Tag Archives: Reading age

Reading, Teaching

Putting age ranges on books – does it do more harm than good?

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In another post, I offered you my musings about sorting books into levels.  My contention was that we should not give books ability or age levels as that disadvantages certain types of reader and discourages almost all readers. Since I wrote that, I have been thinking about how teachers and parents can choose a book for a child when they have no expertise in children’s books. How can they gauge the appropriateness of a book?

It is obvious that when buying or borrowing books we need a place to start. Where many people start is the age range of the reader.  As a parent, grandparent, auntie or otherwise interested adult, who is not aware of the books out there, this is where you might think of starting. Books shops divide the children’s section into age groups for this very reason.  It’s quite useful too. It saves you doing a huge amount of research. There is some sense in it: children of five have wildly different reading levels, abilities and interests to young people of fourteen.

What I can’t get away from, however, is the judgemental nature of such divisions, useful and convenient as they are. Children might feel we are saying that they should not choose books from an age range lower than their own. How does that encourage reading? We don’t do this to adults.  We don’t put the ‘classics’ section in the ‘higher ability’ bracket, and the autobiography of the latest Love Island winner in the ‘lower ability’ section, even though it is undeniably true that it is much harder to read Wuthering Heights than it is a current ghost-written autobiography.  But we acknowledge that adults choose books for reasons other than their literacy level.  It may be true that some could not read the classic book and others would be bored reading the autobiography, but there will be swathes of people who enjoy reading both.

As I have said many times before. books are about more than levels. They are about the genre (horror, gothic, romance, thriller..), the subject matter (trains, relationships, the Tudors, the drugs problem in inner cities…), the style (literary, colloquial, formal, humorous…) as well as a host of other factors.  Might these things not be equally important ways of categorising books, both in libraries and book shops?  Could we not work out the reading level before buying – by reading a bit of it or looking something as simple as the size of the font – and have our choice driven by what the book is about?  After all, this is what inspires and motivates the reader, surely?  It is how we classify adult books.

Now we come to the main reason why I cannot just advocate scrapping age recommendation on books altogether. How can parents determine the appropriateness of a book to its reader?  As a school librarian I had to steer between giving my customers a wide, varied and interesting choice of books, styles, subjects and genres, and making sure little minds were not confused, horrified or offended by inappropriate ideas and language.  To be fair, most of the horror and offense was coming from parents rather than children, and most children who are truly too young for a book would not make it far enough in to discover the disturbing themes or language.  However, I do appreciate the point that, until a certain age, discussing abortion, suicide and alcoholism may not be appropriate. It may not be done at the level and depth appropriate to the child’s development, and many would suggest that children should not be reading about those kinds of things until they are in their mid-teens.

I have a pretty liberal view of what children should be allowed to read about.  After all, children suffer bereavement, feel themselves to be outsiders because of race or gender, endure domestic abuse and see the effects of drug and alcohol abuse in their own lives in the real world. If these issues are discussed thoughtfully and in a balanced and nuanced way, then they should do more good than harm. However, I do understand that it is not my place to make the decision for parents as to what it is good for their child to read. That being the case, there must be a way for parents, and the other adults who are responsible for bringing up children, to find out if the book has the ‘right’ level of subject matter for their age. One quick and easy way to do this is to put an age on a book and be quite cautious about what that age range can tolerate as regards the intricacies of life.

The ideal would be that the expert in the library or bookshop could give you the information about the book you are thinking of borrowing or buying for your child, or give the information directly to the child. And, the parent is free, if they are concerned enough, to read the book too and work through any issues with the child as they go. The trouble is that quite often those experts are not available.  In schools, often librarians have been replaced by over-worked English teachers or Teaching Assistants; in many public libraries there are volunteers rather than trained staff. Often books are sold in places like supermarkets where there are no staff on hand at all. Another problem, of course, is that what a child thinks they are capable of reading and coping with may differ widely from what their parent thinks. I am very far from thinking that children know what is best for them, but I have seen many instances of children being ‘protected’ from issues that they would be better knowing about.  There are certainly instances of schools dropping the study of the holocaust in Year 7 or 8 because of parental complaints.  Our common humanity (and what happens when we forget it) is something I think we should all learn about. But that is just my opinion.

