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The percentage of parents who can read has plummeted

I loved reading to my daughter when she was little, and her reading to me once she reached kindergarten. I miss those warm, cuddly moments. I will treasure those small, happy times always.

Not sure this survey captures the nuance - you can love the kids and read to them faithfully but that phase when they want the same blessed book over and over does lose some of its charm.

That’s the spirit! This thread has been very motivational for me 😆

Everybody has their own taste of course, but speaking as a librarian who purchases kids books & one who has been reading to my kid for about a decade, I have mostly found books for kids that I love too. If you're having this experience with kids books, I believe your local librarian could help. :-)

There are so many really good children’s books though, even on the lowest reading levels! I absolutely loved reading the Elephant and Piggie books to my kid. They were hilarious. My kid and I still occasionally quote the line “Know how I get that old shoe taste? Old shoes!” to each other.

Yep. I think these sad numbers are a symptom of parents just focusing on their own enjoyment/pleasure instead of their children’s 😒 It really wouldn’t kill to read at least ONE book a day and no one watches PBS or other broadcasting which used to remind the public about the importance of reading.💔

Sandra Boynton has a TON of books that are fun to read, and our baby (who just turned 1) has loved many of them. She's currently very into Dinosaur Dance. Mothman Baby (diff author) has also remained a hit basically her whole life.

This is absolutely wild to me. I *loved* reading to my kids. And now, my eldest, *loves* reading to her child. Some of the best parenting memories ... goodness, people are really missing out.

Do it anyway, and then have the older ones read to the younger ones.

I'm sure screens have something to do with it, but also I think there is A LOT of newer kid lit that is horribly written. I have read so many books with no plot, boring language, clearly written with an agenda of Learning...leaving me wondering if the author has ever met or been a child.

Can’t imagine why everyone is so dumb these days…

Haha from what I hear sometimes they circle back to it anyways when they’re adults. You still gave them the foundation and the vocabulary and the brain-expanding input.

Wow. Not good.

That is sad. That was always a pleasurable time when my children were little.

This is so sad. Some of my fondest memories are of bedtime stories with my parents. So much is being lost.

Likely because they are poor readers themselves so they don’t enjoy it.

🥲

chat is society collapsing

She never even TRIED to explain why fourth grade reading AND fourth grade math showed increases in standardized test scores (maybe because you ran the lowest scoring through third grade again??) BUT all gains are GONE by eighth grade! Why do you think that is??

racketmn.com/science-of-r...

Is that a lie though? You can argue that's incomplete or the qrong emphasis, but a lie implies intentional falsehood. I'm well aware of the criticisms of MS coverage across the media.

Ms. Rachel is a saint, and I'm really glad we had him when she was around to supplement his education, especially since he was watching her before he went to daycare/pre-school. She taught him a lot that he wouldn't have otherwise had exposure to.

You just described my evening exactly.

Yeah I felt a lot less guilty about the Cocomelon and Blippi when my son suddenly started reading at a 1st grade level before kindergarten. He had been resisting trying to sound out words but we did a book every night, and then suddenly things clicked and he became a voracious reader.

They used to have most of them on Netflix but this looks like the best place to find them now. Each number is their own character, it’s very fun. www.learningblocks.tv/numberblocks...

This makes me sad. Reading with my son is the best part of my day even if in phases where it's the same books on repeat.

i remember reading something years ago that basically begged parents to spend even TEN MINUTES per day being present with their kids

Frog and Toad was the best for this! I loved doing the grumpy toad voice.

yeahhhhhhhh.

I really hope that's what it is, but the overall drop in % reading raises questions 😬

Favorite funny-voice book I read to my kids:

When I read the Zax, one of them gets a ridiculous posh accent and the other gets a gruff cockney one

awwww!

hahahaha that is *very* true

My son would pick the smarmiest sentimental books from the library.

Yup and you know it’s good for them but man is it mind numbing.

It’s so much FUN! Mine are starting to do their own voices, now.

My favorite thing is reading books I get to do different voices in

I loved doing Ian McKellen as Gandalf. I cast Woody Allen as Puddleglum and it worked perfectly.

I have workshopped several different voices for every sea creature in “The Pout Pout Fish” for months now while reading to my toddler, and he can’t get enough of it. It’s pretty much the high point of my day.

You have four?! Sheesh. I just have the one (terrible) one

I think I'm probably pretty bad at the Scottish accents, but I try to mitigate it by going with different voices - deep voices, scratchy voices, high voices, nasal voices - when we are doing the Nac Mac Feegles. It helps that the kids are really forgiving about it, too.

You teaching your sprogs the joys of Pterry too? Actually reading something you enjoy is a great strategy if you don’t feel like reading to kids! Learned it from my mum. She eventually explained the innuendos.

Reading to our kids was a real pleasure - a great excuse to visit some classic books, as well as discover a few new ones..

