Good News, Bad News on the Reading Habits of Children and Teens

A widely reported study by Common Sense Media suggests that reading for pleasure among children and teens has decreased significantly over the past three decades. According to the research, with 45 percent of 17-year-olds say they read by choice only once or twice a year.

Equally troubling is the finding that parents are reading to and with their children less often, according to this organization, which provides online reviews for families of movies, TV shows, video games—and, yes, books.

At the same time, we don’t need to go far to find good news (and anyone who knows me knows that I prefer to accentuate the positive!): The young adult genre of fiction is booming, and a 2013 Pew Research Study reports that young people ages 16 to 29 are regular library patrons.

Introduce a Child to the World of Reading

There are few things better in life than becoming engrossed in a good book. Books are the gateways to new worlds, new experiences, new places, and new people that we otherwise might not have encountered.

What a joy to introduce a child to those types of literary experiences! Whether as parents, teachers, caregivers, or early childhood educators, we are the child’s conduit to magical places—both real and imagined—that are conveyed through the endless combination of 26 letters that young pre-readers are trying to master.

Even before they are able to decipher the symbols on a page, children can be introduced to books by the adults who read aloud to them. Reading aloud to young children is widely recognized as an important way of building an early and lifelong love of books, with research clearly showing that adults who read aloud to children form a connection and pave a path toward literacy.