“All Children Left Behind” –
The Decline of Reading in Our Lifetime
Several years ago, a Catholic grammar school in the Cities tested their students in the mandated, standardized Minnesota proficiency exams. These students were, by all measures leading up to these tests, “at risk.” They came from low-income, mostly minority backgrounds. The school, once a flagship of a parish filled with European immigrants, sat in a
deteriorating neighborhood ridden by crime, drop-outs, delinquency. The parish, however, hung on, kept the doors of its school open, and worked with the low-achieving students who came through the
gates.
When the results were in, these students—the ones predicted to fall into the lowest percentiles as all US students do from a similar background—scored
among the highest in the state. It’s almost axiomatic that the parents’ ZIP codes predict student achievement. Wealthy ZIPs mean stronger students. This case was exactly the opposite.
Of course, why? Why did these sure-to-fail students achieve at the Eden Prairie and Edina level?
Easy: they could read. Their curriculum included reading Shakespeare in the 7th and 8th grades. Early on, they were tackling The Iliad and The Odyssey. When it was time to read, these young scholars read. And they devoured not the educational pap generally flung at students, which limits syllables and includes only preselected vocabulary words slipped
into unnatural and stilted sentences, but they tore through the classics at an early age. It is the rare exception for a “young genius” not to be an avid
reader.
Reading. It’s the key and core to all things educational. These “at-risk” students proved it. Asked to solve so-called“word problems”? Math was not a problem for them; they understood the questions. Vocabulary became a breeze. Getting the gist of the social science paragraphs was ridiculously easy, given that these young scholars read at the 11th- or 12th-grade level. (Hopefully, they were reading texts before they were dumbed down by the Texas Board of Education.)
You want to reform education in the USA? If so, then get students reading at an early age. Make them read the classics, not books expunged of what’s thought distasteful by some. Leave Huck Finn alone, for Twain’s sake. Anyone offended by Twain’s "politically incorrect" vocabulary should listen to 5 minutes of Rap music—our kids are. They hear much worse on the air waves, they see much worse on cable, than will ever enter a classic novel whose plot they can understand. There is nothing worse than “textbook” talk, especially now when the uneducated and politically biased and religiously warped are re-writing our students’ textbooks.
Many years ago I sensed a reading crisis in education was coming. I was finishing my MA in English at Sacramento State before heading off to Notre Dame for my PhD. I had taught in a Catholic high school for two years by this time, but was between jobs and did some substituting in the Sacramento Diocesan system. What I saw was done by students at the high end of achievement, so it was even more shocking.
The 7th-graders I was subbing were asked to read an essay in their textbooks and then answer the
multiple-choice questions at the back of the book.
Instead of actually reading the essay first, they all thumbed right to the questions, read Question One, and then skimmed the first section of the essay assignment. It was easy to gloss over the essay in pieces, fitting the section of the essay to the questions at the back, get the right answer for each
in turn and never really bothering with reading the essay start to finish. The questions were in order anyway, meaning, Question 1 asked about the first few paragraphs, Question 2 the next few, and so on.
These were bright kids; they’d figured out this gig early. And their test scores showed they were well ahead of the curve. Not bad considering they really rarely ever read anything start to finish in a sustained manner. I am sure their story is not unique. Why read an essay when the ideas aren’t important and can’t hold your attention? The 10 points at the end are important—satisfy teacher with 10 for 10; forget any notion of actually reading the material.
Even at the university level, I hear the same sort of notion and witness the same lack of skills. I am always dumbfounded by the lack of basic skills far too many of my students display. When asked to
read aloud, so many (far too many) struggle over basic words. I had a student trip up on the simple word melancholy the other day, to give just a recent example. He insisted he had never seen the word
before. Having graded his written work, it is no wonder he’s such a weak writer. Poor readers are weak writers, no doubt. And worse yet, weak writer
and weak reader that he is, he’s convinced “in the real world after college” he won’t need such skills. He is part of the self-marginalizing Twenty-Something Generation I witness each day.
Another time several years back, I gave out a very short (to me) reading list for a class on the
first day. I had purposely already reduced the list from seven novels to six by adding two movies in hopes of getting all my students to finish the entire syllabus. At the end of my intro lecture imploring my students to actually buy the books and then read the material, one student returned my printed handouts with the admonition, “Books! Books! Why are all you
professors always demanding we read books? Can’t you just give us the answers?” And he was a history
major!
All this would be of little concern if I was talking about how many copies of Harry Potter are sold each day. The real issues of declining reading skills are social and economic, not just artistic and recreational.
The 2004 NEA report, Reading at Risk, demonstrated the steep decline in reading among our young. But the report also pointed out that “these declines will have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications,”or so Matt Burriesci concludes in his review of this NEA report. (The Writer’s Chronicle, Feb 2008.
http://www.awpwriter.org/pdf/mburriesci01.pdf.)
