In last week's column, I wrote about the recent popularity of Young Adult novels, a genre that's experiencing a boom, even among adult readers. However, a report released on Monday by the Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization that monitors how children and teens use media, reveals some unsettling — if not entirely shocking — new findings about reading rates among children and young adults.
As you may have guessed, children and teens are reading less for pleasure than they once did, and reading proficiency is dropping precipitously. The report, which compiles data from several recent studies, also begins to explore the link between the proliferation of new digital reading platforms and the decline in reading habits.
The report is chock-full of findings, and none of them come as welcome news for literacy advocates. A Scholastic study conducted last year shows that children read substantially less as they get older. Among 6- to 8-year-olds, 48 percent read daily; among 15- to 17-year-olds, that proportion is only 24 percent. These habits related to daily reading may also be linked to other results the report uncovered. Among younger children, reading scores have steadily improved since 1971, but have remained stagnant for 17-year-olds over the same time span.
More troubling still is the achievement gap between white, black and Hispanic children, which continues to remain unchanged over the past 20 years. Among fourth graders, only 18 percent of black students and 24 percent of Hispanic students are rated at "proficient" readers, compared to 46 percent of white students. While some suspect this might be attributable to income, parental education or the household reading environment — all of which can play important roles in a child's reading habits — the degree to which these factors contribute to the proficiency gap is not definitively known, and seems to beg for more research.
The study also notes that many children are no longer reading for pleasure. A third of 13-year-olds and 45 percent of 17-year-olds said that they read for pleasure no more than once or twice a year, if that often. Reading proficiency is also on the decline, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
The Common Sense Media report also looks at the impact that electronic reading devices are having on parents' and children's attitudes toward reading, and how the devices are being used. However, there really doesn't appear to be enough research to determine the effect of e-readers on reading habits, and many parents seem ambivalent about their children using the devices. A study by Victoria Rideout, cited in the CSM report, "about a third of parents have an e-reader that their children don't use, primarily because they're concerned about screen media use or think print is better for children."
Longtime readers of this column will certainly know that I'm not a huge fan of e-readers, and stubbornly refuse to adopt them. But it seems like many parents are also teaching their young children to value printed books. Among older children, the study reports, nearly half (46 percent) have read an e-book, but children still spend much more time with print than they do with e-books.
Electronic reading is clearly a field of study where more research is required. Between dedicated e-readers like the Kindle and Nook, tablets, and smartphone e-book readers, it remains unclear exactly how young readers are utilizing these options, or the impact they'll have on children's reading in the future.
What the report makes clear is that parents can have a tremendous impact on their children's reading habits and, ultimately, their reading proficiency.
"Kids with parents who read, who buy or take books out of the library for their kids, and who then set time aside in their kids' daily schedule for reading, tend to read the most," Jim Steyer, CEO and founder of Common Sense Media, told NPR this week.
And that's the good news: your children's reading habits and proficiency are in your hands.