While reading “Macbeth” in their Honors English 2 class, sophomores flip through pages to find assigned excerpts. Just a few years ago, the class read the full 249-page book, but now they scan for only a small number of scenes and pages.
The shift comes as students are increasingly disinterested in reading. At Naperville Central, just 42% of students currently enjoy reading, according to a Central Times survey from October.
At Naperville public libraries, the number of young adult materials loaned has dropped by 38.4% since 2022, according to Illinois Public Library Annual Reports. For Naperville city councilman Paul Leong, liaison to the Naperville Public Library Board of Trustees, it’s evidence of a decreased cultural focus on reading.
“My experience [as a reading specialist] is that the older students get, the more busy their lives become and the less time they have to read for pleasure, but they still like to read,” English teacher Mary Wilkerson said.
Reading stamina
One of the leading factors of the decreasing amount of literature read is a loss of reading stamina. The Central Times survey found that 60% of students find it at least “moderately difficult” to read long texts for extended periods of time.
The trend begins in late-elementary and junior high school students, according to Christine Miller, reading specialist at Meadow Glens Elementary. In a recent survey by the EdWeek Research Center, 83% of educators in grades 3-8 believe that reading stamina has decreased since 2019.
“I feel as though students don’t have that stamina that they used to have,” said Christine Miller, reading specialist at Meadow Glens Elementary. “In the past, kids could handle hanging in there and reading those longer passages, whereas it feels like students don’t have the stamina for longer passages the way they used to.”
Parental involvement in childhood reading is one of the most important factors in improving literacy and fostering a love of books. Access to books and dedicated reading time with family can make a significant difference, according to Syed.
“I was working with a fourth grader the other day, and he said to me, ‘are we done? I feel like we read so much,’” Miller said. “It kind of made me laugh because I thought, ‘wow, that’s not a lot of reading,’ but in his mind, it is a lot of reading.”
When kids have poor reading stamina, they read less. In the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress, nine-year-olds were nearly twice as likely to read for fun at least once per week than 13-year-olds, and both age groups have decreased reading frequency since data started being collected in 1984. At Central, 43% of students who don’t currently enjoy reading lost interest during junior high school, according to a Central Times survey.
For Syed, it’s indicative of technological distractions, which often grow during junior high school. Approximately half of all children receive their first phone between the ages of 10 and 14, according to the Child Mind Institute.
“There is a distraction because of all this technology, things which surround them when they are studying or reading a book,” Syed said. “Years ago, [students] were not having smartphones — concentration and everything was on books. Compared to today, [there are] a lot of distractions: smartphones, games and apps.”
Digital distractions worsen as students enter high school. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 72% of high school teachers believe that cell phones are a major distraction in school.
“TikTok, Instagram, Netflix and things in [the] media allow instant gratification right away, so when you’re reading a longer text that’s hard, you [think] ‘I’m never going to get it anyways, I give up,’” Winebrenner said. “Everything else in society has trained [us] to believe that when there’s no instant gratification, [you’re] never going to get it, but you will, it’s just going to take longer.”
While elementary and junior high schools often face the brunt of the problem, high school students also suffer many of its consequences. In Honors Senior Rhetoric, chapters of “The Glass Menagerie” are often summarized in group projects rather than assigned as homework.
The adaptation is the result of substandard reading stamina that forces teachers to adapt, according to Winebrenner.
Effects on the classroom
Decreased reading stamina has wide-ranging effects on the classroom, both in high school and college settings.
“If it’s hard and it’s a short story, they’ll finish it and say ‘I’m confused,’” Winebrenner said. “But if it’s ‘1984’ and it’s really long and they’ve been confused from the start, then they give up.”
“I know sometimes, some students can be hesitant to read something that’s way out of their experience, and we want them to,” said Mike Doman, Communication Arts Department Chair. “Some of the best learning can be when you challenge yourself.”
Megan Paonessa is an Assistant Professor of English at Marquette University and teaches creative writing. In her introduction to creative writing class she teaches multiple genres of writing from like fiction, nonfiction, poetry and playwriting. Poanessa has noticed that her non-English major students have read less in recent years.
“In my creative writing classes, you can really tell if they don’t do the reading because we go into the stories to talk about how a writer created it,” Paonessa said. “If they haven’t read it, then it’s impossible for them to talk to you about it.”
Tackling disengagement
At Central, the Communication Arts department has worked to combat disengagement by tapping into students’ interests, allowing them to get more say in what books they’ll read.
In addition to expanding classroom texts, Communication Arts Department Chair Mike Doman believes students need to see the purpose and value of what they’re reading. The department is making an effort to do a better job of showing students why it’s worth investing in a reading.
“Teachers always have a really good reason for why they’re choosing a text, but does that always get explained to students?” Doman said. “We have to build [a text] up, we have to say, why is this important? Why are we using this? What does this allow us to do or see, not that other texts couldn’t do it, but why is this one so good at that?”
According to the Central Times survey, only 33% of Central students believe that class-assigned texts are “important” or “very important.” Doman believes there is value in a common reading experience and hopes students have that opportunity freshman through senior year, whether that be a classic, or a more modern book like a memoir.
“English class is going to save the world,” Doman said. “But we got to go back to what is the heart of English, [reading] stories far and wide, lots of different experiences, lots of different genres, and lots of different voices so that we learn more about humanity, and that we learn more about how to be fully alive human beings that are ready to face the challenges of the world.”
Vanshika Shahdadpuri contributed to this story.