Do Students in American Schools Read Long Books Anymore - September 23, 2024

0:00Teachers in many English classes across America are having students read fewer full-length books. Recently, the Associated Press explored the issue in education. It reports that students instead are given only short parts of books. Educators said this is because they believe current students The teachers have shorter attention spans than those of the past. The teachers might feel pressure to prepare students for state and nationwide examinations known as standardized tests. They also might believe that short pieces of writing will help students in the modern digital world. The National Council of Teachers of English is a professional organization for teachers based in Champaign, Illinois. In 2022 the group released a statement about reading.

1:14The time has come to de-center book reading and essay writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education, the group said. Seth French helped write the statement. He said the idea was not to remove books but to teach media literacy and have students read things in which they are interested. French taught an English class before becoming a dean at Bentonville High School in the state of Arkansas. He had students read plays, poetry, and articles, but only one book as a class. He said, A lot of our students are not interested in some of these texts that they didn't have a choice in. Not everyone thinks English reading should only involve Short Digital Pieces of Writing Marianne Wolfe studies the human brain

2:27at UCLA in Southern California. Wolfe said deep reading is important to strengthen connections in the brain tied to critical thinking skills, background knowledge, and empathy. She said educators must give students a chance to learn through what she described as immersion into the lives and thoughts of others. There is not a lot of information on how many books American students are required Federal data from last year shows 14% of young people said they read for fun every day. In 2012, that percentage was 27%. Some teachers say reduced reading has its roots in the COVID-19 crisis. Christy Acevedo teaches English at a vocational high school in New Bedford, Massachusetts. There was a trend it happened when COVID hit to stop reading full length novels because

3:59students were in trauma. We were in a pandemic. The problem is, we haven't quite come back from that," she said. Other teachers blame standardized testing and the influence of education technology. Some students struggle to read. Only one-third of fourth and eighth graders reached reading proficiency in the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Leah Van Bell is the director of the nonprofit literacy coalition 313 Reads in Detroit, Michigan. Van Bell said when her son read the book Peter Pan in elementary school it was too difficult for most children. She said her son's school does not have a library. Still she said it makes sense As an adult, if I want to learn about a topic and research it, be it personal or professional,

5:20I'm using interactive digital text to do that," she said. Even in schools with many resources, time is always in short supply. Terri White teaches at South Windsor High School in Connecticut. White no longer assigns the book To Kill a Mockingbird to her class. She assigns about one-third of the book and provides a synopsis, or a very short version of the rest. White says the reason is that the class has to move quickly so she can teach all the required material. White also assigns less homework because students have sports and other activities. She said she wanted her class to be more about helping students become stronger and more for critical readers, writers and thinkers, while taking their social-emotional well-being

6:37into account. The synopsis method alone, however, can harm student critical thinking skills, says Alden Jones, a literature professor at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. Jones assigns fewer books than before but gives more small tests to make sure students are reading. We don't value the thinking time that we used to have. It's all time we could be on our phone accomplishing tasks, she said. Will Higgins is an English teacher at Dartmouth High School in Massachusetts. Higgins said he still believes in teaching the classics, but he said students do not have enough time so teachers have cut back on the number of books they teach. We haven't given up on Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice.

7:46We haven t given up Hamlet or The Great Gatsby, he said. Scott Higgins admitted giving up on assigning a long book, like A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.