Reading is a Skill That Takes a Lifetime of Practice

Kids don’t read anymore.

This is a common refrain in a world of videos, online games and short text messages that don’t even use whole words.

Yet it has probably been a common refrain since Gutenberg invented the printing press. Reading is a developed skill that needs a lot of practice. You know that because you’re reading this.

And kids today do read. Just not enough and not enough variety (in my generation’s opinion). Things like novels, magazines, classical literature. Even (shudder) newspapers.

Much of that has physically disappeared today. But a lot is still out there in digital form and the kids know better than we do how to find it. If they want to. And therein lies the problem. They are inundated with so many online options that they don’t have time to read anything in-depth that doesn’t directly affect their lives right now.

Generational Focus

We were likely that way. We wanted whatever made us look cool. We had access to much less information but we also focused on topics that could affect us directly.

The Viet Nam war was definitely one of them since we might get drafted. The pill, abortion and the feminist movement were also on our radar. We rebelled against our parents’ ways as best we could with long hair, loud rock music, drinking and smoking.

Today, a lot of kids want to be “content creators” and “influencers.” What they produce could be anything that generates interest (and income). YouTube and TikTok videos, anyone?

There wasn’t much opportunity to rebel in our family since our father was a high school teacher. He knew all the tricks and how to counter them. He also owned the cars we drove. But what they couldn’t take away was our ability to read and follow what was going on with kids our age. And we didn’t even have the internet yet.

In elementary school we read books constantly. We had class contests to see who could read the most. Back when my bed was actually in the upstairs bathroom, a place furthest removed from the furnace, I’d read books in privacy. The lighting was so poor I used a flashlight to read at night.

The books I read were captivating. I didn’t want to put them down. In the early days it was every Dr. Seuss book I could find. Later it was books like The Hardy Boys and Old Yeller. Then Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Charlotte’s Web and Animal Farm. All the while I was getting the experience needed to be a confident reader and I didn’t even know it. It wasn’t painful. It was fun..

But these books were not about current events. You needed to read current newspapers and magazines to get that. I got Boys’ Life for awhile and would skim bits of my dad’s Popular Mechanics, Readers Digest and Time magazines.

We watched the Twin Cities news and Walter Cronkite but only enough to catch the weather, sports and maybe a bit of the main news story of the day. It didn’t involve much reading. You can’t read much on a grainy black and white TV anyhow.

Getting the News

We also scanned the “Daily Republican Eagle” (DRE) newspaper for the comics, local sports, photos, the TV schedule and maybe the “Red Wing Briefs.” I remember viewing the front page for a photo or large headline that might be interesting.

Any in-depth coverage of world and local news was skipped because I was intimidated by the tiny print in columns so narrow your eyes got tired going back and forth. There were just too many big words that you’d have to look up and most of the topics were boring or had no relevance to me. This was true with any newspaper.

Beyond that I jumped to the comics and sports pages. I might look at the briefs to see if anyone I knew was arrested or was in an accident. I would also see what was showing at the theaters.

Everyone read at least parts of the DRE back in my youth. It was truly everyone’s main source for local news and grocery store coupons which Mom cut out each week.

It wasn’t until I got my own paper route that I started to pay more attention to the makeup of a newspaper. I had to know the different sections so I could put the whole Sunday edition of the Minneapolis Tribune together. Stories started to catch my eye. I didn’t read the comics section first anymore. I looked up big words.

I hope artificial intelligence doesn’t diminish the importance of reading. From ancient history to breaking news stories, we have so many sources of information today.

So keep reading. We all need need the practice.