptive in its own way. That may not be your cup of tea, though. You may want to ask friends or family who know your tastes better what they would recommend. Or just read the next 5 chapters of harry Potter and see if it gets any better for you- I think for most people it does.

That is only one data point.

You like non-non-fiction movies? Take a director of a movie you like and go read a story that they used for a movie you haven't seen.

Studies have shown than reading fictions tends to improve empathy [1]. This is a great assets for doctors for example (but also to deal with a client, customer, boss, co-workers, etc). Obviously, if you are put through a character stream of consciousness repeatedly and in various situation, it might be easier to put yourself in someone's shoes in every day interaction.

In the end, reading is an opportunity cost, the time you 'll spend reading, will not be spent on something else. So I don't think that if you don't enjoy it, you should read in the hope of "improving your empathy".

[1] http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/i-know-how-youre-fe...

Story-telling is important for society.

It teaches us how people might react to situations we are not immediately familiar with, and how to empathise with people (characters) who have a different viewpoint than our own.

And, it teaches us how to communicate our own stories effectively (as you have done here, in fact).

So, I find it strange that you have never enjoyed reading fiction books. It is not necessary to read fiction to gain any particular skill, but reading fiction helps you gain a wealth of skills.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storytelling#Storytelling_and_...

Story-telling is important for society.

I'd also argue that even if someone says "oh, I don't read stories," their lives are still very much affected by "stories," many of which are not explicitly told to us (rather, we learn them via cultural habits). Over the last few years, I've found it interesting (and satisfying) to examine what sorts of stories inform my life.

It's true that story-telling is important for society, but I also find this view a bit... utilitarian.

Story-telling and reading are important because they are enriching, pleasurable activities; among the best there are, in fact. That they also make you a better person is a welcome bonus.

It's really depressing that people are citing studies to justify reading novels.

That's a story for the ages...

At the age of Fitbit, Soylent, 4-hour work week, etc, and particularly on HN, it seems you have to have some sort of reward or definite end-goal to partake in any activity.

You should try out some better books. Have a go at this passage from A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man, by Joyce, wherein the protagonist Stephen Dedalus is losing his mind after having spent a week being whipped into a religious frenzy. He is alone in his room pondering his frequent visits to brothels:

> He closed the door and, walking swiftly to the bed, knelt beside it and covered his face with his hands. His hands were cold and damp and his limbs ached with chill. Bodily unrest and chill and weariness beset him, routing his thoughts. Why was he kneeling there like a child saying his evening prayers? To be alone with his soul, to examine his conscience, to meet his sins face to face, to recall their times and manners and circumstances, to weep over them. He could not weep. He could not summon them to his memory. He felt only an ache of soul and body, his whole being, memory, will, understanding, flesh, benumbed and weary.

> That was the work of devils, to scatter his thoughts and over-cloud his conscience, assailing him at the gates of the cowardly and sin-corrupted flesh: and, praying God timidly to forgive him his weakness, he crawled up on to the bed and, wrapping the blankets closely about him, covered his face again with his hands. He had sinned. He had sinned so deeply against heaven and before God that he was not worthy to be called God's child.

> Could it be that he, Stephen Dedalus, had done those things? His conscience sighed in answer. Yes, he had done them, secretly, filthily, time after time, and, hardened in sinful impenitence, he had dared to wear the mask of holiness before the tabernacle itself while his soul within was a living mass of corruption. How came it that God had not struck him dead? The leprous company of his sins closed about him, breathing upon him, bending over him from all sides. He strove to forget them in an act of prayer, huddling his limbs closer together and binding down his eyelids: but the senses of his soul would not be bound and, though his eyes were shut fast, he saw the places where he had sinned and, though his ears were tightly covered, he heard. He desired with all his will not to hear or see. He desired till his frame shook under the strain of his desire and until the senses of his soul closed. They closed for an instant and then opened. He saw.

> A field of stiff weeds and thistles and tufted nettle-bunches. Thick among the tufts of rank stiff growth lay battered canisters and clots and coils of solid excrement. A faint marshlight struggling upwards from all the ordure through the bristling grey-green weeds. An evil smell, faint and foul as the light, curled upwards sluggishly out of the canisters and from the stale crusted dung.

