Mary+Lou+W’s+2015+OpEd+Article

Importance of Reading.



When someone reads out loud in class, and constantly stumbles over the pronunciation of nearly half the words, I find myself in the least bit irritated. Going into high school, I thought i left those days behind in middle school. How is it that high school students still have trouble with pronunciation and reading aloud? Can this be evidence show the slow declining literacy in America? I remember clearly in Kindred’s class, that we were going over a passage written in the transcendentalism era, and found that the language was difficult to understand, however one phrase that stood out to me, was that the writer was referring to his writing as ‘common language'. Kindred, then pointed out, one student from another period commented that, if this passage that we were struggling to understand, was considered ‘common language’ for the time, then what did that say about our generation? It was a great point on her part, that our literacy has fallen so much after only a few decades.

A study done by the National Institute for Literacy found that 20% of adults read at or below the fifth grade level. Another study done by Jonathan Kozol said that 50% of American adults over the age of 16 are unable to read at the eighth grade level. I think that it is these studies that show us the need for teaching our kids how to read at a younger age. I’ve seen too many times an iPad in the hands of a toddler instead of a book. It is important to encourage reading in young children, since those who do, find themselves more prepared for school and life and are more socially active than those who don't. Something as simple as reading a book to your child every night, helps build their vocabulary and their understanding of the english language.

Only half of the 1.5 million students who took the ACT in 2005 were prepared for college level readings. What does this say now about us high schoolers? I think we brush off our readings in English too often, and go for sparknotes to get the gist of it. While we are getting the moral or theme of reading, we are not challenging and stimulating our brains enough to understand this higher level of writing. So when students are tested in an environment where they can’t get the answers from the internet, they find that these students cannot understand the underlying themes from literature.

I’m not saying that we’re all illiterate, and I understand that we all have little slip ups while reading, but what I am saying is that both students and parents, aren’t putting enough effort into their learning and the learning of their children. That by cutting corners, literacy of students and the future generations is suffering.