How High School Teachers, Parents Can Encourage Teens to Read for Fun
Teens aren't reading for fun like they used to.
Only 19 percent of 17-year-olds read for fun every day in 2012 -- down from 31 percent in 1984, according to a 2014 report from Common Sense Media, a media and technology education and advocacy organization.
"If we can get them to enjoy reading, the reality is their reading skills are going to improve overall," says Megan Knight, associate principal of instruction at Elk Grove High School in Illinois.
But there is one book that many high schoolers still read and love,"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. A sequel to the book is due out this summer and educators are excited about the idea of teaching it, The Boston Globe reported this month.
[Find out how public libraries offer more than just books to teens.]
While the new book might excite some teens, others may not see the point of reading simply for enjoyment. Teachers and parents can use these tips to encourage teens to read for fun.
1. Help high schoolers find books that interest them: Not every student wants to read the same thing, says Knight. But she believes there is something for every reader, and students need to have choices.
"If you don't like what you are reading, put it down and start over," says the former English teacher. Some kids feel like they have to finish a book, she says, but that could make reading feel like a chore.
Teachers could work with librarians to find books that meet curriculum requirements, but give teens a variety of options to choose from, says Chris Shoemaker, president of the Young Adult Library Services Association.
At Knight's school, a summer reading program is being transformed to include more input from students on the kinds of books they can read, which should increase their engagement. The idea is to create a community of readers who read for fun.
2. Prioritize reading and model behavior: Educators should make time for free reading during school, says Knight. Plus, parents and teachers should model behavior by reading for fun themselves.
"There's research that says that in order for kids to become readers they have to be surrounded by readers," she says.
Another school where she had worked had every student read for 10 minutes during a dedicated part of each day for a month.
"The entire building would stop, drop and read," she says. The educators in the school weren't sure if the students would enjoy it, but at the end of the 10 minutes each day her students would ask for more time to read. "That was crazy to me."
The Young Adult Library Services Association publishes a list of books that are written for adults, but that have special appeal to teens. Parents and teens could read these books together, says Shoemaker, a former young adult librarian who is now director of the Rye Free Reading Room in New York.
[Get summer reading tips for teens.]
3. Make required reading relevant: Sometimes teens have to read certain works, but teachers can make studying them more enjoyable by connecting the content to teens' lives.
For example, a student might not be excited about Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew," but he or she might get excited about the 1999 modernization of the story in the film "10 Things I Hate About You," says Shoemaker.
Relating classics to contemporary works can make the stories relevant to high schoolers.
Establishing a reason for reading these works and building background knowledge are also important so that a student understands why and what they are reading, says Knight.
As for teens who would rather spend their free time doing something other than reading?
"I think Instagram is great, television is great," she says. "But I guarantee that when you are watching 'The Simpsons' there's going to be literary allusions that you are not going to get because you haven't read something."
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Alexandra Pannoni is an education staff writer at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at apannoni@usnews.com.