For his review of this NEA report, Burriesci interviewed Dana Gioia, NEA Chairman, who noted “the central importance of reading for a prosperous, free society.” We are not talking about curling up with an Agatha Christie, we’re talking about a skill that is, in Gioia’s words, “both fundamental and irreplaceable for democracy.”
The NEA report also rightly concludes that “weak reading skills strongly correlate to lower academic
achievement, lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement.” A poor or non-reader is more likely to be incarcerated. Strong readers are more than likely to vote, participate in cultural events, volunteer their time for charities, and enjoy rewarding careers.
Life-long readers and learners are the cornerstone of a thriving democracy. It is no wonder that dictators burn books. You’ll note that Hitler
didn’t start a program to have his Iron Youth read widely; he closed libraries and destroyed the content of their shelves. If Germans were to read, he was going to know what they were reading.
Today, the censorship of the web in some dictatorial countries smacks of the same paranoia and political control.
But this brings me back to our students, our children, our culture. I find it so ironic and extremely depressing that in a society that has every book virtually at its fingertips, our young people are electing NOT to read. Hitler shouldn’t have
burned books; he should have made more books available to his Iron Youth. Given the chance to read, if they are like our youth, they wouldn’t have.
The lack of interest in reading suggests to me this horrific vision: Our 11th- and 12th-graders are taught to drive, given their drivers’ licenses, given access to cars and paved roads and the Eisenhower
Interstate System. But instead (in my dystopian vision), they elect to let their cars rust or run out of gas for lack of the enterprise of filling the tank. And so, they’re forced to work closer to home (so they can walk). They’re forced to seek entertainment and cultural events within walking distance, never
finding new outlets. They’re forced to live among only their neighbors, never venturing into new neighborhoods with different foods or art style or political takes on the world.
And it’s all self-imposed.
Perhaps the Occupy Movement is this generation’s wake-up call. It reads less, votes less, is more inclined to be swayed by demagogues.
And at least some now are waking up to the fact that placating the top cats comes by draining the younger citizens and newer voters dry of what society should provide its young: a stable society; a solid, basic education; a brighter future.
Readers know of that brighter future. And, I believe, readers can muster the skills to obtain it on all levels: personally, professionally, culturally, and globally.
Let’s hope our youth don’t skip that part of the essay because there wasn’t a question about it at
the back of their books. Let’s hope our young readers of today have a thriving economy and fully functioning, just democratic society to embrace as they grow older. Or else, the few remaining readers may have to read about such a bygone society in the neglected History Section of some neglected library.
The Decline of Reading in Our Lifetime
Several years ago, a Catholic grammar school in the Cities tested their students in the mandated, standardized Minnesota proficiency exams. These students were, by all measures leading up to these tests, “at risk.” They came from low-income, mostly minority backgrounds. The school, once a flagship of a parish filled with European immigrants, sat in a
deteriorating neighborhood ridden by crime, drop-outs, delinquency. The parish, however, hung on, kept the doors of its school open, and worked with the low-achieving students who came through the
gates.
When the results were in, these students—the ones predicted to fall into the lowest percentiles as all US students do from a similar background—scored
among the highest in the state. It’s almost axiomatic that the parents’ ZIP codes predict student achievement. Wealthy ZIPs mean stronger students. This case was exactly the opposite.
Of course, why? Why did these sure-to-fail students achieve at the Eden Prairie and Edina level?
Easy: they could read. Their curriculum included reading Shakespeare in the 7th and 8th grades. Early on, they were tackling The Iliad and The Odyssey. When it was time to read, these young scholars read. And they devoured not the educational pap generally flung at students, which limits syllables and includes only preselected vocabulary words slipped
into unnatural and stilted sentences, but they tore through the classics at an early age. It is the rare exception for a “young genius” not to be an avid
reader.
Reading. It’s the key and core to all things educational. These “at-risk” students proved it. Asked to solve so-called“word problems”? Math was not a problem for them; they understood the questions. Vocabulary became a breeze. Getting the gist of the social science paragraphs was ridiculously easy, given that these young scholars read at the 11th- or 12th-grade level. (Hopefully, they were reading texts before they were dumbed down by the Texas Board of Education.)
You want to reform education in the USA? If so, then get students reading at an early age. Make them read the classics, not books expunged of what’s thought distasteful by some. Leave Huck Finn alone, for Twain’s sake. Anyone offended by Twain’s "politically incorrect" vocabulary should listen to 5 minutes of Rap music—our kids are. They hear much worse on the air waves, they see much worse on cable, than will ever enter a classic novel whose plot they can understand. There is nothing worse than “textbook” talk, especially now when the uneducated and politically biased and religiously warped are re-writing our students’ textbooks.
Many years ago I sensed a reading crisis in education was coming. I was finishing my MA in English at Sacramento State before heading off to Notre Dame for my PhD. I had taught in a Catholic high school for two years by this time, but was between jobs and did some substituting in the Sacramento Diocesan system. What I saw was done by students at the high end of achievement, so it was even more shocking.
