Talking Point: Reading in the digital age
Liz Worthen ponders the state of the nation's reading habits
The reading habits of England's children have been placed under scrutiny with the news that they have dropped from 3rd to 19th place in a table of 40 countries compiled by the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study.
Of course this is a matter for concern — effective literacy skills are the keys to success in our education system and society at large. However, I couldn't help but wonder about comments such as, 'Analysis of the England results said children were spending more time on computers and reading less for fun.' (BBC education news, 28 November 2007.) Doesn't spending time on computers entail reading for fun? Isn't digital literacy a vital component in the 21st century learner's curriculum? Just think of the skills required to understand the stages of a computer game, to communicate with friends through a network site or to find information about a favourite pop band.
The study also seems to equate the reading of novels with high literacy levels. Analysts report 'significant increases in the proportion of English 10-year-olds with the "least positive" attitudes to reading and who said they very seldom read stories or novels outside school.' Did the study ask what else they might be reading? Not everyone wants to read stories or novels.
If this study provokes a healthy debate about the promotion of reading for pleasure through the National Curriculum, great! But do we really want to assess our 21st century digital natives by 20th century digital immigrant standards?
- BBC report: England falls in reading league
- Guardian report: England plunges in rankings for reading
What's your view? Should children be encouraged to spend more time reading books and less time on computers? Add a comment below and vote in our poll.
Comments
escape from reality
Children now have other ways to make the transition from reality into fantasy. The immersion that may have been made through the printed page is no longer necessary. Transportation to fabulous worlds or safe, yet exhilirating, places no longer require the novel.
How many of us now reach for a reference book when we can google the answer in an instant?
Why spend hours reading Dicken's descriptions of Victorian Britain and caracterisation, when a movie does it all in seconds. This does not remove the intellectual process of analysis, it just speeds it up. And the story still gets told.
Visual literacy carries the same skill base as most literacy curriculums. The method of decoding the information has changed and knowledge is still power. How the knowledge is obtained is irrelevant.
What is more of a concern would be those children who have no access to the acquisition of knowledge through either the printed page or the pixelated screen or those who are unable to discriminate the validity of the information/knowledge they are in receipt of.
Maybe reading books, like education for all, is just a hiccup in the histoy of human kind ?
The future's bright, the future's ......unknown but shaped by the past and present?
No, just someone else's reality
I agree that the printed book is not the only vehicle for transporting us from reality to fantasy, and that many other media, including new technologies involve very speedy and high level analysis.
However, the process of analysis is changed. When I am reading Dickens I am inevitably taking my reality and blending it with Dickens' and therefore creating my own "fantasy." It is unique to me, because I am creating the image in my mind based on my own understanding of the present. So I am therefore creating my own interpretation. With TV and film someone else has done this process for me. I will still be understanding it through my own world view, but so much more of the interpretation has already been done for me.
I suppose you could go on to argue that therefore the analysis is that much more challenging because I am having to interact with the producer/director's and Dicken's reality as well as my own. But then, so much more is already given too.
I think we should not put down new technologies, but the printed word still has a very important place, and as it needs more skills to enter into, needs more support from parents and schools.
Who is Cinderella?
A good point, well made which puts me in mind of a story telling workshop where the story teller deliberately chose not to use descriptions of the central characters because the children involved needed to 'see' their own characters forming in their imaginations.
The stories were traditional and already cultural/popular bias may have entered into the mix.
This is similar to how children portray houses in their art work. Over time the chimney and smoke creeps in, despite the fact that the majority of homes do not have coal or wood fires or even chimneys.
Our reading of Dickens is infested/invested with our cultural and social bias. We cannot read Dickens with the same slant as a Victorian consuming the weekly episodes. Our imaginative eye is already the Ridley Scott for our entry into Bleak House.
The point I was trying to make was that technology assists the transportation into the realm of fantasy. It is made easier, like a desktop shortcut.
Like the gr8 txt msjsing lanwij.
It's about taking a step forward and not being afraid to leave behind the familiar.
How many of us feel any less intelligent or well informed because of our lack of Latin?
If we don't move forward we end up standing still.
The printing press allowed access to the printed word for the majority of those taught to decode the printed word.
The printed word may remain, but so do good story tellers.
The mix is the magic.
Great discussion topic.
500+ writers petition PM on childhood illiteracy
545 writers - from Jackie Collins to the Poet Laureate Andrew Motion- have signed a letter to PM Gordon Brown expressing concern about falling literacy rates.
"As authors, we are deeply concerned at the low levels of childhood literacy across Britain. In a complex world, reading has become increasingly important - if not crucial.â
They also suggest children should be taught to read for an hour a day, adding, "no child should be left behind".
See full BBC report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7146372.stm
See also the Lost for Words website supporting the Channel 4 season of campaigning programmes to get all children reading.
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/L/lost_for_words/
The trouble is at my age
The trouble is at my age when you were at school, there was plenty of reading but no computers, and that's why I can't type very well. Also why I don't like reading on-line. I don't like scrolling pages. that's why we don't use scrolls any more, we have books instead because they are better
reading versus computers
computers cannot offer what a great book offers.
Can you imagine reading War and Peace, Shakespeare or Tolkein on screen. You'd need serious eye care. You could, I suppose, put your laptop in you pocket and whip it out for a quick read on the bus, at the cafe, in the bath or even on the throne! How can anyone suggest reading online can replace books? I love my computer, I love the way it enables me to express, develop, research and present ideas. Best pencil I ever had. But it cannot replace the feel of a book in my hands.
The bibliophile and the eReader
Well the debate about the demise of the printed page has been trundling on for some time. For self-confessed bibliophile Andrew Marr, itâs been the quality of eReaders, which has slowed progress. Read his account of using the iRexâs iLiad to enjoy ââ¦some Tolstoy and then some Conan Doyle, in the garden, slumped in a chair inside, on a sofa in a dimmish room, and in the back of a car. In each place, it was easy to read; I have spent plenty of time reading it and so far, haven't felt any eyestrain....â
http://books.guardian.co.uk/ebooks/story/0,,2077277,00.html
http://www.irextechnologies.com/products/iliad
books
Visiting bookshops, taking books from shelves, choosing books by leafing thrugh them, physically holding books and turning pages, smelling books are all pleasures which are lacking in computer use. But then I am rubbish at computers. I had to type this wth 2 fingers.