To read or not to read

I’ve got a twelve-year-old struggling to read and a school that says they’re “done with reading,” meaning that they assume everyone has mastered the skill by now, and they are moving on to more in-depth uses of reading. Since this kid was in second grade, I’ve been told he had “symptoms of dyslexia,” but he was denied the diagnosis due to other disabilities, which meant he hasn’t gotten any particular help aside from what his blind Mama could give.

Now they’re saying that boat has sailed, and no help will be provided regardless. He also can’t get access to text-based accommodations, so he’s failing social studies and science, subjects where reading is now the primary access point.

And of course, this is hard on his self-esteem, the key component of the motivation to “work hard”—the school’s primary suggestion.

Teachers are likely to point fingers at parents in these situations, but some kids struggle, due to disability and the diagnosis of dyslexia is narrower than most people realize. I’ve read to my kids every day—stressed or not, exhausted or not—since before they could sit up. It wasn’t a chore for me. I love reading and I love kids’ books. I also started them on early phonics at age two and they’ve done practice reading every day. In short, it isn’t for lack of opportunity at home.

Image via Pixabay - A somber young man reading in a dim space

One of my kids was given a bit of school-based intervention for dyslexia, even without the formal diagnosis, and that one has now taken flight in reading, despite significant neuro-developmental disability, reading for fun and thus gaining the strength to also use reading for information gathering.

But the other one has been left behind, despite vigorous daily efforts at home. There have been many tears over it and plenty of pressure to “just let it go” from other adults who don’t want to deal with the hassle.

You’re reading a blog, so I’m betting you enjoy reading or at least don’t find it to be an odious chore. That actually makes this a hard topic to truly discuss because it may seem obvious that we all agree on it, at least here in this forum.

But the problem isn’t so much whether or not you personally read. It’s how important reading is, what we should do to help struggling readers, what resources should be devoted to making sure everyone has access, and last but not least, what you read.

Oddly enough, to explore these questions of reading, it helps to look at the numbers.

The separating gets serious by third grade. Third graders who can’t pass a basic reading proficiency test are 5 times less likely to graduate from high school. About a quarter don’t pass.

In sixth grade the divide sharpens. The vast majority (82 percent) of sixth graders who fail an English class never graduate from high school, even late or with a specialized diploma. And yet, the school tells me we have to “wait and see” for any help for my sixth grader.

By this age, 85 percent of the curriculum is taught through reading. Kids who struggle to read and don’t get the help they need have high rates of discipline and emotional problems because of the huge toll on their self esteem. They not only drop out at higher rates and don’t attend further education, but they have great difficulty in adult life, accessing information and employment. They become an easy mark for scam artists and debt sharks.

Now, I do know people who read well enough and function as adults, who even went to college but don’t particularly like to read. Despite the stereotype that bookish people are socially isolated, I observe that people who don’t read books are often noticeably more arrogant and unfriendly as well as less happy, something that large-scale research bares out.

A study by Kingston University found that people who read books (rather than watch TV or videos for entertainment) show significantly higher levels of empathy and cooperative social behavior, essentially the building blocks of civilization. The more a person reads fiction, the more empathy for others they gain, likely because one of the functions of fiction is to imagine oneself into a different person’s life, much more so than when watching a story on a screen, where we are still always on the outside looking in.

But so what? Isn’t it up to each individual to choose to read or not?

Pew research showed last year that 23 percent of American adults said they didn’t read an actual book (digital or otherwise) in the past year. On the surface, that doesn’t seem too bad. It’s less than a quarter and not everybody cultivates reading books as a hobby.

But if you break that number down, it becomes more troubling. A full 11 percent of college educated adults didn’t read a book in the past year. Given that they went to college, it seems likely that whatever field they’re in, it would make sense to read at least professional books or self-help or how-tos, but that 11 percent doesn’t.

It gets even more disturbing as you dig deeper into the data. While white adults (20 percent) and black adults (25 percent) reported not reading a book at similar levels to the average, Hispanic adults had a much higher rate of not reading (38 percent). And why is that so troubling?

Maybe Hispanics just don’t like to read. But that doesn’t make logical sense. As a minority, Hispanics still struggle in education, but not significantly more than African Americans or other minorities. Instead, it has to do with the fact that they speak a different language and yet live in a country with a very dominant, official language.

The very existence of the descrepancy between everybody else and Hispanics in America shows that it is NOT just that 23 percent of Americans are disinterested in reading (and by some people’s measure, just plain lazy). For a large part of them, it is a matter of access.

Yes, we can download digital books in Spanish, those of us with the money to have good phones and a subscription. But it’s harder to just go to your local library and find more than a handful of books to read in Spanish. It’s harder to get a Spanish-language book at a Scholastic Book Fair or a garage sale or even just from a friend.

Of course, if an individual Hispanic person focuses a huge amount of attention on obtaining Spanish-language books, they’ll likely get them. But it takes a lot more time and energy, so there are simply fewer people who end up going through it.

Similarly. the percent of people who haven’t read a book in the past year and household income shows an unfailing inverse relationship—with 30 percent of adults with a household income of less than $30,000 per year not reading and only 15 percent of adults with income greater than $75,000 per year not reading. In this case, both time and money may be issues, because people with lower incomes tend to work more hours and have less free time (one of those counter-intuitive facts of our economic system).

Of course, the causation does go the other way as well. People who can’t read well can’t get even trade education, can’t get jobs, can’t keep jobs, can’t navigate bureaucracies, and can’t pay bills, keep out of debt or avoid scams. They inevitably have far fewer opportunities in life, because of the society we live in.

Sometimes I’m frustrated with my sixth-grader who feels demotivated about reading, since he’s been struggling with it as long as he can remember with little help and no end in sight. At other times, I think of the life he might have had in a different era. Life was hard when people lived primarily by agriculture, but this kid is a hard worker, brawny and excellent with animals. He would likely have been fine. He’s agile, healthy as a horse and a good shot. He would have made a superior hunter-gatherer as well.

Just as with so many other disabilities, it is the society we live in that dictates which disabilities are the most limiting. Missing a hand, could have been meant hunger and even death in many ages past. Today, it isn’t considered much of a big deal. But a reading disability seriously exposes a person to our world’s worst dangers from health and safety to hunger and homelessness.

I see this kid with many other things that are important to him and the need for reading to get through the rest of school and to function in our society seriously cuts into the time and energy he has for other things. Struggling with reading often takes up the majority of our evening free time.

Even knowing the vast benefits of reading and my personal love of it, I do sometimes wish we could just focus on the things that this kid is good at and that matter to him. But how can I let it go as a parent, in good conscience, knowing the costs.

What I know is that reading is essential if one is to have choices and genuine freedom in today’s world. It is at least as valuable as a major sense like sight or hearing. If a child was blind and there was a sight-saving surgery available, it is hard to imagine that our society would just say “Tough luck.”

But this is essentially what our schools have told us for years. The expense and trouble it would take to do individualized work to help a struggling student to read is deemed unreachable. We’re either told it is too early for intervention or now suddenly it’s too late.

To read is the quintessential skill of the modern world. It makes a particularly enriching hobby. but it is also an absolute necessity even for those who don’t revel in it. To read or not to read. Now that truly is the question that matters today.