On 26th September 2018, Nicola Woolcock, Education Correspondent for 'The Times' reported that,bookworms make the happiest children.
Those with the greatest love of literacy had the highest levels of mental well-being.
Her comments were based on a large-scale report by the National Literacy Trust, published on the same day as her article.
(2018 is the 25th year anniversary of the trust.)
The report was based on a survey of 49,047 UK school children aged 8 to 18.
The article further claims that,
Pupils’ love of books and their mental well-being
both fell between primary and secondary school, and continued to decline.
While I agree that reading books can broaden understanding of people and the world around,
I don't believe they represent the only reading tool in the 21st century
which can offer mental well-being to students.
I don't believe that reading is intrinsically chained to books.
There's 'a new kid on the block'.
Social media with its many faces has arrived.
Yes, there is the gossipy profile of Facebook,
but there is the untapped potential of Twitter
- round the world characters and groups, representing international knowledge - past and present -
and creative visions.
Art and music are there.
Raw reality invades at times too.
Connect with those groups and the reading, the mental extensions are waiting.
But there is a catch.
Twitter is micro-reading - linking at times to larger slabs of reading.
However, unless the micro version ignites a spark, the link is ignored.
Like it or not, we spin in a world of micro reading
- and that is why teenagers appear to read less than primary age students.
As children grow, they expect more in a short space of time.
Flash fiction and flash non fiction are here to stay.
So it is that teenagers have lost the pleasure of immersion in sustained reading.
It's more a frustration than a joy to them.
They have no yearning for time consuming reading.
The spark older generations may have had - without social media -
is no longer an option to them.
Social media is far more inviting... a plethora of reading snap shots...
(As a teacher, I hear the communal groan if a novel to be read looks 'too big'.
The first comment usually 'Is there a film version?')
Perhaps the pleasures of immersion reading are slowly dying in our rising generations,
(often only the insular introvert or bullied victim seeks this brand of reading escape),
but that does not mean reading is dying.
It has taken a new byway.
It has metamorphosed.
Teenagers' mental well-being will be enhanced when educators recognise the new reading trend
and develop pathways to those magical sparks as per Twitter.
And those sparks could very well, ignite a yearning for more,
leading back to the sustained reading we thought lost.
Children and teenagers will feel happier reading 21st century style...
Give them a byway in their social media world ...and who knows...
To teach is to keep learning
