What Impact Can Librarians And Libraries Have On The Decline Of Older Children And Teen Recreational Reading

“School made us ‘literate’ but did not teach us to read for pleasure.” -Ambeth R. Ocampo

In Dana Gioia’s article titled “Why Literature Matters”, he explains about the decline of reading literature for young Americans. Although “income rose to unforeseen levels, college attendance ballooned, and access of information increased enormously” he states, “the interest young Americans showed in the arts… diminished”. In his article, Gioia uses surveys, articles, studies, and statistics to persuade his audience that the decline of reading in America can have a negative effect on society.

Dana Gioia calls out millennials and younger generations in america, to spark a conversation about the increasingly declining and destructive behavior of NOT reading! Gioia makes very many fantastic points and uses very many persuasive elements on why literacy actually is vital to to our society and the negative effects that come from this lack of literacy. She gives us factual evidence and credible sources to pull the reader into her side of the argument.

Have you ever read such a great book that you became completely infatuated with it? You feel the pain, happiness, sadness that the characters feel; you feel as if you personally know the characters. You begin to forget that what you are reading is just a creative piece of writing because you are so infatuated with it. Reading for pleasure is a way to escape reality, a way to be inspired, a way to become more knowledgeable, and even a way to gain a new identity (Storm). In this day and age however, students prefer not to read for pleasure during their free time, such as summer vacations (McGaha). A major obstacle that students face today is technology. With technology expanding so rapidly, it seems that students are more focused on owning

Dana Gioia, author of the article "why Literature Matters", writes about the decline of reading in the U.S. and how it affects our society. The consequences of people not reading are expressed through his specific factual evidence and his prediction of what is going to happen if the American people continue to ignore this issue.

In this article from 2005, Dana Gioia is telling Americans how much the decline in reading among young Americans has gone. Gioia is encouraging Americans to read, and writes about the consequences of not having this literature reading skill.

Dana Gioia persuades her audience through a mix of emotions. With a lack of reading, young adults are missing out on the joys and challenges of literature.They are bypassing the cultural, emotional, and historical benefits of books and works of literature. By doing this, they are damaging their civic, personal, and economic health.

This is because many schools believe that in today’s age of technology, teenagers prefer reading through a digital platform. However, Merga discovers that reading habits amongst adolescents are not homogenous, and they do not all prefer digital books. Rather, she finds that the individual reading preferences of adolescents vary and educators must take these varying preferences into account.

Young Americans who read, demonstrate a better civilize attitude and the necessity to learn new information. Gioia states, “One of the surprising findings of “Reading at Risk” was literary readers are markedly more civically engaged than nonreaders, scoring two to four times more likely to perform charity work, visit a museum, or attend a sporting event”. Literature’s positive effects are visible as people who tend to read more, become further intelligent. The young Americans who read know they should prepare themselves for the future. They become active in their communities and occupy their lives with productive activities rather than be indolent and negligent as someone who might not read.

Michael Henry’s article “Whats with This Summer Reading” has readers pondering why summer reading has students “moving one step further from reading.” Michael Henry explains that one day he saw a teenager becoming very frustrated with the book he was reading. He asked why the young man was reading the book and the boy said, because it was a summer reading assignment. This made Henry think and he began to research summer reading assignments. He wanted to find out what was causing so much frustration.

Books have many life lessons that are useful, themes that are valuable, and morals that should be kept. First off, “Libraries, to me, are safe spaces, and if young readers can’t explore the themes in my book there, where can they?” (Strum, “Banning Books¨ ). Libraries are supposed to be a place

Declines in reading is growing larger and larger as time goes on. The author showed this by using a survey that was taken in 2002. It stated “declines have been most severe among younger adults… ages 18-24”. If the younger adults arent intrested in reading, then they won’t push that love onto their children one day. This then starts a trend of literature rates droping fast.

“Why Literature Matters” by Dana Gioia is a persuasive text on how literary interests have fallen. Gioia starts this claim by giving very promising information. The information has a great accomplishments but, Gioia also tells of how our literary interests as Americans have fallen drastically. A 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts shows that eight of nine major forms of literature show decreased participation by many Americans. The “2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts” gives staggering results according to Gioia about many young Americans neglecting enjoying reading literature.

During a person’s time as a young student, they begin to acquire certain skills, such as reading. As these skills develop, the student reading establishes preferences on which genres they like to read. However, this does not mean the student should isolate themselves to only reading one genre of book. Rather, this means that the student should continue to explore different genres while their preferences expand and grow. With this in mind, older students, such as eighth graders, should read more nonfiction. In eighth grade Language Arts, it is important for students to read nonfiction because it educates them on the current issues in the world, it helps them learn how they would respond to certain real-life situations they may encounter, and

Public libraries are dedicated to promoting early literacy to children from birth to 6 years. Literacy is more than just reading and writing and it involves important underlying principles of how children adapt to literacy skills. In the early childhood years, children begin to develop language skills as they beginning to learn how to communicate, read and write. In public libraries, librarians are well trained and equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to continue being involved as this is a lifelong learning process with teaching early literacy to parents and children. Libraries have put forth more effort to help keep children engaged from birth to six years, preparing them to read and write by implementing more literacy programs