How many adults say they don’t enjoy reading?
How many kids say they don’t enjoy reading?
Isn’t it curious that few adults will admit to not enjoying reading, yet more than 50% of the students I see from elementary through college age will acknowledge that they don’t read for pleasure. What accounts for the difference?
In the adult world reading is acknowledged as a skill that “smart” people possess, a tool for success in many areas. As an adult, to say that you don’t like to read may diminish the respect you receive from other people. Adults are expected to read newspapers, magazines, books, whether in paper form or in recent years, online.
But how many adults who claim to enjoy reading are embarrassed to admit that they only read by necessity, deriving little pleasure in the process? More people than will admit gain their news information from TV or online browsing and only read — in the sense of books — in limited amounts, perhaps a beach read on vacation.
I suspect that all those children and adolescents who say they don’t enjoy reading will not become readers in adulthood. As adults it becomes the little secret they keep hidden because “smart” people, of course, find pleasure in reading, in being lost in a book of fiction or non-fiction.
Why do some children and adolescents find little enjoyment in reading?
The process of reading, understanding the code of letters representing sounds, is a complex, difficult skill that takes years to master. At the word level, a lack of word attack skills and diminished vocabulary impede comprehension. At the sentence level, the more sophisticated and complex the writing, the more difficult comprehension becomes.
Becoming a fluent reader requires patience and practice, two features that students may not possess. Some schools do not emphasize guided reading in class and independent reading at home after the first few grades, at least not enough to create a habit of reading. In some households, parents don’t read much at home so the critical models of reading as a pleasurable activity are missing.
Do electronics interfere with the development of reading as a pleasurable habit?
I’m sorry to say that the internet, video games and social media take up so much attention during students’ waking hours that settling down with a book seems like a waste of time. The immediacy of social interaction with a computer or smart phone trumps the patience required to focus on a book — and the pleasure derived from losing oneself in a book seems to have little value.
But baby boomers had TV to divert them away from reading! Yes, a TV in nearly every home may have taken time away from reading, but with less than a dozen channels, the diversionary value of television was limited. Now five hundred or more channels on TV, unlimited videos and social media right on the phone in your hand all provide stiff competition for the printed word in book form.
Is there a solution?
Yes, turn off the electronics, walk away from the computer and the television and open a book — hardcover, paperback or e-reader. What can result? You can find the lost pleasure you might have forgotten as a child or, gain the reading skills you may not have truly developed in your earlier years. Even more, you can pass on your pleasure of reading to your children by serving as a role model.
Patience and practice can generate a surprising payoff — finding the lost pleasure of reading even in the electronic age.
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