Gosh, and here I thought that was one of the best parts about being a mum. 📖

Reading to my 4 yr old son every night before bed is something we both look forward to every day. Two books a night, every night, since they day he was born. He loves going to the library too 🥹

Does anyone have a link to the study results? If this is Harper Collins UK, are these UK findings? Putting in a plug for US data, the now-shuttered Nat’l Ctr for Education Statistics has been collecting data on home literacy activities for decades. The Trump administration has wiped this out.

As the mom of a boy, hard agree

Part of it is some boys can’t sit still as well (whether the reasons are cultural or gender-based doesn’t matter) but it’s equally valuable to read to a toddler while he moves around a room.

The second point is so disturbing. It’s no wonder boys are falling behind in school if we’re failing them that extensively in early childhood.

It was never true. The reason why there’s a crisis of male loneliness these days is that feminism was able to change the standard for women (not entirely of course), but not for men when it comes to expectations in society. So same expectations for men exist in a more egalitarian society.

They make the same mistake every book and get themselves stuck in the past and there are never any consequences

😂 for some powerful magicians, Morgan and Merlin sure rely a lot on two random kids from Pennsylvania.

Paula, I hope you will follow @defenseofdemocracy.bsky.social & www.defenseofdemocracy.org as we're a volunteer-run org protecting inclusive public schools and fighting Moms for Liberty and assorted fascists who whitewash history curricula and ban books ‼️ We'd love to have your voice ‼️❤️✊📚📖📕📗📘📙📔

Whut 😶

If I ever have a kid I'm gonna use every opportunity I can to read to them. I love reading to folks. I recommend The Hobbit or The Princess Bride. Both good stories for bedtime reading.

WHAT!?! Why? Reading to our daughter is one of my most joyful experiences of her childhood. We read to her every night until 8th grade when she decided she wanted to read on her own. She's currently 23 and in graduate school for engineering.

Literally the most fun part of being a parent......

oof

The problem is if you read it correctly at first and then change the words later, they notice. And by six, they can also read and correct you. I miss when they couldn't read and books could be whatever I wanted

wtaf

Its a small pity that the R word was weaponised as a slur for disability, because these kids are being intentionally slowed, restrained, and held back in every way. Nimble fingers and brains like pool balls.

I don't like having to break character when they ask questions. I'm trying to make this fun dammit.

If you don't like reading to kids then you shouldn't have kids.

Those were my happiest memories *every* night before bed. By the time they were teenagers we were reading to each other 💛💛💛

Wow that was my favorite thing to do with my kids, it's weird to me.

shaddap

Sad for these kids, and their parents. Reading bedtime stories together was one part of parenting little ones that I wish lasted longer.

New Little Blue Truck dropped a few weeks ago! We read Racer Red three times last night.

Hey my kid picked this book at the library two days ago.

i bet a number of them would love to love reading to their children, but struggle to engage them more than the slop content machine does, and everyone is worse off for it

It’s so disturbing when I see nanny’s doing that. I get it maybe at restaurants but the rest of the time?!? Can’t imagine doing bed time without reading to my kid.

Mine roamed the room when I read to him when he was a toddler, but by four he was snuggling up with me and his sister and joining her in demanding one more chapter.

It makes such a huge difference. All of our kids really enjoy reading and are good at it and I'm 100% sure that it's because of all the reading when they were very little.

Our daughter in her nine years has used the phone at a restaurant literally twice. I’m very proud that we resisted that as a solution to crankiness. It helps that we started bringing her so early in her life and was thankfully chill.

We're living in a techno-feudalist state. Addict 'em young.

Maybe… just maybe… the parents do that so the kid doesn’t disrupt anyone else in the restaurant.

I read to my son in the womb every night. He was reading well before school and in grade 3* helped with remedial reading for grades 1 and 2. *And throughout his schooling. In grade 9, he was helping the teacher with Shakespeare, being he had read much of our 2000 book library and all of his works.

genuinely: how?

You know how a person can become a more proficient reader? BY reading out loud to their child.

once again thinking of this piece bsky.app/profile/ryan...

And they're damn proud of being illiterate.

And how does that compare to historical literacy rates? Most of the doomerism today is fed by a lack of historical contexts. As it always has been.

Good lord.

For 40+ years the GOP has been waging war on education on the belief that an uneducated public is easier to (mis)lead. Clearly it's working

"the rise of affordable TVs will destroy society" - 1980s bullshit propaganda. stop repeating the same stupid shit that boomers did.

A big part of this is how viscerally angry other people get if they have to hear a child existing in public. Parents feel shamed to do whatever it takes to make sure children don’t act like children if there’s a stranger in ear shot.

Starting a Kindles-only restaurant, the kids will be quiet but literate

I am unfortunately related to someone (extremely intelligent, high earner) who used to start a meal by plopping an iPad in front of the kid, in addition to other choice parenting habits. I’m happy that I don’t know if that still happens because I haven’t seen that fool in years.