The 7th-graders I was subbing were asked to read an essay in their textbooks and then answer the
multiple-choice questions at the back of the book.
Instead of actually reading the essay first, they all thumbed right to the questions, read Question One, and then skimmed the first section of the essay assignment. It was easy to gloss over the essay in pieces, fitting the section of the essay to the questions at the back, get the right answer for each
in turn and never really bothering with reading the essay start to finish. The questions were in order anyway, meaning, Question 1 asked about the first few paragraphs, Question 2 the next few, and so on.
These were bright kids; they’d figured out this gig early. And their test scores showed they were well ahead of the curve. Not bad considering they really rarely ever read anything start to finish in a sustained manner. I am sure their story is not unique. Why read an essay when the ideas aren’t important and can’t hold your attention? The 10 points at the end are important—satisfy teacher with 10 for 10; forget any notion of actually reading the material.
Even at the university level, I hear the same sort of notion and witness the same lack of skills. I am always dumbfounded by the lack of basic skills far too many of my students display. When asked to
read aloud, so many (far too many) struggle over basic words. I had a student trip up on the simple word melancholy the other day, to give just a recent example. He insisted he had never seen the word
before. Having graded his written work, it is no wonder he’s such a weak writer. Poor readers are weak writers, no doubt. And worse yet, weak writer
and weak reader that he is, he’s convinced “in the real world after college” he won’t need such skills. He is part of the self-marginalizing Twenty-Something Generation I witness each day.
Another time several years back, I gave out a very short (to me) reading list for a class on the
first day. I had purposely already reduced the list from seven novels to six by adding two movies in hopes of getting all my students to finish the entire syllabus. At the end of my intro lecture imploring my students to actually buy the books and then read the material, one student returned my printed handouts with the admonition, “Books! Books! Why are all you
professors always demanding we read books? Can’t you just give us the answers?” And he was a history
major!
All this would be of little concern if I was talking about how many copies of Harry Potter are sold each day. The real issues of declining reading skills are social and economic, not just artistic and recreational.
The 2004 NEA report, Reading at Risk, demonstrated the steep decline in reading among our young. But the report also pointed out that “these declines will have serious civic, social, cultural, and economic implications,”or so Matt Burriesci concludes in his review of this NEA report. (The Writer’s Chronicle, Feb 2008.
http://www.awpwriter.org/pdf/mburriesci01.pdf.)
For his review of this NEA report, Burriesci interviewed Dana Gioia, NEA Chairman, who noted “the central importance of reading for a prosperous, free society.” We are not talking about curling up with an Agatha Christie, we’re talking about a skill that is, in Gioia’s words, “both fundamental and irreplaceable for democracy.”
The NEA report also rightly concludes that “weak reading skills strongly correlate to lower academic
achievement, lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement.” A poor or non-reader is more likely to be incarcerated. Strong readers are more than likely to vote, participate in cultural events, volunteer their time for charities, and enjoy rewarding careers.
Life-long readers and learners are the cornerstone of a thriving democracy. It is no wonder that dictators burn books. You’ll note that Hitler
didn’t start a program to have his Iron Youth read widely; he closed libraries and destroyed the content of their shelves. If Germans were to read, he was going to know what they were reading.
Today, the censorship of the web in some dictatorial countries smacks of the same paranoia and political control.
But this brings me back to our students, our children, our culture. I find it so ironic and extremely depressing that in a society that has every book virtually at its fingertips, our young people are electing NOT to read. Hitler shouldn’t have
burned books; he should have made more books available to his Iron Youth. Given the chance to read, if they are like our youth, they wouldn’t have.
The lack of interest in reading suggests to me this horrific vision: Our 11th- and 12th-graders are taught to drive, given their drivers’ licenses, given access to cars and paved roads and the Eisenhower
Interstate System. But instead (in my dystopian vision), they elect to let their cars rust or run out of gas for lack of the enterprise of filling the tank. And so, they’re forced to work closer to home (so they can walk). They’re forced to seek entertainment and cultural events within walking distance, never
finding new outlets. They’re forced to live among only their neighbors, never venturing into new neighborhoods with different foods or art style or political takes on the world.
And it’s all self-imposed.
Perhaps the Occupy Movement is this generation’s wake-up call. It reads less, votes less, is more inclined to be swayed by demagogues.
And at least some now are waking up to the fact that placating the top cats comes by draining the younger citizens and newer voters dry of what society should provide its young: a stable society; a solid, basic education; a brighter future.
Readers know of that brighter future. And, I believe, readers can muster the skills to obtain it on all levels: personally, professionally, culturally, and globally.
Let’s hope our youth don’t skip that part of the essay because there wasn’t a question about it at
the back of their books. Let’s hope our young readers of today have a thriving economy and fully functioning, just democratic society to embrace as they grow older. Or else, the few remaining readers may have to read about such a bygone society in the neglected History Section of some neglected library.
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