Although Oct. is known as National Book Month, in recent years, getting students to pick up a book has been proving difficult, according to Cable News Network, and high school students’ test scores have hit their lowest in over 20 years.
English Department co-chair Kristen Alles believes this lack of reading initiative is the reason why. As test scores plummet across the country, Alles believes that the correlation between reading less and earning worse test scores directly points back to a weakening vocabulary in students.
“I have learned through teaching and digging deep into these tests that it is a reading test,” Alles said. “If the students don’t know what the words mean, they can’t answer the questions. Reading books directly improves your vocabulary, so those two things have to be related.”
Attributing his success in school to reading, senior Ryan Utley also believes that his love of reading helps him succeed in classes besides English. He thinks that, depending on what type of book you read, you can also gain more knowledge in other subjects.
“Reading anything in general is good for your comprehension and vocabulary, which are more English-oriented skills,” Utley said. “But you could get a lot better at history, like I did, by reading historical novels or political literature.”
According to Alles, reading is not only a skill valuable for teens, but it is also the foundations that are built as children grow up that shape how they perform with testing as teens and beyond.
“If you read with a child every single day, their vocabulary is at a certain level, versus when they don’t, and it’s a chasm,” Alles said. “It is huge.”
In an effort to support students in whatever step of their reading journey they may be on, librarian Amanda Pata thinks that fostering a love for reading is not only the job of an individual but also the community around them to initiate the relationship between a kid and a book.
“My favorite part of being a librarian is connecting kids to books that they like,” Pata said. “Or challenging them to read something that they might not know that they could like.”
But an opposition to reading may not be the fault of a student themselves. Utley believes that school itself may be to blame for this resistance to reading. With certain classes, such as AP Literature, requiring students to read as many books as four curriculum chosen books per school year, the lack of freedom in choosing a book can be a reason students don’t enjoy reading.
“I think the pressure that gets put on kids to read so much can deter them from it,” Utley said. “Kids being forced to read books they don’t enjoy will definitely also deter them.”
Students receiving free autonomy to choose books of their own interests may entice them to be interested in picking up a book, but some student’s choices may not always be challenging enough for them. This is why Alles believes that a balance for different types of books both inside and outside of the classroom is vital for developing reading skills.
“Giving students a choice in reading, I think, is a huge help in getting students to want to read more,” Alles said. “But I also think you have to have a level, too, of being engaged in a critical or a complex moment. And so, with more complex test texts in our English classes, we try to model and annotate and do that active reading, as well, to kind of balance out the choice and complexity.”
As North’s librarian, Pata sees a bright future for not only ours, but libraries across the world. With North’s library’s ever-changing activities and new book releases, the study space and book home always has something new to offer for students who are either looking for something specific or searching for inspiration for a new project.
“We’re excited for our kids to continue to use our collection,” Pata said. “We’re working really hard to keep it up to date and stock with new stuff, so keep coming by.”
