Do the Youth Still Read like They Used to?

By Joseph Ferrarini

Jack Harvin, an eight year old from Hanover, Massachusetts, first learned to read through the use of an IPad when he was five and is now an avid reader. 

“I love reading and I read about 20 pages a day now,” Harvin said.    

Harvin only uses his tablet to read and many kids in his 1st grade class also learned to read through the tablet.  

“Everyone reads in my class. We have to for homework” Harvin said.  

Harvin and his class appear to be the exception, however. According to Common Sense Media, the decrease in youth reading levels can be attributed to two major factors, age reading drop-off and the gender gap. Reading for children drops off dramatically as children get older.  

A Scholastic study found that 48 percent of children between the ages of 6 to 8 read for fun. This number is down to 24 percent for teenagers from 15 to 17 year old. According to the same study, 18 percent of boys are daily readers while 30 percent of girls are daily readers. This has been attributed to the fact that most writers aim their young adult books towards a female audience. 

For Mary Smith, a 5th grader from Hanover, Massachusetts, she can tell that more and more kids do not want to read. She reads a lot but other kids seem to not want to. 

“Though I still love to read, some of my friends have stopped reading for fun. They would rather watch television or play games on their IPhones than read.” Smith said.  

 Frank Gavin, from Hanover, Massachusetts, only reads for school and not at all for pleasure.  

“I play football and run in track and I am always way too tired to read after practices. I would rather just sit on my couch and watch television or go to bed when I get home,” Gavin said. 

Unity College student John Grant, an avid reader, believes children and teenagers are no longer reading because they just simply have too many distractions in their lives. 

“Kids find television and video games much more entertaining than reading. Many find reading very boring, as well, as they are given books that they do not like and find boring,” Grant said. 

  Hanover High School librarian Sue McHugh has noticed fewer high school students checking out books every year. High school students are just not enjoying reading anymore.  

“Students, throughout their schooling experience, are constantly assigned books, articles, and other types of reading for homework. Many students, at a very young age, immediately associate reading with homework, which is just not fun for many of them,” McHugh said. 

Throughout her years as a librarian, she found that there is only one way to get more people to read. 

“We should give more choices for children. They should be able to read more books based that they truly like, especially early on. If a child is able to find just one book that speaks to them early on, they will be more likely to stick with reading throughout their life.” McHugh said. 

Barnes and Noble employee James Anderson said he has not noticed any decline in either books sold or young customers since he started working at the store. 

           “I see hundreds of people in here every day and we still sell a considerable amount of books to young customers. We do sell a lot of tablets but for some people, they still want to teach their children how to read with an actual paper book,” Anderson said.