Reading is a Dying Skill! What can we do to Revive it?

Reading is a dying skill, one that is often overlooked in schools. The fact is that reading is not just a skill but also an attitude, a culture, and a habit. Today, our students have lost the ability to stick to a reading passage for a few minutes because they soon lose interest in what they are reading. The internet is to blame for this. The internet has rewired our minds for instant gratification, because of which we soon lose our connection with the reading passage because we don't want to stick to the passage for long. We want instant answers to the questions in the passage, and instead, scan the passage for the answers to the questions given in the exercise. Scanning for answers has become more important than reading for comprehension.

What most students don't realise is that reading is not a passive activity! True reading is based on inference, prediction, and extrapolation, active note-taking, and global understanding of the passage. Underlining key ideas, phrases, and words; writing notes in the margins; and highlighting important sentences and phrases are important skills that we need to inculcate in our learners. Reading is about comprehending, summarising, metacognition, and critiquing- skills that we need to develop in our students.

We often ignore the need for collaborative reading in which students are invited to discuss the merits of the passage. In many cases, collaborative reading exercises are passed over because these activities take time. In addition to this, reading comprehension exercises are often done as quickly as possible without going through the nuances of the activity. It goes without saying that developing reading skills is most important because these skills aid the development of higher-order cognitive skills. Reading is not just a skill; it is an attitude, a habit that needs to be honed through regular practice.

Many years ago, I created a lesson plan to nurture reading comprehension skills. The lesson plan included the following stages:

1. The teacher/facilitator gives the students the text, and he tells the students to go through it in three minutes.
2. At the end of three minutes, the teacher asks the students probing questions about what and how they ‘feel’ about the text. The facilitator could set aside five minutes for this part.
3. The teacher now tells the students to read the text silently in ten minutes. Students who have completed the reading before others are asked to jot down their questions and observations (this instruction is given at the beginning and towards the end of the eight minutes).
4. The fourth stage is one where the discussion takes place between the groups. Here the teacher steps in to assign groups. The teacher can also specify the parameters and the topics to be discussed, such as figures of speech, the message, the central theme, style of writing, genre, tone, atmosphere, the background of the writer or the piece, and of course, the word meanings. In this case, the teacher will assign portions of the reading text to pairs of groups; a particular stanza to two groups, a paragraph, or an entire page, as may be the requirement. The teacher could set aside fifteen minutes for this stage.
5. The fifth stage is the final stage, and in this stage, all the students will be asked to come up with a summary, in writing, about what they have understood or learned from their reading. This would be a summary of the entire reading and would include a description of the central theme, characters, message, genre, images, feelings of the reading, and stuff that the students liked or disliked about the passage. All this while, the teacher would need to step in from time to time, directing the students in the right direction, but certainly not dictating answers. This stage would take twenty minutes. This can also be a stage where students make a brief presentation on specific portions of the text.
6. The last stage would include the assignment of the home task for the students to do at home. This would help them revise what they have read in class. This would take twelve minutes, and this includes the buffer time.

Reading is a collaborative activity, and it should include critiquing, inferring, discussing, debating, and summarising. Inculcating reading skills is an important task for teachers in schools today. Creating exhaustive reading lists, establishing reading clubs, organising author visits, and fostering a culture of reading are essential for promoting reading skills in students. Teachers too need to be incentivised to read books in their spare time so that they can pass on this habit to their students.

Unfortunately, scrolling for content on the internet has reduced concentration spans in all of us; it has also led to the advent of the instant gratification syndrome in all of us. AI has made in-depth reading or extended reading a thing of the past because AI is there to help pull important details and key points. Reading is different from browsing the internet for reels. It is more intensive, and it requires longer concentration spans. This skill requires nurturing the ability to comprehend, analyse, summarise, and critique a passage. Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by students today is to be able to continue reading a passage beyond the threshold of concentration and interest. Teachers in classrooms need to identify engaging and interesting passages for the comprehension reading exercise. Reading is a dying skill today because our learners have shorter attention spans; they lose interest, and they don't find relevance in reading a passage apart from the need to find answers to questions.

Surveys and research have shown that students at the junior and middle school levels show a greater interest in reading, which tapers sharply at the senior school levels. You will find fewer grade eleven and twelve students in the library, or with a book in their hands that is not associated with their syllabus. This is an unfortunate trend! Study pressure might be one reason, while the other might be the fact that teachers are more interested in completing the syllabus than taking up book reviews or even encouraging students to read. The only occasion when students in grades eleven and twelve read is when they are solving comprehension reading questions in their term papers or even the summative board exams. What many don't realise is that reading is an important skill; it helps develop cognitive skills. Reading strengthens emotional resilience; it enhances communication skills and develops ethics. Avid readers are more likely to be successful in professional life; they have better relationships, better understanding, are more patient, and are better parents.