And that is the point. We are all entitled to our opinion, and so the consumer and the reader need to have all the information to enable them to make a choice based on their own opinion. In conclusion, without taking away the very liberty of choice that I want to create, I cannot get rid of putting ages on books. Though providing expertise in assisting choice is always the best way, whether in providing trained librarians or trained booksellers.

The fact that there are fewer and fewer of these is more damaging than we can yet realise. The proliferation of ‘libraries’, or rather, collections of books, with no expert management, promotion or advice is a rant for another day.

Reading, Teaching

Why I support children’s love of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

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Or why ‘encouraging higher reading levels’ is not an easy task. 

Teenagers are reading at below their chronological age. The problem with that is the complexity of GCSE texts makes the English exams inaccessible for many students. Those whose daily (weekly or monthly) diet of reading is mainly Tom Gates and Diary of a Wimpy Kid will struggle with A Christmas Carol and Macbeth. The answer, many schools seem to think, is to force students to read harder books.  I can see the logic, but it doesn’t work.

It’s not hard to work out why.  Reading is essentially solitary.  Of course it is wonderful to read to someone or be read to, but the majority of the reading a young person will do must be done alone.  To do something by yourself, you must be motivated to do it.  Someone who has the choice only of books that are at the top of their ability will inevitably feel less motivated to read alone, particularly if you were struggling to sell them reading as a hobby in the first place.

Schools have got into the habit – especially through the Accelerated Reader scheme (which some day I may have the courage to write about honestly) – of trying to force children to choose books from a narrow range because they are at the ‘right level’. This harms reading habits in at least two ways. Firstly, the students don’t have the breadth of choice they need.  To love reading, you have got to like the genre, the style, the characters, the themes of the books you read.  If you have only a few to choose from, you could find yourself bored or even repelled by what you are reading.  It could easily put you off picking up another book. Secondly, if the books are at the top of the child’s reading ability, they will get tired of working so hard every time they start to read. They will associate reading with hard work, instead of with fun, enjoyment and pleasure.

None of us read to the top of our ability all the time.  It will not surprise you to learn that I am a reader. I love to read and spend a lot of time doing it. I do read books which are very challenging at times. The books I really find a challenge are likely to be modernist works (like James Joyce’s Ulysses or Samuel Beckett’s Murphy), or, alternatively, books written in old English (like Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde or Piers Plowman). There is no way in the world I could get out a poem by Chaucer every night before I go to sleep and still keep my love of reading.  I adore a good murder mystery, a romance, a fantasy book.  I love children’s books of all genres. They do not stretch me as much intellectually, but I love them.  Why do we not allow children the freedom to choose in the way we would like to be able to choose for ourselves?

The other issue I have with reading to the top of your ability is that, if it is guided by teachers, parents and librarians, it will become a way of being judged and judging others.  “Are you only on the silver books?  I’m already on the red ones!” You might hear a comment like that in a primary school where they focus on reading schemes.  But I have taught children who are embarrassed to admit their Accelerated Reading score, knowing it is lower than others in their class.  And I have seen the distress of students wanting to take home a book which is not in their ability band, being refused, and then thinking “Oh that means they think I’m too stupid for that book.  I must be rubbish at reading!”. As soon as we make reading about success and failure rather than fun, well being and interest, we will alienate the very people we want to encourage.  

So, encouraging young people to read is to foster a love of reading. Of course, try and offer other books with other ideas in them, if your child or student has got stuck in a rut with the same old thing. But to narrow down choices, make books about what level you are on, make reading about ‘work’ rather than fun, will be a deterrent to continuing to read. To put it as mildly as possibly, it will be counter productive. We want children to do well, to improve, but we want them to enjoy themselves as well.  If we don’t make it fun, they won’t do it. A simple lesson we could all do with learning!

Literature, Reading, Teaching

The Reading Gap

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There is undeniably a gap between the difficulty of GCSE texts and the majority of teenagers’ reading ability. I want to ask why.  And what can we do about it?

