Anonymous wrote:
Thank you Democrats for closing our schools for a year and a half, banning SAT in uni admissions, lowering academic standards everyone to "fight for social justice" and other "progressive" nonsense.

China is really thankful.

Thank you everyone for creating a screen-centric world.

Kids who stayed home from school for 1.5 years could have read a ton of books in that time.

I used to read 12 books a week (the max library checkout). That was hundreds if not thousands of pages by mid-elementary school.

Did you lead by example, PP?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starts at home, well before school. Parents either invest the time or they don't.

Agree with this. If your kid is not an independent and eager reader by 3rd grade it’s a parenting issue.

I mean this just isn’t true. Independent reader— sure, if no learning disabilities. But some people will never love reading. My parents heavily encouraged reading, but I definitely wasn’t “eager” to read until waaaay past third grade.

+1 I was never an eager reader as a kid, but no one seemed to care because I excelled academically and on standardized tests.

I have two teens who used to be voracious readers when younger, but they rarely read an entire book for pleasure anymore. It’s the phones. We waited until 8th grade to give them phones, monitored their screen time for the first few years, made them wait til 16 for social media… but their attention spans are short now. Mine is too.

“The students who cannot read a 20-page article today are the voters who will not be able to read a bill, or the jurors who cannot follow a closing argument, tomorrow.”

They are also the parents and teachers of tomorrow. What happens when the generation of kids who didn’t learn how to read or do math becomes responsible for raising and teaching the next generation?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starts at home, well before school. Parents either invest the time or they don't.

Agree with this. If your kid is not an independent and eager reader by 3rd grade it’s a parenting issue.

or an LD

Anonymous wrote:Some people love to read, others don’t. It’s really not totally dependent on parenting.

Visual learners tend to love to read, while audio and kinetic learners take in information differently. Different types of learners have different strengths and weaknesses need them all in our society.

This is definitely true but it’s also definitely true that schools are giving up on teaching longer form reading. They can’t afford to buy books, teachers don’t have time to read essays, they say the kids will just not do it and ai it all anyway …. there are lots of reasons but I don’t think any of them are good. When was the last time anyone’s kid read A Scarlet Letter? It’s a good novel and still has relevance for today! Or Grapes of Wrath? Or Invisible Man? When they do read books, the pick the absolutely shortest they can find, like Animal Farm or Grrat Gatsby (both of which I find slightly irritating).
Even in the honors classes—it’s depressing. We almost went to a private HS just for the fact that they read 2-3x as many novels per year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starts at home, well before school. Parents either invest the time or they don't.

Agree with this. If your kid is not an independent and eager reader by 3rd grade it’s a parenting issue.

My kids wee independent and active readers by third grade. My son in particular would read 10-20 novels in an average week, spending probably 40 hours a week reading. As a Hs student he doesn’t read that much and when he does it is novels that he downloads on his phone. He is so busy with homework and hanging out with friends and playing video games. I wish the HS assigned more novels because he is definitely capable and would read them if assigned. He is taking AP lit next year and I’m hoping it gets him back into reading. I think it’s hard when there are so many things competing for your time. In the 80s, it was like — read a book or watch old movies on TBS or something awful like golf on the weekends.

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you Democrats for closing our schools for a year and a half, banning SAT in uni admissions, lowering academic standards everyone to "fight for social justice" and other "progressive" nonsense.

China is really thankful.

Trump lead us into the Covid swamp. He closed schools. Fact.

While parents could be doing more, I'm going to blame schools.
-reading on laptops is not the same
-kids are not given entire books anymore. They're given paragraphs and sections to read.
-kids who are on target are completely ignored in school. Teachers spend most of their time getting the lowest performers up to grade level, which also doesn't happen. Mixed level classrooms are doing all kids a disservice in my opinion.
-Laptops in general are the issue. Instead of kids reading books when bored, they go play games on their laptops during school.

Some people love to read, others don’t. It’s really not totally dependent on parenting.

Visual learners tend to love to read, while audio and kinetic learners take in information differently. Different types of learners have different strengths and weaknesses need them all in our society.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid tests highly but does not independently read anything and it feels like a test case of “when will this turn into a problem?”

My DS doesn’t either outside of school. Apparently, the school assigned him enough because he’s doing well in college now. So, maybe it will never be a problem.

My DH is incredibly smart. He has a Ph.D. in engineering, excels at work, and reads advanced math, statistics, and coding books for fun every day. But traditional reading has never come easily to him. He wishes he were a stronger reader, but he didn't read as a child. He once told me he'd never read an entire non-textbook cover to cover (what the heck was wrong with his English teachers?!). Going to museums with him can be frustrating because our reading abilities are so different. He's probably around the average American reading level overall. He can decode complex words without difficulty, but he reads very slowly and struggles to maintain focus. Even when reading to our kids, he doesn't stumble over words, he just lacks fluidity and speed. He listens to audiobooks daily on his commute.

In contrast, I'm a lawyer, and reading is one of the skills I value most in myself. My reading ability has benefited me enormously throughout my career and has opened doors that I don't think would have been available to me otherwise.

TLDR- it probably won't be a problem and you can be successful even as a non reader.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starts at home, well before school. Parents either invest the time or they don't.

Agree with this. If your kid is not an independent and eager reader by 3rd grade it’s a parenting issue.

My sister and I were both raised with reading books at bedtime every night. I was a big reader but my sister has always hated reading. Same for my own kids. We always read to them and required them to read a certain amount of time per day. They still absolutely will not read if left to their own choice.

Anonymous wrote:My kid tests highly but does not independently read anything and it feels like a test case of “when will this turn into a problem?”

My DS doesn’t either outside of school. Apparently, the school assigned him enough because he’s doing well in college now. So, maybe it will never be a problem.

The combination of smart phones/tech and schools teaching to the test has had a huge impact on a whole generation of people. It is really a shame.

Many well meaning people in education have eliminated the building of reading stamina, vocabulary, and background knowledge. Common core standards changed the meaning of reading comprehension from making meaning from what you have read to being able to answer specific text based questions or take meaning. It eliminated the need for deep analysis.

Kids who come from educated and higher income family were insulated from this by way of school choice and living in language and experience rich environments.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Starts at home, well before school. Parents either invest the time or they don't.

Agree with this. If your kid is not an independent and eager reader by 3rd grade it’s a parenting issue.

I also agree with this. We took our daughter to the book store every Friday and bought her a new book. We would go to the library every week too.

Her grandparents also bought subscriptions to multiple age appropriate magazines.

Her dad and I read, we made it a priority and a source of enjoyment.

It's not just students. My attention span has gone to hell over the past ten years. Silicon Valley provides the dopamine hits and rewires the brain. It's a problem for all generations.

I think in the aggregate, the internet was a terrible idea when it comes to living a meaningful life. And younger people don't know anything else. A few pages of One Hundred Years of Solitude doesn't hit like TikTok or Instagram these days.

Our brains are fried. And it's not just students.