Are Kids Really Reading Less, or Are We Just Measuring Wrong?
Hot on the heels of sensationalist fake news claiming that men hate reading, a recent piece in the Guardian breathlessly reports that reading is about as popular with children as spinach and homework.But are kids really reading less, or are they just measuring wrong?
Like the "Men hate reading" meme, the Guardian article’s claim that children’s reading enjoyment has reached a record low hinges on data from a single source: this time, it's the National Literacy Trust’s (NLT) Annual Literacy Survey.While these findings may reflect trends in dead tree reading, they overlook other important factors and forms of reading that may better reflect children’s actual reading habits.Because the Guardian draws solely from the NLT’s survey, it's doubtful that it gives us the full picture of children’s reading habits. Surveys like this tend to focus on physical books, subjecting them to the same oldpub blind spot that plagues the Nielsen BookScan numbers. It would be interesting to see a survey that we know for sure included eBooks, online services like Royal Road, and fanfic sites.Remember, these media are less likely to be counted as “reading for pleasure” by traditional surveys, despite being, well, reading for enjoyment. To fully understand whether children’s reading habits are truly in decline, we would need data that includes these new, increasingly popular reading formats.Related: No, Men Do Not Hate ReadingThough the NLT survey suggests a drop in reading enjoyment, note that it doesn't address potential contributing factors. This X thread by policy researcher Lara Brown exposes the abominable state of traditional children's publishing. When oldpub is more concerned with enforcing weird ritual purity laws instead of telling fun stories, it's no wonder their sensitivity-read slop is losing its audience.And don't discount the effect of school curricula on children's view of reading. When kids associate reading with academic pressures rather than entertainment, we shouldn't be suprised they're having less fun. My high school reading list would have killed my love of novels if a good friend hadn't loaned me Dune.Like Nielsen, the NLT reports a widening gap in reading enjoyment between boys and girls. The problem ince again is, there's no context. Boys gravitate toward digital, visual, and interactive formats overlooked by most surveys. Rather than viewing this gap as a simple decline in reading enjoyment, it could be an evolution in reading habits. Because if better data collection dispels the reading rift between men and women, it stands to reason we'd see the same among boys and girls.While the article paints a bleak picture, it ignores the positive findings from the same survey, such as how children who do read for pleasure report several benefits. That finding suggests that giving kids reading material they actually enjoy is the solution. It follows that parents and teachers should help children discover what they like to read instead of imposing preconceived tastes and ideologies on them.Finally, the call to government action gives away the Guardian's game here. Calling on the government to solve a problem caused by government schools is just prescribing more of the same bad medicine. What that should tell you is that the Guardian is less concerned with helping children enjoy reading and more interested in expanding the state's influence over them.So, while the NLT data might reflect a drop in children’s enjoyment of conventional reading, it doesn’t provide a comprehensive view of how today's kids find and enjoy stories. Expanding the definition of reading to include digital and interactive formats might reveal a much brighter picture. And ditching ideology in favor of fun will quickly rekindle kids' love of reading.
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