Three times last week I was speaking to young friends and associates and they informed me that they never read books anymore. One even admitted he had never finished a book in his life. His thinking being, that any good story will ultimately be made into a movie. 'Why waste anywhere up to a week reading a book when you can watch it in 90 odd minutes in full HD with surround sound, and maybe even in 3D?' And in many respects he has a point. Is the act of reading a book a dying art? In the modern world, where we want everything yesterday, is the pleasure of escaping and being absorbed by a book over a few days a lost art?I can still remember the furtive pleasure of being a pre-teen and reading a Hardy Boys, Three Investigators or Enid Blyton book under the covers by torchlight (with lashings of sneaky pleasure). However for many youngsters now, books have now been replaced by game consoles, computers, mobile phones and social networking. How do we encourage young children to read and rediscover the joy of books amongst the plethora of alternatives they now have for entertainment?
It is not just the process of reading I would like to encourage, I am concerned about children developing the bad habits associated with communication via facebook/twitter/mobile phones/social media. In many cases, poor literary skills can manifest themselves into poor speaking skills, which become a liability in adult life. I feel more needs to be done to encourage young minds to embrace books, and expand their minds and language skills.
One positive influence I can think of, is the state government funded Premier's Reading Challenges that are conducted in some Australian states. Essentially, each year children choose books from an extensive age-based list (compiled in co-ordination with public and school libraries), and are presented with a medal on completion of the challenge. As each year passes and the challenges mount, the medal and status gets progressively more impressive. It makes reading fun, challenging, even competitive, and something to be shared with classmates. I think methods such as these need to be explored. If it takes governments to get on board, then so be it!
We need to encourage children and young adults to read any way we can, and make reading cool again!
I don't think it's a new thing, of my Gen X friends I know very few readers and so naturally enough their children are similarly uninterested since they are lacking role models.
ReplyDeleteI think young children are still enthusiastic about reading (or at least being read to) but they lose it as they enter high school and are battered by texts whose literary value is irrelevant to them and reading becomes a chore associated with study. While my oldest daughter read happily at ten/eleven, now at fifteen, she is not the least bit interested partly because social media have precedence over her spare time, I can only hope that eventually she will rediscover the pleasure in a few more years.
Of my three younger children only my youngest daughter chooses to read for fun but I make a point of reading to them all regularly, visiting the library every few weeks and they listen to audiobooks at night while going to sleep. The boys particularly love their console games but I actually think that has been a good thing - both play games that require reading for instructions during the game play and because of that were eager to be able to read and both (one in Kindy and one in year 1) are in the top reading groups at school. It may not be a traditional method of learning literary skills but it has been effective!
Shelleyrae @ Book'd Out
Thanks for your blog.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting topic. I agree with Shelleyrae that schooling has a lot to do with it. Reading can be very demanding, and reading "worthy literature" can be a chore. It demands a level of literacy that few teenagers have - and seems especially unfair when some of the classics they're asked to read were the pot-boilers of their day.
If teachers can be encouraged to promote books that aren't too difficult for their students in terms of language and culture, but which are rich in other ways, maybe students will stick with their early childhood love of reading and develop a taste for the classics at an older age. For me, that means harnessing the power and attraction of genre fiction - finding and promoting the best of the type of books students would read for pleasure, but which also reflect their own culture, not just something generic. In Australia, that means finding and promoting the best home-grown authors and forging stronger connections between writers, readers, teachers, librarians and even book bloggers.
I'm glad I found your blog and look forward to exploring your reviews, especially of novels by Australian authors.
Hi Elizabeth. Thanks for commenting and great point. Get children reading material they enjoy and can relate too. Give them more choice and don't force them to read outdated classics that they find tiresome. Do everything possible to make reading fun, not a chore.
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