This week the press reported two infernal facts related to children and reading. First, we learned that, according to figures from the latest international reading comprehension study (PIRLS), in Spain the most novice readers have lost up to seven points in this area during the last five years. The debacle is shared by other EU and OECD countries, and is often excused by the impact of the pandemic in terms of the closure of many schools; but in our case it is even more worrying, because the level of comprehension was already quite below the European average. We also learned of a study by the Departament d'Educació that confirmed that one in three fourth-year ESO students claims to see their family members read only one book throughout the year. These tragedies have not occupied too many headlines or, if they have, they have not provoked any relevant public discussion.
This is not an article that wants to criminalize children (who, after all, learn their habits from adults; including reading habits) or buy into the technophobic argument that planetary ignorance is Mr. Apple's fault. Now is not the time to sprint in search of those responsible, but to urgently seek solutions. It is evident that the omnipresence of screens has caused intoxicating overinformation and a dulling of our brains. Also, that, compared to recent decades, global literacy means that reading is natural for increasingly millions of citizens. But this does not detract from the seriousness of the fact that up to 25% of our fourth-grade students have serious comprehension problems and that, as any university professor can certify, young people begin a degree with minimal book culture.
If the reality of the issue is worrying, it is even more so that the disastrous data on reading comprehension do not have the honor of being highlighted even by chance by an increasingly uncultured political class and that, in turn, finding any reference to reading (or even to education!) in an electoral campaign like the present one is something out of science fiction. This servant grew up in a very perfectible culture (which made students swallow books like El Quijote or Mirall Trencat who could not digest works as complex as those cited at their tender age), but where not having read certain volumes produced even a little shame. Today, non-reading is even reaffirmed as a source of pride, and children are much more attentive to a hyper-fast world of images that turns them into true addicts to continuous novelty. If we do not alleviate this misfortune, helping our future readers, this paper thing has a meager future.
Can one live perfectly, and have a prosperous career in any cultural field, without having devoured The Magic Mountain? Yes, and absolutely yes. Reading is not a playlist that one must necessarily browse, but it is the foundation of our discursive capacity and the basis of the self-conscious rational act. Reading on paper (screens, as neuroscience shows, anesthetize us), writing on a sheet is an act of necessary time deceleration, it is a unique phenomenon to mix our voice with that of an imaginary author who speaks to us through the ghosts of the past. Reading does not make you better, dear child, but it gives you many possibilities to be so (or, at least, to suffer this heavy thing called life with words that give you more meaning than a simple tweet). If we leave young people without access to books, we are depriving them of one of the greatest pleasures that life gives us.
If we leave young people without access to books, we are depriving them of one of the greatest pleasures that life gives usWhile our leaders base cultural policy on nonsense like giving away movie tickets to the elderly or promoting the local festival, reading is declining among our children at a speed that makes us fear the worst. Also among our teachers, who are already doing a lot by having pacified classrooms of mega-diverse cultural origins and with kids affected by almost unknown mental problems... let alone making them sit down to read Plato. We should help them, and who knows if also we would do well in the media only by such a simple habit as dedicating 10% of the dreadful hours we program for sports to reading (written by a Barça member). We cannot continue with this bleeding, if we don't want the kids to enter adolescence with a tremendous virus, much worse than covid, and which is called lack of judgment. The future will make us pay dearly for so much neglect with children.
Governments, administrations, react. And, while we're at it, lead by example. Because if we have to be guided by the quality of your words, you must keep little reading in your pupils. What a cross.