<p>Curious whether anyone else is seeing this in their teen. My D (almost 16) was a voracious reader as a kid. Usually several books a week, and plowing through things like Lord of the Rings while still in elementary school. Some re-reading of favorites, but usually mixed with a good amount of new material. Fast forward to today… she has not actually finished a book not assigned for class in about 2 years as far as I can tell (she does not dispute this when I asked her). No coincidence, I suspect, that their school has a laptop program, and that is when she got her laptop. </p>
<p>When she was in middle school she took the SAT as part of an academic talent search, and scored a 740 on the CR section. Two years later (last fall) when she took the PSAT, she turned in a 73 (730 equivalent). No gain, and possibly a bit of slippage.</p>
<p>I am dismayed… I suppose I could take away the laptop for some periods, but she does use it for almost all of her homework. She seems too old to “force” reading time on her (something that would never have been necessary in the early days!). I don’t object to some social/surfing online time. I’m not sure if I took away the laptop she would read with the time anyway.</p>
<p>Have others seen the same? Any “carrot” ideas (vs. stick) for helping move this forward? I noticed she never wants to go to the library any more. I gave her a few books for Xmas, but they are unread. I plan on a bookstore gift card for her upcoming birthday. I mention things I have read that she might enjoy. I also talked to her about the SAT scores, and maybe setting a goal of an hour of reading a day on something she has not read before during school vacations. She was non-committal (but not defiant… so she might do it).</p>
<p>I should also mention that she is very active in Quiz Bowl. Which requires knowledge of a lot of things, but not in depth (especially not for literature – if you know the main characters and the plot line, you are set). So she has studied literature from that angle. But it seems shallow. Like she is losing depth rather than gaining it at an important time in her academic progress.</p>
<p>I think this happens to lots of people. When you are young, reading is nothing but fun. The books are easy and interesting, you aren’t being quizzed on them, you don’t have to look for symbolism and imagery, and you aren’t being asked to read dozens of pages of history and science in addition to literature. Suddenly, however, reading becomes work. I think it’s hard for many to make a distinction between reading for work and reading for fun.</p>
<p>In your post, it struck me that the only reason you cited for wanting her to read more was to improve her SAT score. I’m sure you do have other reasons, but perhaps you are contributing to a feeling that reading is something she has to do or is supposed to do, rather than something she gets to do.</p>
<p>That’s all speculation; I hope it’s not out of line.</p>
<p>Oh, I do have other reasons. I am an avid reader (as are her dad and older sister). I am very sad that I don’t have more time to read as an adult, but I still managed to read about 50 books last year. I find reading to be one of the greatest pleasures in life, and have been very pleased that my D’s have also enjoyed it so much. D1 (in college now) complains that she does not have much time to read, but does not seem to have lost any pleasure in the act. In fact, location of the nearest public library was one of her criteria for picking a college :)</p>
<p>I do remember that moving to the adult section of the library was a bit of a disappointment in my early teens. Maybe some of it is that, but D1 and I both try to share recommendations for things we think she could like. Honestly, the SAT connection only occurred to me today, but I had noticed this change already over the past two years. I only actually brought it up to her today for the first time.</p>
<p>I guess I am always a little sad for people who don’t like to read. I feel like they are missing out on one of the greatest joys in life. She is certainly a strong reader (English is her easiest A in school). And I don’t want to drive her further away from it, so I do not intend to continually bring it up.</p>
<p>I loved reading as a kid, and still do, but I almost never read for pleasure now. I read thousands of pages a week for school, and on my downtime I just need something ELSE to do. I used to think that I didn’t have time, and with those 1000s of pages that’s probably actually true-- it wasn’t in high school, but either way that really wasn’t the issue-- it’s that with how much reading I already HAVE to do I really need a break from it when I am choosing what to do with my free time. I am sure that when I have less assigned reading, I will pick up reading for pleasure again very quickly. But I have been like this since high school and expect to be like this until I graduate college.</p>
<p>Voracious reader here (it’s what my mother called me starting at about age 7 and it was - and is - true).</p>
