Reading has been around for many hundreds of years, some of the most loved works of art have been literary works of art. This is because books have allowed people to escape to their own worlds where they can imagine what is on the pages and come to love reading. Not only does reading provide entertainment, the ability to read and write at a high level has always correlated with higher levels of intelligence when compared to those who don’t. Why is this important, well according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress there have been studies that show reading levels have gone down over the span of the 2019-2023 school years. This might have to have something to do with COVID but I fail to understand why COVID brought reading levels down as parents should have encouraged young ones to read more.
According to an article by the N.Y. Times, schools are relying on new methods of teaching little kids to read words which do not teach the child the meaning of each letter but rather teach the kid to know what a word containing that letter looks and sounds like. This is detrimental to the child’s overall reading ability as it doesn’t teach them the inner workings of our language. Even though schools are doing a lackluster job at teaching children to read, parents pick up the slack and take it into their own hands, buying expensive materials or turning to a tutor in order to teach the kids reading. This all costs money and it can be difficult for a public school family struggling to make ends meet to give extra time and resources to teach reading.
Therefore, the problem remains and there is a cycle of illiteracy. What has to happen is the government should help schools to have a great plan when it comes to teaching our kids to read and write. This is so that we can help as many kids as we can and we secure a well-educated future.
Anyways, reading has always held a special place in my heart as I remember going to the book store as a small kid with my parents at the mall or going to the used books store where they had records and board games for sale. Reading books has also helped me further understand other peoples’ perspectives as each author has a different story to tell which they tell through their characters. Also, reading or the process of learning how to read really helped me and my sister when my family moved to Texas as I knew zero Spanish when I got here. Thanks to good teachers taking their time in showing us to read properly.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/01/opinion/us-school-reading.html
Great blog! I also love reading 🙂
I agree with you that literacy rates are a big problem for todays kids. Unfortunately, I do think Covid had an impact on illiteracy levels because many parents had to work over quarantine and could not spend time reading with their children, and because kids missed out on face-to-face instruction. I agree with you that there needs to be a comprehensive plan in place to help children who may have fallen behind, but I’m not sure exactly what that would look like.
I love reading too! I’m currently reading The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the RIng. It’s very good, I love those movies too. I would love to hear what books you like, I’m always looking for recommendations from others.
I am also a big reader! I have recently been getting into old-timey romances like those from Jane Austen and I am currently working through Jane Eyre. It is definitely super important to have that high level of literacy not only for reading things for pleasure but also in just general education and the ability to stay up with current events.