Children's reading skills are degrading in Finland, and I assume everywhere in the world.
Espoo-based Finnish language arts teacher Nina Manu told the paper that identifying the culprit is easy: the deterioration is due to a lack of reading, use of smart devices and large classroom sizes.
Well, not as easy as she thinks, or perhaps, she isn't bold enough to say what the major reason for the reduction in skill is.
Parenting.
A parent might not be able to do much about class sizes, but when it comes to "a lack of reading" and the use of "smart devices" (an oxymoron?), they can definitely influence the outcomes of their children, by setting boundaries, and encouraging habits early in life, and supporting forward. The problem is though, that many parents don't read enough and they spend an inordinate amount of time in front of screens also. Setting an example as a parent is important, isn't it?
I sit in front of a screen a lot, but most of the time it is not when my daughter is around, so when she is, we are together, or I am working on something else. But, she definitely doesn't see me reading much, because I don't read books these days, I only listen to them. Reading like that is a challenge for me after the stroke, as I get very little out of what is read. I need pictures - but listening seems to be a little better for me. And I am able to move faster and pause quickly to think, without having to go back and reread. Regardless of my challenges, Smallsteps enjoys reading.
She has claimed a reading corner in the loungeroom as her own.
But, it would be very hard to get a teen interested in reading if they had spent the majority of their time on screens as a young child. Their brain wiring must be more set up for passive visual intake, and their habits are there to consume without actively having to do any work. Reading is a skill, and it isn't just the ability to comprehend the letters and understand the words, but there are a lot of other aspects to it also. For instance, the fluency of reading is going to impact on how the mind creates images, and that is going to directly impact on the enjoyment of reading. If a person is unable to create the mental images to visualise the landscape easily, it becomes very laborious.
I know.
As for school, nearly every day for homework, Smallsteps has to read for ten minutes. They are given a part of some textbook to read as material. The challenge has been for her is, the text provided takes her about two minutes to read, so instead of rereading it over and over, she goes to her own book and reads that instead. What I don't like about it is that there is a "timer" for the reading activity, which makes her feel like she is done after ten minutes, when she would happily read on if there was no timer. So, after a while I said for her to just read what she must from the textbook, and then read as long as she wants from her own.
It is always over the ten minute mark.
Large classroom sizes aren't a problem either, considering that the classroom sizes are smaller here than they were when I was a kid at my schools. The difference isn't in the amount of pupils, but the behaviour of pupils in the class. The reason teachers don't have enough time to actually teach and create engaging content and activities, as well as more targeted work for individuals, is because half the students (at least, no exaggeration) don't care about being there, and run around the room screaming like lunatics. They have ear muffs for students that are trying to concentrate.
Like what?
Is it the fault of the teacher that the kids are throwing things, screaming, hitting others, breaking things and generally being terrors at eight years of age? I think this comes down to parenting again, because I am pretty sure that if there was the threat of a beating that I would have received had I acted similarly, and the follow through to prove that there is consequence to action, more would be better behaved in class.
Violence isn't the answer.
But consequence to behaviour should be clear, and one of the unmentioned problems with sitting on a screen passively all the time, is that people don't have any direct and immediate consequence to their actions. They can consume what they like in privacy and even act how they want with very little repercussions. So not only are children not being parented well, they are also getting a sense of entitlement that all they do is acceptable, and there are no ramifications to it.
And as a society, there are massive ramifications for not being able to read and comprehend well, because it means that people are not able to form their own opinions, and become reliant on others to tell them what to believe. It is essentially going back to the times before the printing presses, where only the priests could decipher the bible, and everyone else had to take their word for it. We live in a world of vast amounts of information, but if the only way people are able to consume it is if someone (or something) else translates it and turns it into a short TikTok video, we are doomed as a species, as the evolution of thought that has driven us forward for the last few hundred years especially, starts to contract.
Perhaps we are doomed anyway.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