<p>Still, I went in and out of varying degrees of “voraciousness.” High school and college were probably my lowest levels of reading for pleasure - too much “have to” reading. And I always felt guilty that if I were going to be reading, I should be reading assigned stuff or class enrichment stuff - not reading for pleasure. So I didn’t read much for pleasure at that time.</p>
<p>And I didn’t even have “screen time” as a competitor to reading, as today’s kids - and adults - do. (didn’t watch TV during those years).</p>
<p>So… I don’t think you need to worry that she will lose her love of reading. She may do it on a screen. But she’ll probably always love it even if she doesn’t seem to now.</p>
<p>With 740/730 equivalent on her SAT/PSAT… what the heck are you worried about in terms of SAT scores?</p>
<p>My best suggeston? I don’t have a Kindle, but I’ve heard many others say that they read more for having one. So I’d suggest either laying off giving her reading related stuff for birthday gift (it’s really just more pressure and a non-subtle hint from you) or try giving her a Kindle.</p>
<p>These two phrases stood out for me in different parts of your post
I doubt that it’s your intention, but these just come across as feeling it’s all about a competition, and that there’s something wrong with an activity that she enjoys which adds to her “trivia” knowledge but doesn’t reach some milestone of “depth” that you are measuring…</p>
<p>I’d just let her go. She is doing fine. And if she is going to resurrect or continue her love of reading… it’s going to come from her, not from what her parent would like to see.</p>
<p>Both my kids, including my 17yo S, are avid readers. Talking to other parents I find a lot of kids stop reading for various reasons in HS. There are some incredible audio books out there. I know one friend who couldn’t get her S to read for anything until she started borrowing and buying audio books. Her S loves them and often follows up a good audio book with the hardcopy of the next book in the series. Your D could listen to them in the car while going to and from school. I found my S got stuck in a rut the past year reading the same stuff over and over til I got him a Kindle. Now that he can access any book Amazon sells he is reading more new stuff.</p>
<p>I used to read a lot of fiction/classics when I was young. As I transitioned into high school, I found myself enjoying reading essays, blogs, forums, opinions, etc much more than long, thick novels. I bet your daughter is still engaging in a lot of reading whether it is noticeable or not - it just may not be the same manner or type of reading.</p>
<p>S1 was a reading machine until sophomore year when he got his driver’s license, a gf and a job at the grocery store. He still liked reading, just didn’t have much time for it. Still got 740 CR first sitting,no prep. So laying off the reading didn’t cause any big problems.
His colleges years were very busy and again not much time for pleasure reading. It did start to pick up again his senior year.
Since graduating from college (2 yrs ago) he has gotten back into reading a lot and now often has more than one book going at the same time. The love for books may not be gone for your D, just temporarily sidetracked.</p>
<p>One way I encouraged my kids to read, besides the audio tapes that were previously mentioned, was a regular visit to a bookstore or library. I used to drop off my kids at Border’s, which was right next door to the grocery store. They’d read for an hour plus, while i did the grocery shopping. I remember one time I refused to buy a book that was just released, but my son read the entire book over several visits. (Sorry Border’s, but he did buy himself hot chocolates while there.) Of course now that Border’s is closing, we need to find a new hang-out. That’s why the library is good. Our local library is so wonderful, offering audio tapes, movies, and of course a huge, huge range of books.</p>
<p>Find a really quick read. One with a grabber beginning. Don’t try to get her to read anything she’d have to read for school, like Scarlet Letter or The Iliad. If she still snickers at the thought of reading books, try to find a magazine that can get her thinking, not a fashion magaine, but something like Time or Newsweek or the New York Times. You just want her to get into the reading habit again.</p>
<p>lol mini – high school English didn’t put me off reading – but it did put me off Henry James for a couple of decades. Even as an English major, I would do anything to avoid having to read HJ, remembering the misery I endured studying “Portrait of a Lady” as a h.s. sophomore. Years afterwards, I decided it couldn’t have been THAT bad! So I gulped, and reread ‘Portrait’ and loved, loved, loved it. Then I tried rereading John Brown’s Body (Stephen Vincent Benet) which I also suffered through in that same class. Didn’t work, though. Nope, it was as painful as I remembered it.</p>
<p>Funny, my avid reading HS sr S loves the classics he is reading in school. I hated them when I was in HS, he eats them up. Maybe they teach them differently at his school.</p>
<p>This sounds a lot like me. I just got really busy in school, and in my free time I just wanted to vegg out. It’s coming back now that I’m done with apps. I would guess that her love of reading isn’t gone, just temporarily dampened by stress.</p>
