In a non-scientific survey done
on Bucks’ Newtown Campus, 54
percent of students said they read
less than three times a month, and
30 percent said that they will
only read if it is required of
them.
The survey also asked students
how often they watch
the news on T.V. ; 54 percent
said that they watch the news
less than three times a month,
20 percent reported that they
never watch the news.
Some students explained
the reasons for their habits.
The majority responded that
they simply do not have
enough time, and, when
they do have spare time,
they would rather watch
something entertaining.
Reading and learning
habits are often skills acquired
in the earlier stages
of life. According to the
National Center For Learning
Disabilities, children
who lack the skills to read
early on will likely suffer
from a lack of motivation
to read, which can make
the habit of reading a burden in
adulthood.
Jen Clark, a Bucks County elementary
school teacher, said that
over her 13 years in teaching she’s
noticed a slow but sure decrease
in students’ interests in reading.
In her sixth grade class “.they
like to be read to,” she says. Clark
explains that with all of the new
technology available to children,
they are just naturally losing interest
in reading and learning.
“Everyone wants things to be
fun and animated.” According to
Clark, the fast, bright, loud images
that appear on children’s television
shows and videogames cause
students to subsequently view
reading as slow- paced and boring.
“When you read something, you
are forced to create your own
image of the information you’re
taking in. When you watch something
on TV, you don’t have to
question what image you’re taking
in because it’s right there in
front of you,” she said.
Clark said if interest in reading
and learning continues to wane,
America will become a dumbeddown
nation that is unable to compete
in the global economy.
Today, television is the major
source of information for many
Americans. But
even with the availability of news
and educational information on
television, pop culture dominates
the interest of most of today’s
youth.
This fact mirrors the majority of
the responses of Bucks students
surveyed who said they’d rather
be entertained by television than
educated by it.
But pop culture is not completely
to blame for the decline in
reading and interest in current
events. In his book “Why
Johnny Can’t Read,” Rudolf
Flesch explains another possible
reason for the decline in Americans’
reading habits.
Flesch attributes the problem
to the abandonment of traditional
teaching methods by
American schools. He claims
that phonics, the teaching of
reading by sounding out letters
to form words, was the most
successful method at teaching
students to read, but that it
might be abandoned in the future.
He was right. In 1987,
schools began to remove
phonics from the curriculum,
replacing it with methods that
rely instead on recognizing
words visually.
“We have decided to forget
that we write with letters,”
said Flesch,” and instead
learn to read English as if it
were Chinese.”
Arecent study conducted by
the Education Testing Service
found that only 42 percent of fouryear
college graduates could write
a summary or a comparison of