This week's article summary is Students Are Reading Fewer Books in English Class, and it’s a continuation of previous summaries about middle, high school, and college students lacking basic literacy skills.
As you’ll see in the article, today’s middle and high school English teachers rarely if at all assign full-length novels to their students due to the pressure of high-stakes standardized testing and the need to cover an overly-broad curriculum.
While short reading passages from famous novels may help teachers cover their course’s curriculum, it unfortunately isn’t helping students fully develop their literacy/reading skills. I like reading snippets of books and short stories, but there are critical reading (and executive function) skills you develop, use, and practice when reading a novel from beginning to end.
The current data is stark: few kids today read proficiently or for pleasure--although if you’re not competent in whatever area, why would you focus on it during your free time?
I am a member of a dying breed: a reader of books. I’m the lone member of my family who reads books. I typically have two or three books going at once. Most weekends I spend idle time browsing the shelves of bookstores; my favorite is Half-Price Books in Decatur, near Emory University where the customers are as interesting and diverse as the used books for sale. Whenever I’ve moved to a new city, one of the first things I did was get a local library card. Every year I look forward to Jill asking me to preview an array of books for the upcoming faculty/staff summer learning options; in fact, she gave me my first preview read earlier this week.
As we live in an age of distraction and instant gratification, I recognize that our attention spans have shortened—even an avid reader like me now prefers short paragraphs and chapters.
Yet, I still see the need and value in students reading complete novels, not just short passages. Some of my favorites from high school and college were The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, Crime and Punishment, Animal Farm, Frankenstein, and The Martian Chronicles.
I’m skeptical if the novel will ever regain its popularity, yet for the sake of our students’ critical thinking skills and focus/attention, we need to keep the novel alive in middle and high schools!
Joe
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Chris Stanislawski didn’t read much in his middle school English classes, but it never felt necessary. Students were given detailed chapter summaries for every novel they discussed, and teachers often played audio of the books during class. Much of the reading material was either abridged books or online texts and printouts.
“When you’re given a summary of the book telling you what you’re about to read, it ruins the whole story for you,” said Chris, 14. “What’s the point of actually reading?”
In many English classrooms across America, assignments to read full-length novels are becoming less common. Some teachers focus instead on selected passages — a concession to perceptions of shorter attention spans, pressure to prepare for standardized tests, and a sense that short-form content will prepare students for the modern, digital world.
The emphasis on shorter, digital texts does not sit well with everyone.
Deep reading is essential to strengthen circuits in the brain tied to critical thinking skills, background knowledge — and, most of all, empathy, said Maryanne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist at UCLA.
“We must give our young an opportunity to understand who others are, not through little snapshots, but through immersion into the lives and thoughts and feelings of others,” Wolf said.
There’s little data on how many books are assigned by schools. But in general, students are reading less. Federal data from last year shows only 14% of young teens say they read for fun daily, compared with 27% in 2012.
Teachers say the trend stems from standardized testing and the influence of education technology. Digital platforms can deliver a complete English curriculum, with thousands of short passages aligned to state standards — all without having to assign an actual book.
“If schools are judged by their test scores, how are they going to improve their test scores? They’re going to mirror the test as much as possible,” said Karl Ubelhoer, a middle school teacher in Tabernacle, New Jersey.
For some students, it’s a struggle to read at all. Only a third of fourth and eighth graders reached reading proficiency in the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, down significantly from 2019.
Leah van Belle, executive director of the Detroit literacy coalition, said when her son read “Peter Pan” in late elementary school, it was too hard for most kids in the class. She laments that Detroit feels like “a book desert.” Her son’s school doesn’t even have a library.
Still, she said it makes sense for English classes to focus on shorter texts. “As an adult, if I want to learn about a topic and research it, be it personal or professional, I’m using interactive digital text to do that,” she said.
Even in well-resourced schools, one thing is always in short supply: time.
Terri White, a teacher at South Windsor High School in Connecticut, no longer makes her honors ninth-grade English class read all of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” She assigns about a third of the book and a synopsis of the rest. They have to move on quickly because of pressure for teachers to cram more into the curriculum, she said. “I maintain rigor. But I’m more about helping students become stronger and more critical readers, writers and thinkers, while taking their social-emotional well-being into account,” she said.
In the long run, the synopsis approach harms students’ critical thinking skills, said Alden Jones, a literature professor at Emerson College in Boston. She assigns fewer books than she once did and gives more quizzes to make sure students do the reading.
Will Higgins, an English teacher at Dartmouth High School in Massachusetts, said he still believes in teaching the classics, but demands on students’ time have made it necessary to cut back. “We haven’t given up on ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice.’ We haven’t given up on ‘Hamlet’ or ‘The Great Gatsby,’″ Higgins said.
His school has had success encouraging reading through student-directed book clubs, where small groups pick a book and discuss it together. “It’s funny,” he said. “Many students are saying that it’s the first time in a long time they’ve read a full book.”
