One of my daily challenges as a parent is getting my fourth grader to read for 30 minutes as part of her homework.
It’s not because she struggles with her reading skills; she actually reads well-above grade level. Like many kids of her generation, though, my daughter has zero interest in picking up a book. Why would she, when she’s got an iPad offering her nonstop entertainment via videos expertly designed for her short attention span?
Allie, a mother of three in Connecticut who asked to use just her first name to protect her privacy, can relate: While she confirmed all of her kids can read and write at grade level, she told HuffPost that “they just don’t WANT to.” Allie believes the prevalence of screens is “a huge factor” when it comes to her kids’ lack of interest in reading. “Books can’t compete with screens,” she lamented.
But Allie has also noticed some potential long-term effects stemming from her kids’ reading indifference: She said that when her teenage son took a private school entrance exam, “his reading/vocab section was abysmally low.” And this was despite getting A’s in English honors classes! “Because he wasn’t reading recreationally,” Allie observed, “he wasn’t being exposed to enough opportunities to ‘absorb’ new vocabulary and exercise his reading comprehension skills.”
