by Joe Miller,
Director of Development
It seems like I’ve been hearing “kids these days can’t read anymore” pretty much all of my life.
But it turns out that the trend is even older than that. Rudolf Fleisch’s bestselling book, Why Johnny Can’t Read, turns 70 next month.
In practice, kids read at about the same level they have for a couple of generations. Reading proficiency is normally measured by a test called the National Assessment of Educational Pro-gress (NAEP), which was first introduced in 1969. Back then, the average reading score was 208. It was 215 in 2022.
Catherine Snow, a professor of cognition and education at Harvard, told Vox that scores “haven’t plummeted. They didn’t even plummet during COVID. They dropped a little bit.”
To be sure, those scores aren’t fantastic. NAEP reading scores are measured on a scale of 0-500. Snow describes reading scores as “a very stable level of mediocrity.”
But while today’s kids can read just about as well as ever, they don’t read as much as they used to.
NAEP says that in 1984, around 35% of eighth graders reported reading for fun almost every day. By last year, that figure had dropped to just 13%.
Reading longer texts—books, in other words—helps kids develop crucial skills like critical thinking and information literacy, that is, their ability to recognize legitimate sources of information. We’re seeing that play out now—eighth grade scores on information literacy declined from 2018 to 2023.
Kids in Pocahontas County aren’t immune to these trends. Across the five branches of the Pocahontas County libraries, our programs for children (readers under 12 years old) drew more than 6,500 participants. By contrast, only around 220 people attended one of our young adult programs – aimed at readers between ages 12 and 18.
While eighth graders in Pocahontas County score about as well as their peers across the state, NAEP’s Nation’s Report Card shows that West Virginia’s eighth graders, as a whole, lag around 10 points below the national average.
We’re looking to reverse both of these trends.
In December, we’re piloting a new book club for middle school students. We’ll be reading Hello, Universe—the 2018 winner of the Newberry Award, then getting together at the McClintic and Hillsboro libraries to discuss the book.
But it’s more than just your typical sit-around-and-talk-books book club.
“It’s kind of a performing arts and literary club,” says librarian Margaret Worth, who is heading up the new program.
“The group will read a section of the book aloud, then focus on creating art pieces to reflect the day’s reading,” Margaret explained.
On Tuesdays, Margaret will meet students at Hillsboro Elementary after the buses from Marlinton drop them off. They’ll then walk over to the library together.
On Thursdays, kids can meet Margaret at the Wellness Center in Marlinton after dismissal for a short walk to the library.
If you are a middle school reader, then, first – good for you for reading the newspaper! Keep that up! And, also, join us at book club.
If you know a middle school reader who could use some practice reading long texts—and the evidence suggests that most middle school readers fall into that category – then send them our way.