He used to love reading. Before middle school, you could hardly find him without his nose stuck in some novel or another.
But something flipped when he reached his teens. He began to gravitate further and further away from recreational reading, even learning to dread English reading assignments.
Why is this such a common trend?
Recently, a survey led by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that the percentage of adults who reported reading one book in the past year dropped from 52.7 percent in 2017 to 48.5 percent in 2022. Recreational reading among teenagers has seen similar changes in the past decade — the National Center for Education Statistics reported a 10 percent drop in the amount of 13-year-olds who read for fun everyday.
Middle School Librarian Elyse Chevallier believes that the sharp decline in reading for children likely derives from the obvious fact that older students are generally busier.
“We only have so many hours in a day, and kids prioritize different things,” Chevallier says. “It gets even more difficult when you’re in Upper School and you have harder classes. You just have a lot more on your plate.”
Aside from the multitude of distractions that prevent older students from reading, the books themselves are often an issue as well. It’s relatively difficult for librarians to find good literature that’s engaging for older Middle Schoolers.
“It’s hard to find books that satisfy (students’) growing maturity,” said Chevallier. “Kids like to read up. A lot of my students really like hard science fiction, but there’s not a lot being written for younger kids or even young adults.”
In addition, students tend to label reading as a waste of time once their classwork gets more difficult — after all, most novels take place in fictitious, intangible landscapes. However, there are many benefits to recreational reading in all genres, whether it be fiction or nonfiction.
“Reading does make you better at taking standardized tests,” Chevallier said. “It’s not quantifiable in a way that other skills are, but it’s still valuable.”
And picking up reading isn’t terribly difficult; just start slow, one page at a time. Soon, you’ll find that reading does make you a better student.
“(Reading) doesn’t have to be everyone’s favorite thing,” Chevallier said. “But you do see benefits from reading, and it would be nice if (students) could slip reading into their routines.”
