Fewer Kids Are Reading for Fun. NewsWire

NewsWire: 12/7/21

• The shares of 9-, 13-, and 17-year-olds who say they read for fun have fallen dramatically since the 1980s. The shares who read “almost every day” have declined to record lows. (Pew Research Center)
• NH: The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been asking students how often they read for fun since the early 1980s. According to the latest 2019-20 results, the shares of 9- and 13-year-olds who say they read “almost every day” has fallen to their lowest levels ever (42% and 17%, respectively). Meanwhile, the shares who “hardly ever” or “never” read have climbed significantly over time. Among 13-year-olds, it’s more than tripled (from 8% to 29%).
• In the 1980s, the most popular reading frequency among 9-year-olds was “almost every day.” Now that’s tied with “less frequently” (= once or twice a week/month, or a few times a year). Among 13-year-olds, it’s now more common to never read or only read occasionally than it is to read every day.

• The NAEP also polls 17-year-olds, but their participation in the latest survey was cancelled after schools moved instruction online during the pandemic. The last time 17-year-olds were surveyed in 2012, just 19% said they read for fun almost every day. That was also the lowest share to date.
• By race and ethnicity, 9- and 13-year-olds who are white and Asian are more likely to say that they read for fun almost every day than their black or Hispanic peers. From 2012 to 2020, the shares who said this declined across the board--but among blacks and Hispanics, they dropped most steeply, so the gap in reading has widened. This raises worries that strong literacy skills are increasingly becoming a race- or class-based indicator.

• Of course, Pew's survey doesn't measure how much reading kids are doing not for fun. And here the evidence is also pretty clear: It's going up. Average time per night spent on homework for teens ages 15-17 roughly doubled from the mid-1990s to the late 2010s (the last time it was accurately measured, again by Pew), from 30 minutes to an hour.
• It's risen even more since the early 1980s, which was probably when homework hit its postwar low point. That was around the time of the 1983 Nation at Risk report, which decried the "rising tide of mediocrity" (read: first-wave Xers) that was emerging from America's high schools. These Xers, now parents, have been generally supportive of the more-homework trend lest anyone start calling their kids dumb. The push for more homework has been especially dramatic in the early grades. One 2015 study found that kindergartners, for whom homework was once unheard of, are now getting nearly 30 minutes of assignments per night.
• If kids are spending more time on homework (and other school activities), what are they spending less time on? Most time studies say they're spending less time on working for pay and socializing. But it may be reasonable to assume that they're also spending less time reading for fun.
• Among individual students, studies show that required reading and reading for fun are complementary activities. High-achieving students do more of both, and low achievers do less of both. But across all students, over time, these activities may be substitutes: As one goes up, the other goes down. Late-wave Millennials and early-wave Homelanders are rule-followers. If parents and teachers are telling them they have to read, well, they will read. But what they do on their own time, apparently, is another matter.
• IMO, more is being lost than gained in this tradeoff. Even homework often requires surprisingly little reading. Instead, it's mostly drilling, worksheets, and exercises designed to prompt the "right answers." Increasingly, students work without textbooks and what reading they do is mostly on screens. This is too bad. Research has shown that reading on paper leads to better comprehension than reading on screens, particularly for nonfiction texts. And yes, it's certainly a lot more fun.