Overview:
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as of 2021, only 51.8% of parents reported reading to children ages five years and under.
Podcasters, pundits, comedians, bloggers, and professors rant, joke, and expound on what is wrong with American education and how to fix it. They present their lists of punch-line problems coupled with foolproof solutions that make educating American youth seem a simple person’s game. Whether they recommend more gamification, abolishing standardized tests, social-emotional learning, banning smartphones, tough love, private school vouchers, breaking up massive school districts whose priority has become self-preservation rather than teaching reading, writing, and math, or arming teachers with AR-15s, most never mention the dirty secret loitering in American classrooms like an overgrown elephant too many pretend not to see or smell.
Parents aren’t reading to their kids!
From the time they enroll for kindergarten to donning their caps and gowns senior year, too many students fail to develop a positive relationship with reading. One reason is that fewer parents are reading to their children. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as of 2021, only 51.8% of parents reported reading to children ages five years and under. This is down from the 2016-17 baseline of “58.3% percent of children aged 5 years and under that had parents or caregivers who reported that someone in their family read to the child 4 or more days [a week].”
This decline in reading reinforcement at home is concerning and echoed by “…a Gallup poll published in 2022, [which states that] in 2021 Americans read roughly 12 books a year, amounting to around one a month. That number is the lowest it’s been since Gallup began tracking Americans’ reading habits back in 1990” (Lamire). This departure from reading has had serious consequences both in the classroom and on American society.
Reading is the Foundation
Reading is the foundation of academic learning, but it also provides enrichment to the human soul. Soul enrichment may sound esoteric to some, but regardless of your belief system, reading feeds children the kind of “stuff” that transforms them into good people. With fewer readers, our society suffers. That may sound simplistic, but it’s true. Good people empathize with others, which means they are more likely to help others instead of committing violent acts or embracing deviant behaviors. “A 2014 study showed that elementary school and high school students in Italy and the United Kingdom became more empathic toward immigrants, refugees, and gay and lesbian people after reading Harry Potter”(Schmidt).
In addition to increasing empathy, reading decreases stress, strengthens neural pathways in your brain, and can increase one’s life span. “A 2016 study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine found reading books can reduce mortality by up to 20%” (Lamire). What’s even more incredible is, “any level of book reading gave a significantly stronger survival advantage, particularly for adults 65 and older who redirect leisure time from watching TV into reading books” (Lamire). So, for good, science-based reasons, reading should become a lifelong habit we all embrace, share, and spread like a viral social media post. Yet, reading is declining and crippling classrooms nationwide.
So why does this enormous pachyderm, puckish, perturbed, and persistent, roost in every classroom in America, festering, feasting, and becoming so gargantuan that substandard reading skills have become a part of American schools’ foundations. In most cases where students struggle with reading, they were introduced to reading in an elementary school setting rather than their homes. Whether that nest is a million-dollar colonial, a middle-class duplex, someone’s garage, or the back seat of a car, a child’s culture, identity, and reasons for living begin to develop at home and so should a positive appreciation for reading.
Yet more and more students, from all races, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexual orientations, or gender identities report they don’t read at home and some never have. These disturbing revelations teachers hear every day are becoming common and are evidenced in national reading test scores. “Large-scale assessments of student skills indicate there are significant proportions of students in the United States who do not understand what they read. For instance, results [in] 2019 from the National Assessment of Education Progress indicate only 35 percent of fourth graders and 34 percent of eighth graders were classified as proficient readers” (Bahtia).
While some situations in the home are untenable and not ideal for raising enthusiastic readers, our collective response to this presiding pachyderm in our schools should be, “Moms, dads, extended families… What’s up with that?!”
Some may say this question sounds harsh, unfair, and insensitive; however, is it not widely accepted that every parent is responsible for reading to their child? This should happen in the home until the child learns to enjoy reading and can reap the benefits of being a proficient reader? If not, parents are setting their child up to fail. Akin to feeding, bathing, and clothing, reading is essential to a child’s survival and success in America. Many will effectively argue that smart technology discourages reading and that tech companies should be held accountable for the damage their products inflict on young readers, but using technology to babysit children or pretending that there is no choice when it comes to using smart tech are weak excuses that contribute to crippling American youth and the nation.
Why, then, are more parents choosing not to read to their children?
An article appeared in the Guardian over a year ago that recapped a survey of 1000 parents. “33% of [surveyed] parents with children under five wished they had more confidence to read with their child. Reading out loud and doing character voices were cited as reasons for doubting their confidence.” The article went on to note, “Of the more than 1,000 parents surveyed, three-quarters said that they wished they had more time for shared reading” (Creamer). Confidence and time can be formidable obstacles especially when you consider a lack of confidence in reading could mean the parent reads below proficiency or may be illiterate. A lack of time for some parents means they must work so much to survive they don’t see their kids very often.
This is where federal, state, and local governments, companies, businesses, churches, community groups, and schools can do more to provide funding and resources for families that cannot provide this basic necessity. And while some communities and schools provide this service, far too many do not. For parents who have the aptitude and can make time, choosing not to read to your child negatively affects your child, family, and the rest of the country.
And, while it is okay to allow video games, social media, and smart tech into your homes, reading must be prioritized and emphasized as it will enhance any constructive, technology-driven activity and set your child up for success in a world that is still extremely text-centric and requires an acute ability to consume information quickly and critically. There’s no better time to pick up a book and read to your kid than now.
Sources:
Bhatia, Y. (2024, February 28). America’s Early Childhood Literacy Crisis. RealClearEducation. https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2024/02/28/americas_early_childhood_literacy_crisis_1014926.html
Creamer, E. (2023, August 24). “Most parents want more time reading to young children, study shows.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/24/most-parents-want-more-time-reading-to-young-children-study-shows
Increase the proportion of children whose family read to them at least 4 days per week — EMC-02 – Healthy People 2030 | odphp.health.gov. odphp.health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/browse-objectives/children/increase-proportion-children-whose-family-read-them-least-4-days-week-emc-02.
Lemire, Sarah. “What are the benefits of reading books? A lot, actually: 10 surprising psychological and physical perks associated with regular reading. January 2023. (2023, January 4). [Video]. TODAY.com. https://www.today.com/life/inspiration/benefits-of-reading-rcna61735
O’Reilly, T., Sands, A., Wang, Z., Dreier, K., & Sabatini, J. (n.d.). Curbing America’s Reading Crisis: A Call to Action for Our Children. Policy Report. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED603352
Schmidt, Megan. “How Reading Fiction Increases Empathy and Encourages Understanding.” Discover Magazine, 28 Aug. 2020, www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-reading-fiction-increases-empathy-and-encourages-understanding.
