The unsurprising decline of childhood literacy in America

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It may well be the case that not all American children learned to read decades ago, but those who did were actual readers. They could sit down with Washington’s “Farewell Address” or a story by Hawthorne without their eyes glazing over. And they acquired these skills with far less money spent, no nonsense about innovative curriculum, or, perhaps most important, without “technology in the classroom” (the great mantra of the '90s and early 2000s). As I write this, millions of them in their 60s and 70s are browsing the stacks at their public libraries, those bizarre institutions that so few young people even associate with books, looking for the new John Grisham.

 
It’s a tall order to get kids to read these days when there are so many other entertainment options in the home. It’s also hard to get them to get out of the house.
 
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From the article:

“I cannot for the life of me understand why we cannot admit that spending hundreds of hours in front of televisions and mobile phones and tablets and even occasionally computers — those archaic typing machines employed by us oldsters — is very obviously detrimental to the process of learning to read. Reading a book requires one to concentrate on a single task for an extended period of time — a minimum of half an hour or so during which one does not ask oneself whether a little heart or a yellow star is appearing next to some words in a box next to some other words. It is a centripetal rather than a centrifugal process, one that requires us to look down and inward, not outside. If we want to help young people become better readers, one of the best things we can do for them is to keep their wonderful young imaginations free from the tyranny of the screen, to which commerce will subject them later on when they are forced to earn their livings.”
 
I would think, with the advent of electronic media, literacy is growing and earlier
 
There have been studies that show comprehension and retention of material read on a screen and in a book differ. The book is better, maybe because there are no distractions, or temptations to go elsewhere.
 
Poor diets and family situations also contribute to the problem.
We are imperfect people living in an increasingly imperfect world.
 
Maybe we are moving into a post-literate society, in which most people won’t or can’t read.

I have noticed that the more time I spend on the internet, the shorter my attention span gets.
 
OK, but it will probably be on the Kindle, which is like caving in to technology.
 
No, go read a real book!!
Don’t make me assign a book report!
 
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Isn’t a great portionof screen time actually reading? Sure it’s not the great literature of times past but it is still reading.

I think the author needs to separate reading for comprehension (extracting info) vs other types of reading.
 
I finally bought a Kindle last year for my 62nd birthday. I too was (and am) a fan of a physical book with paper, leather, etc.

Well, my Kindle has a lot of ‘real books’ on it now, including the Bible, the Summa Theologica, Cardinal Sarah’s books, Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth, and countless classics from the L. Frank Baum Oz series to Jane Austen’s works to the complete works of Shakespeare. . and I’ve barely scratched the SURFACE here. So instead of turning a page I ‘flick’ with a finger. Big deal! All those ‘real books’ are right there. (I do admit that I LOL’d at the ‘battery lasts weeks’, assuming one only reads a hour or so a day. That Kindle routinely gets charged at least once a day to ram it back from the 50-60% I routinely get it down to by late night so it’s back up to 100% the next morning). A Kindle has real books. A Kindle is wonderful. And yes, my grandsons enjoy looking at it. When we lost power in a summer thunderstorm, my Kindle with its backlight was right there for them to look at and enjoy reading about the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
 
Our country’s prior methods of educating were so different. A six-year-old could memorize and recite classical poetry. But we also didn’t think four-year-olds should be involved in formal education. All the more reason to support homeschooling…
 
I didn’t exactly mean kindles, although some think even that is not the same as reading from a book. I don’t have the source, it was a printed out copy someone showed me when my son was in high school, so I cannot provide it.
 
GiftofMercy said:
I would think, with the advent of electronic media, literacy is growing and earlier
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Old people like me use an antiquated Kindle to read spiritual classics for 99 cents, and we can increase the font as needed.

But media used by most young people focuses on brief bits of knowledge, a fraction of an idea, that requires a tiny bit of effort. On social media the pressure is not to discern what’s true, but What’s Trending Now.

I have observed the shows my preschool grandchildren watch. True, they teach letters and numbers, but always a subtle PC theme.
 
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gracepoole said:
Our country’s prior methods of educating were so different. A six-year-old could memorize and recite classical poetry.
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Prior methods were geared towards memorization and regurgitation. Idk about others but I question the value of simply reciting back things when we’re almostin an age of having the entirety of human knowledge a few minutes away.
 
HerCrazierHalf said:
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gracepoole:
Our country’s prior methods of educating were so different. A six-year-old could memorize and recite classical poetry.
Click to expand...
Prior methods were geared towards memorization and regurgitation. Idk about others but I question the value of simply reciting back things when we’re almostin an age of having the entirety of human knowledge a few minutes away.
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Read up on Charlotte Mason, who explains quite beautifully the benefits of recitation in education.
 
That would include the times tables, which we oldsters know by heart, but children of today, including college students, for the most part, do not know. Nor do they know much about Eurocentric history, such as when World War II began and ended or who was fighting whom. The decline began with the quest for “relevance” in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and the beginning of such courses as women’s studies, feminist studies, gay studies, Black studies, Asian studies, Latino studies, and so forth. There is nothing wrong with incorporating this kind of material into the curriculum but NOT at the expense of eliminating European history and literature, which is exactly what has happened in the current college curriculum. It has even gotten to the point that the professors themselves know much less, if anything, about Eurocentric studies.
 
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