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Report finds ‘shocking and dispiriting’ fall in children reading for pleasure (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/literature@beehaw.org
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Children's reading enjoyment has fallen to its lowest level in almost two decades, with just one in three young people saying that they enjoy reading in their free time, according to a new survey.

Only 34.6% of eight- to 18-year-olds surveyed by the National Literacy Trust (NLT) said that they enjoy reading in their spare time. This is the lowest level recorded by the charity since it began surveying children about their reading habits 19 years ago, representing an 8.8 percentage point drop since last year.

It is also part of a broader downward trend since 2016, when almost two in three children said that they enjoyed reading.

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[-] MrBadApple@lemmynsfw.com 12 points 2 weeks ago

Perhaps if children in many US schools were not forced to read to a pre set quota they night enjoy it. Being mandated to do something you may not already enjoy rarely results in future enjoyment of that activity.

[-] Vodulas@beehaw.org 12 points 2 weeks ago

Also having teachers that understand the value of literature besides traditional early American/European authors. Those authors are boring (for me) for the most part. If your school district forces that particular genre, let the kids read Frankenstein or other early sci-fi and horror. For the love of all that is enjoyable, don't force Hawthorne on anyone. Especially when they are, as a purely hypothetical, falling asleep while reading the book in class.

[-] ErsatzCoalButter@beehaw.org 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

lmao, the article is about the UK

if you would like to criticize American education anyway, perhaps we could find a nice article about that subject together

*edit: here you are

**edit 2, i still don't want to talk about your teacher @Vodulas@beehaw.org 😜

[-] Vodulas@beehaw.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

I think you are mistaking criticism for district mandated curricula for criticism of teachers. If anything, my comment was more critical of teachers, but also that was about teachers when I was in high school

[-] Vodulas@beehaw.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

i still don’t want to talk about your teacher @Vodulas@beehaw.org 😜

That's fair. I will say, it is also true in the US, and seems to be going down faster here. This is from 2021, but still

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/12/among-many-u-s-children-reading-for-fun-has-become-less-common-federal-data-shows/

[-] ErsatzCoalButter@beehaw.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

Seeing as the US is a transcontinental slave empire, it does make sense that they wouldn't emphasize literacy among their populace.

[-] Vodulas@beehaw.org 2 points 2 weeks ago

In that vein the UK isn't better. Colonialism and all that.

this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2024
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