Teens and Reading: An Infographic

I often get asked by parents, how do I get my child to read? In my experience as a K-12 librarian, I have found that the amount of reading for fun drops for students as they progress from primary to middle years, and that it is practically non-existent in the as they get into senior secondary.  The primary section is a reassuring, constant mess that students are burrowing into shelves, reserving books, and sharing books and recommending titles among themselves.  They vocally suggest to me what I should be buying - which I love.  Why should I guess what they want to read?  Just let them tell me.  

However the secondary section of the library remains desolate, collecting dust. Visited by the rare secondary student venturing into the library, it's used more regularly by advanced primary students craving reading material above their year groups.  It's my observation that as students leave primary and get older, they read less. Research also supports this too. 

Many reasons are suggested as to why this happens - distractions (socially, digitally, school, academic pressures), no more schedule library borrowing times.  But just to be clear, this Middle school reading "plunge" was noticed by educators long before the ubiquity of mobile devices, Internet and social media. However, they don't help.

While we speculate infinitely as to what we can do about this and the reasons behind it, this recent infographic from a study done with Australian teenagers does reveal some interesting findings that are food for thought:

• They still read for fun  - 70% read weekly for pleasure
• They are open-minded. Despite the digital ubiquity, many still prefer reading in print, and could appreciate the advantages of reading digitally. 
• While most (88%) have a mobile phone, it was the device that they were least likely to read on. 
• The digital device that teens were most likely to read on were a dedicated ereader. Hurray! This is my personal favourite due to ease of access, convenience. The book just disappears when it's due - no overdue fines, no trip to the return box at the library, the portability, but I don't like the backlit brightness of the screen.   
• A minority of teens (13%) did not answer or didn't like reading at all.

So all is not lost, but my first question to parents who ask me, why is my child not reading, would be, do you read? Do you role model reading yourself or are you also always on your phone or iPad?  What was the last book you read?  Do you have an allocated time that where you read as a family together?  How do you support a reading of habit with your children?  I only get students for about half an hour of week, parents get them for half of their waking hours or more. 

Remember all the distractions mentioned above?  Parents can limit all of them and provide a family time to encourage reading.  I am not saying it's easy.  Like any habits, it's not going to happen fast, but like many things that take time and hard work, it's worth it. 

Steve Jobs didn't let his own kids have iPads.  Elon Musk is a lifelong reader and Warren Buffet credits his success to reading 600 to 1000 pages every day. Just saying...

Image taken from www.teachermagazine.com.au.