> Creatures were in the field: one, three, six: creatures were moving in the field, hither and thither. Goatish creatures with human faces, hornybrowed, lightly bearded and grey as india-rubber. The malice of evil glittered in their hard eyes, as they moved hither and thither, trailing their long tails behind them. A rictus of cruel malignity lit up greyly their old bony faces. One was clasping about his ribs a torn flannel waistcoat, another complained monotonously as his beard stuck in the tufted weeds. Soft language issued from their spittleless lips as they swished in slow circles round and round the field, winding hither and thither through the weeds, dragging their long tails amid the rattling canisters. They moved in slow circles, circling closer and closer to enclose, to enclose, soft language issuing from their lips, their long swishing tails besmeared with stale shite, thrusting upwards their terrific faces...

> Help!

> He flung the blankets from him madly to free his face and neck. That was his hell. God had allowed him to see the hell reserved for his sins: stinking, bestial, malignant, a hell of lecherous goatish fiends. For him! For him!

> He sprang from the bed, the reeking odour pouring down his throat, clogging and revolting his entrails. Air! The air of heaven! He stumbled towards the window, groaning and almost fainting with sickness. At the washstand a convulsion seized him within; and, clasping his cold forehead wildly, he vomited profusely in agony.

Most books you can read "for pleasure" are stories about people, their interactions, struggles, aspirations and conflicts. Reading such books helps you better empathize with other people and relate to them, even if you yourself have not personally experienced what they are going through.

I'll give you a random example that popped in my head: there are a ton of similarities between office politics today and the society the kids set up for themselves in Lord of the Flies. For a long time I could not make sense of the former, until I read the latter a second time, but this time outside of a school's "standard reading" context. Only then did I appreciate the power of the book's social commentary and its applications to a large variety of social settings (including, as I mentioned, the workplace).

You should check out this[0] Neil Gaiman article about the importance of reading (Libraries, really, but touches on reading fiction specifically)

[0] - http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-fut...

I was similar to you? When I was ~19 I had never read a novel except stuff required by school. I hated it. I only read non-fiction stuff about Space and computer manuals/books/reference.

I asked my best friend that loved to read what book would get me to like reading. He recommended H.Beam Piper's "Little Fuzzies" and I couldn't stop reading until I finished. I think his next recommendation was Ender's Game which I also couldn't stop reading. I never quite got addicted to reading but when something does catch me I can't stop, often not getting enough sleep until I finish.

I agree with you, The Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, To Kill a Mockingbird, are not for everyone. They weren't for me either. Many "classics" seem very out dated to me. But, I'm going to guess if you found the right books you'd at least really enjoy them even if like me you never become an avid reader

Classics, hmm, have to think about that claim vs the examples.

catcher in the rye (English 1951), lord of the rings err flies lol (English 1954), to kill a mockingbird (English 1960) but written in the 50s.

That is an extremely narrow definition of classics, all English language novels written in the 1950s by white dudes. If you have to hit 50-ish English novels at least try some Tolkien or Hemmingway or if +/- a couple decades is OK, some golden era Asimov and Clarke sci fi? Harlan Ellison and the invisible man?

If you have to stay white dude but are willing to stretch the dates, how bout some Hunter S Thompson from the 70s, or go the other way for the Great Gatsby (both titles are not for everyone, I think?)

Not trying to give you a hard time, but to point out that there's an extremely large world out there other than English novels from the 50s. Sure there's some good stuff, but theres orders of magnitude more "out there".

I think it would be hard for a teen boy not to be captivated by "anabasis aka the Persian expedition" which is a mere 2500 years old. Blood n guts and high adventure in a crazy old world on the other side of the planet 2500 years ago. If it weren't true some video game author would write it today. Gateway drug to Herodotus and then you end up lost to the "great books".

I read and greatly enjoyed Gibbon (its about one foot on a bookshelf, depending on edition) but even I haven't completed any Russians. So I can't answer if "The Idiot" is worth completing. However, not everything worth reading takes six months.

I do see the problem. You think the books they assigned you in high school were meant to be a representative sample of high literature or (worse!) of reading for fun. They're not.

For the sake of your soul, go get yourself some pulpy science-fiction this very instant!

Does the HN title accurately reflect the article? Was this a wordlwide study? The title of the article is "U.S. children read, but not well or often: report"

its cuz of txtng

Not just texting, but it seems like any communication online is excused from having to follow any sort of rules. People try to justify it in a sense of 'This is just how kids speak these days', but would any other field allow a grotesque destruction of itself?

What's the lol-speak equivalent in math, science, or art?

"What's the lol-speak equivalent in math, science, or art?"

We should be proud no one mentioned Religion yet. Whoops.

I'd really like to see a study of how many words are read by the average person today vs. 30 years ago. Reading fewer novels may, but doesn't necessarily, imply less reading overall.

In related news the sky is blue.

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