Impenetrable literature

As much as I love Dickens and Shakespeare – and I do! – in my experience, many, many students struggle with them. Shakespeare, particularly, presents challenges of language as well as context. For the GCSE literature exam, however, students have two (or three) years to study, discuss and digest the language, ideas and characters they will be examined on. The language exam, however, presents students with nineteenth century texts which they have never seen before. The length of the sentences, the latinate vocabulary, the expected understanding of nineteenth century life all contribute to the difficulty of comprehending the texts.

Reading standards

Add to the mix the apparently falling standards of teenage reading and we can see exactly why students struggle.

A study done in 2018 by Renaissance UK (the company who provides the Accelerated Reading Scheme) shows that “Book difficulty drops off sharply in Year 7, with secondary students consistently reading behind their chronological age.”  If all you have been reading up to now is Diary of a Wimpy Kid and the latest David Walliams book, it will be highly challenging to jump to Wilkie Collins and Charlotte Bronte.

As quoted in a Huffington Post article, Professor Keith Topping of Dundee University, who carried out the research, said:

“To avert a further slide in literacy levels in secondary schools, pupils should be encouraged to push themselves to read more difficult books.

“By their teenage years pupils are more likely to take advice from their friends and peers than their teachers and parents about the types of books they should be reading.

“With this in mind, teachers could encourage them to talk more openly about what they are reading and make appropriate suggestions to their classmates.”

What does Professor Topping imagine teachers and librarians have been doing all of this time? If only such a simple and obvious suggestion was all that it would take to solve the problem.

Teenage Reading

As anyone who has a teenager or teaches them will know, there is always a resistance to anything that the establishment – their school, their parents, the government – want them to do. Lots of teenagers read.  Of course they do. I have had many lovely hours chatting about books with young people of all ages. But can we blame those who don’t? Who has time to read when they’re busy growing an adult brain, struggling with crushes and spots and agonising self-doubt, whilst experimenting with alternative cultures and lifestyles? (that’s sex, drugs and alcohol to us anxious parents).

But here, we are talking about people who can choose whether to read or not. The actual picture is not so simple.

To understand Dickens, Shakespeare and the like, someone will need (at least) a reading age of 16. Let’s not forget that a fair few of the students sit their GCSEs before they actually reach this age. There are barriers to reaching the needed standard other than your actual age . Those who speak a different language at home, those whose parents don’t have the means to offer them resources, books and experiences, those who don’t have the middle class cultural capital to understand many of the set texts, those who don’t have parental support, those who struggle for many reasons beyond their control through illness, mental health problems, family situations and so on. I am sure I have not covered half of the reasons why students might have problems reaching the impossibly high standards, but it is very often not through lack of intelligence, not through lack of hard work, but simply through circumstances of birth, environment, economics and society.

Closing the gap

I wonder whether we should reconsider the level we expect students to reach simply to pass their GCSE English. All I have been talking about so far is comprehension. As you know, students also have to evaluate, compare and analyse. The gap between their previous reading experience and that expected at GCSE grows ever wider. However, assuming this is the system we all have to live within, our responsibility as parents, as teachers, as librarians is to try and close that gap. How do we do it?

I have already written about how parents can help their children love to read, about how teachers can encourage reading in the classroom, and there are thousands of words written on the subject every day. As always there is no easy answer. To simplify, we need to close the poverty gap, fund education appropriately, and start prioritising reading at High School.  I know – it’s just wishing for the impossible. But if we focus on reading during Key Stage 3 (Year 7 to Year 9), then students wouldn’t suddenly find themselves lost as they begin Key Stage 4 (Year 10 to Year 11). Primary schools do a fantastic job of teaching our children to read. At Year 7, we put all that on the back-burner and hope the children have got the message.  They haven’t.

I hope all that wasn’t too controversial and opinionated. After all, what do I know?  I just see the results of this reading gap and the upset and misery it causes. If there was an easy solution, all those amazing teachers and librarians would have found it by now. As it always does, it just comes back to reading.