Read Any Books Lately? Ever?

Over the past seven decades, Americans periodically have engaged in a dialogue about the (generally poor) state of literacy in this country.  The debates were sparked by Rudolf Flesch’s book Why Johnny Can’t Read (1955) and carried on over the years by other authors and institutions.  While Flesch’s book focused on the failure of elementary schools to teach phonics, other authors and studies have not been limited to this one issue.  Studies from 2020, for example, state that 54% of Americans, about 130 million people, are deficient in basic literacy.  

An essay in the November 2024 issue of The Atlantic continues this discussion with respect to students at elite colleges and universities.  The author presents numerous quotes from professors at those institutions depicting the inability of their students to read and comprehend complete books.  She offers four possible causes for this relatively recent phenomenon:  (1) the distractions and attention deficits caused by smartphones, (2) a change in high school teaching due to the testing regimes of the No Child Left Behind and Common Core “reforms”, (3) the adverse effects on education caused by the Covid pandemic, and (4) a shift in values in current students, away from the humanities and toward more career-oriented or technical majors. 

Perhaps most remarkable is the author’s conclusion that college students struggle with reading and understanding complete books because they were never taught how to do so before getting to college:  many middle and high schools have stopped requiring students to read complete books.  Instead, these schools require only that students read excerpts from complete works. 

Think about your favorite movie.  The one you’ve watched all the way through more than once.  Now, ask yourself how your understanding and appreciation of the characters and plot would be different if you only watched part of the movie — this scene or that scene — or only the first or last 20 minutes of it.  That gives you an inkling of the difference between reading a complete book and only reading excerpts of it. 

If you are one of those students who has never read a complete book, or who only infrequently reads a complete book, you may want to consider what you are missing.  How much more meaningful would your life be if you made reading books an integral part of your life?  How much will your future success, in whatever profession or job you pursue, depend on your ability to read and understand something as complex as a book?

My first suggestion:  pick a subject you are interested in.  Any subject – football, rock ‘n roll, the building of the Empire State Building, World War II, whatever.  Find a book in the subject and read it end to end.  Then do that again, and again.  Then find another subject, and so on.  It is easier to read about things you already like, and far more enjoyable.

My second suggestion:  expand your horizons by reading one of these classics.  Most of them are generally short (think of them as the very beginning of your training for an academic marathon).  You can’t go wrong with any of them.  In no particular order:  To Kill a Mockingbird; The Scarlet Letter; The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (this one is a bit longer than the rest, but a great book); The Catcher in the Rye; Of Mice and Men; Brave New World.  Want more titles?  Your school librarian or the staff at your public library can guide you to many more. 

Good luck and good reading.