Put down the devices and pick up a book
Reignite a love of books this Read Across America Week
Literacy rates are falling. Parents aren’t reading to their children. Children and adults aren’t reading for pleasure. Books are no longer a go-to source for knowledge. But, why?
Tablets and smartphones have replaced books as a form of entertainment and as a mode of learning. Content on devices dish out short-form videos, games, and shows to entertain the masses. Hot takes and philosophical sound-bites give the illusion that consumers are getting an education, receiving bits of wisdom from their favorite YouTube or TikTok creator. The allure of smartphones and tablets, and all that they offer, has captivated the minds of children and adults alike. Meanwhile, books are falling out of favor across age groups. Setting aside books and choosing not to read is an easy decision for children when adults are making the same choice. Although picking up a device over a book has negative consequences for adults, the decline in reading for entertainment and learning is particularly damaging to children.
Literacy rates among school-age children are falling
One cause for alarm is declining literacy rates among America’s children. The Nation’s Report Card—the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—has shown a steady downward trend in literacy rates among children in recent years. The 2024 NAEP results, released last year, showed that proficiency in reading is declining. As NPR reported, “in 2019, 35% of fourth-graders scored at or above the test’s reading proficiency standard. That figure dropped to 33% in 2022 and, further, to 31%, in 2024.” The cause for the decline is often attributed to school closures due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, but fourth-grade reading scores began falling around 2015. Martin West, a professor of education and academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, noted a similar trend among twelfth-graders: “Twelfth grade reading scores … hit a recent peak in 2009 and fell significantly over the following decade.”
As West observed, the downward trend began around the time children and teens started having access to smartphones. He suspects that screens are distracting children and teens from learning while they are at school and pulling them away from homework and books while at home, which he claims at least partly explains the decline in literacy scores, as well as math and science scores.
But the effects of devices on literacy rates start before fourth grade, even before kindergarten.
Reading among young children is decreasing
Spencer Russell, a former elementary school teacher, posed the following question to his “Toddlers Can Read” Instagram audience: Why aren’t you reading aloud to your kids? The responses ranged from time constraints to fatigue to impatience with the process. “It’s so boring” was the most shocking response.
Reading aloud to children when they are young boosts enjoyment of reading and helps cultivate a love of reading that continues through childhood, but a survey conducted by HarperCollins UK reports that “fewer than half (41%) of 0–4-year-olds are read to frequently, a steep decline from 64% in 2012. Gen Z parents in particular struggle when it comes to reading aloud to their children. The same survey found that Gen Z parents, more so than previous generations, view reading as something to be learned at school rather than something fun to enjoy. Given that Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with technology, they are more likely to turn to digital entertainment for fun rather than books. As Russell states: “I don’t think we can divorce the role of technology influencing gen Z parents and their kids with the decline in reading out loud.”
If parents are turning to devices for entertainment, their children are as well. When reading is treated like a job to be done in school or as part of schoolwork and when adults also stop reading and don’t see the value in it, children will lose interest, which might explain why, as the HarperCollins survey reported, only 32% of children ages 5-10 frequently choose to read for enjoyment, a decline from 55% in 2012.
Falling literacy rates and the decline in parents reading to their children coincides with rising concerns about a post-literate society—one that no longer sees the value in the written word and voluntarily stops reading. To avert this crisis, and in honor of Read Across America Week, let’s explore how to get books back into the hands of children.
How to get kids reading again
First and foremost, set aside the tablets.
Parents are faced with many obstacles, like heavy work schedules and lack of help with childrearing, but they must find time to read to their children. Being exposed to books from a young age greatly increases a child’s chances of becoming a proficient reader and lover of the written word. Parents can choose whatever time works best for them: before bedtime, in the morning, or during mealtime. And the process doesn’t need to take long—a young child’s attention span is short anyway. Although, that’s another benefit of read-alouds: their attention span will improve over time as they become accustomed to listening to, and then reading, books.
Start teaching children to read before introducing a tablet. Children can begin the process of learning to read as soon as they begin talking. And once they’ve learned, and as long as they haven’t become reliant on a tablet, books will become a primary means of entertainment that they can do independently, giving parents the break they currently enjoy by giving their child a tablet. The primary reason Erik Hoel began teaching his son to read at age two was so that he could entertain himself. Although Hoel grants that taking on this task might not be feasible for every family, he advocates that parents try—he only spent 10-15 minutes a day on the process and enjoyed it himself. Now, at the age of four, not only can his son read independently as a leisure activity, he can read to learn about things that interest him.
Finally, instead of stuffing a tablet in their bag before leaving the house to run errands or take a trip, children should carry along a few books. When Catherine Oliver, a homeschooling mother, had to spend a half hour opening a bank account, her children pulled out their supply of books to help pass the time. Her kids are just like other children, as Oliver describes. If they had a choice between a tablet or a book, they’d likely pick up the tablet. So, to ensure her kids spend ample time reading and view the activity as a form of entertainment, they don’t leave the house with tablets and she doesn’t hand them her smartphone. They read books.
The benefits of re-focusing on books
Learning to read is one of the most important activities for a child to undertake. Being a proficient reader opens many avenues to knowledge, provides opportunities to elicit deep thought about complex issues, and helps increase a child’s, and subsequently an adult’s, attention span, to name a few. And the earlier children learn to read on their own, the more prepared they will be to read difficult texts in later childhood, adolescence, and adulthood—provided they have been reading good books all along.
But, importantly, children must be introduced to the books and learn to read them in a way that makes them fall in love with the written word. That means parents must learn (or re-learn) to love books and the process of reading themselves.
This week is the perfect occasion to fall in love with a book for the first time or all over again. To close out Read Across America Week, invite your child to cozy up for a read aloud of a beloved book from your childhood, and then do it again the next day, and the next, and the day after that. You won’t regret it.