College students have trouble reading anything long or complex, complains Adam Kotsko, in Slate. He's taught humanities classes in small liberal arts colleges for 15 years. Five years ago, he noticed a sharp decline in reading comprehension. It was like turning a switch off.
Students used to be able to handle 30 pages of reading per class session, but now "are intimidated by anything over 10 pages," he writes. He has to spend class time "establishing what happened in a story or the basic steps of an argument — skills I used to be able to take for granted."
His colleagues see the same thing. "Yes, there were always students who skipped the readings, but we are in new territory when even highly motivated honors students struggle to grasp the basic argument of a 20-page article."
"Vibes-based literacy" -- little systematic instruction in phonics -- leaves students unable to sound out long words, and unwilling to try, Kotsko writes.
Students also lack reading stamina: They have trouble staying focused on a challenging text. In middle and high school, they read short passages to prepare for tests, but rarely whole novels, Kotsko writes. He links to Peter Greene's lament that students' knowledge of literature "is Cliff's Notes deep, and they may never develop the mental muscles to work their way through a long, meaty piece of literature."
Learning "to follow extended narratives and arguments" is a valuable life skill, Kotsko argues. Young people who can't engage with complexity won't be prepared for the world.
He lays blame on Common Core, teaching to the test, smartphone addiction and other factors. I'd add: The contempt for knowledge, which gives readers context, and the tendency to assign simplistic young-adult books.
"What’s happening with the current generation is not that they are simply choosing TikTok over Jane Austen," he concludes. "They are being deprived of the ability to choose."
Reading comprehension "is dependent on exposing students to lots of content and vocabulary and to giving them the tools to make sense of complex sentences and language structure. writes Stephen Sawchuk in Education Week. "It also means growing students’ stamina -- their ability to read at length."