<p>Ha – I am still off Henry James more than two decades later! Have not suggested HIM to D at all </p>
<p>I think one of the things that is bothering me about this is her inability/disinterest in finishing any books. She has started many, but as soon as she has the quiz bowl level of knowledge (usually about 3 chapters in), it gets set aside and just… never picked up again. This is true for dozens of books in the past two years. I am not knocking quiz bowl, she loves it and has made great friends in it. This lack of perseverence is part of what is bugging me, I guess. I certainly don’t finish all the books I read (100 page rule for me, and I respect those with shorter limits!). But she isn’t finishing any of them. Perseverance has never really been a strong suit for her, and it seems like she is regressing.</p>
<p>Regarding online time as a substitute, I agree that she is technically reading when she is online. But I think it is actually pretty rare for online content to go as in depth as a book ever does in content, character development, and information. I feel like I am reading something really long online when I read a 6 page article. It is not a substitute for a book (using the term loosely, I would be fine if she preferred a Nook or Kindle). However, none of us want to spend a lot on books (we have been a big library family historically, although we admittedly have accumulated a lot of books as well). Our local libraries do not offer any way to get books via ereader (yet), either. But I am not sure if that would make a difference. D1 got a Nook for Xmas and was overjoyed, D2 was disinterested…</p>
<p>Maybe she will come back to it when she is older. But I watched my niece go through the same transition. She is at the end of her teens now, and has not returned to being a reader. She seems like a narrower person than she used to be (the niece). Do not want the same to happen to D, who was a particularly vibrant, intellectual middle schooler.</p>
<p>Just a thought… if she is off reading right now because of the stress or how much “have to” reading she already has to do, if you bug her about it too much you may make it into even more of a chore and lessen the chances that she’ll come back to it.</p>
<p>I agree with many other posters. I feel that a love of reading isn’t something one can lose easily, though one can lapse in and out of the practice depending on the circumstances.</p>
<p>I find that when I’m taking literature classes I don’t read much of anything outside of magazines and blogs otherwise. During breaks, though, while it takes me a couple of weeks to just chill out I usually find myself picking up a few books, even if they’re rereads of old favorites.</p>
<p>Analogy: I really love sushi. But if I ate sushi every night for a week I’d be sick of it and even if you offered me the most delicious, wonderful sushi on night eight I wouldn’t eat it.</p>
<p>Agreed that I could make this worse by talking to her too much/pressuring her. We had one real conversation about it today, and now I am going to try to leave it alone. Will still give a book gift card (she has often gotten them in the past, so it would not be an outlier…). And D1 and I will continue to offer books we have finished/enjoyed/think might be something she would like, just as we always have.</p>
<p>We are due for a blizzard tomorrow, maybe our internet connection will go out… :)</p>
<p>Thankfully Henry James wasn’t foisted on me in high school - I went on a HJ orgy after living a few years in Germany and I’d gotten fluent enough that I no longer felt guilty about reading something in English. But boy do I remember hating Vanity Fair. I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the movie.</p>
<p>The best thing I ever did for my kids was let them take English electives their senior year. My youngest, especially had a wonderful time reading and watching mysteries instead of slogging through the AP curriculum. He regularly would say, “This is the first year I’ve really enjoyed English.” </p>
<p>As to the OP, I don’t have any good advice except that I think the books you suggest should be gripping page turners that you couldn’t put down. I just finished three books this week - I was able to read so many because they were books by one of my favorite children’s authors.</p>
<p>Good heavens, Tess of the Durbervilles and the like turned me off of reading for years! I read like crazy through middle school … trash like Valley of the Dolls (yes, the library let me check it out! :)). I LOVED reading. Once I had too much to read for school, the fun stuff fell by the wayside for years. Now I read magazines, newspapers, etc … but novels are for vacation, because when I am reading a good one, I don’t do the things I am supposed to do (like cleaning house, making dinner, sleeping). If I ever get to retire, I will READ, READ, READ.</p>
<p>My D reads a lot, but it’s all non fiction (her favorite). My S is a huge John Grisham fan & likes to read on his breaks from school.</p>
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