The Effect of Reading the Word

“This is my domain,” my twelve year old brother told me a month ago.

“Your domain?” I asked.

“Yeah, my domain.  Do you know what that word means?”

“Yes.  Do you?”

“Yes.  What do you think it means?”

“It means the place in which you rule.”

“Yep,” he replied.  “Ever since I’ve started reading Fablehaven my vocabulary has increased.”  Then he added these wise words, “Reading increases your vocabulary.”

I thought about the incredible value of reading, and how children today are missing out on it.  How many kids today read for fun?  Or do they allot all of their time to playing video games and watching television?  What are the consequences of casting away books and picking up the remote?

In a study done in 1999 and repeated in 2004 “It was found that 39% of youth played video games on a typical day in 1999, and 41% did so in 2004. . . . [G]amers spent an average of 26 minutes per day playing in 1999 and 32 minutes per day playing in 2004” (Cummings, Vanderwater). Lets say that the numbers increase the same amount every five years.  This means in 2014 43% of young people will play video games, and they will play for an average of 44 minutes per day.  This is just an average, which means there are some who play hardly at all, and others who play significantly more than 44 minutes. 

This study concluded that there was a concern that gamers were neglecting schoolwork.  A rising problem in today’s society is the amount of media consumed and homework neglected. Doctors don’t become doctors by playing video games.   Lawyers don’t become lawyers by watching TV.  An experienced forest guide doesn’t successfully survive by looking at everyone’s latest post on Facebook, or tweets on Twitter.  They become successful by reading.  Not just reading the TV guide, or instructions for a video game console, but actual literature and intellectual books. 

In a recent talk, Tad R. Callister, a leader in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, recounted the story of a young man, Ben Carson, who said, “‘I was the worst student in my whole fifth grade class.’”  In a math test consisting of 30 problems, he got zero of them correct.  Ben’s mother, Sonya, “had only a third-grade education, and could not read.”  She was raising her two sons in the Detroit ghettos.  Callister continues the story by explaining that Sonya cleaned the houses of successful people for a living, and one day she realized that each house had one thing in common—they each had a library.  The people who lived in these houses read.  So she went home, turned off the television and told her boys they were watching too much TV.  She limited their TV time to three programs a week and told them that with the rest of their free time they would go to the library and read two books a week and give a report to her about them. 

Outside of school, Ben had never read a book in his life.  Nevertheless, their mother made her sons read.  Change happened.  When Ben was in seventh grade he was at the top of his class.  He eventually attended Yale University, “then John Hopkins medical school, where at age 33 he became its chief pediatric neurosurgeon and a world-renowned surgeon” (Callister). 

The success of Ben Carson wasn’t due to his teachers, or a sudden change in the course material, it was due to the fact that he read books.  It doesn’t matter what kind of books he read; the main fact was that he read. 

Today, too few parents are persistent enough to make their children turn off the TV and pick up a book, and very few kids will read books for fun.  I asked my seventeen-year-old brother, a senior in high school with a 4.0 GPA, why he thought kids would rather watch TV than read a book.  “Because they’re lazy,” he said.  “They would rather sit in front of a TV and have a story told to them.  Reading is work.”  If you’re reading a story then you have to imagine it.  You also have to remember it.  Unlike a movie or television show that tells a story in 30 minutes to 2 hours, a book can take days to read.  If you’re reading an informative book, you have to be able to comprehend what you’re reading in order to enjoy or feel like you’re accomplishing something. 

With the downturn in the amount of time kids spend in reading; I believe there is a significant lack of vocabulary among the rising generation.  “Book reading in the home has been shown to make distinct contributions to young children’s literacy development” (Dickenson, Smith, 105).  Whether it’s reading Fablehaven, the newspaper, or a book on trains, children today need to turn off the TV, the video games, the iPods, the tablets, and read.  They will do better in school and in life.  

Callister, Tad R. “Parents: The Prime Gospel Teachers of Their Children.” LDS.com. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2014).  Web. 9 October, 2014.

Cummings, Hope M. Vandewater, Elizabeth A. “Relation of Adolescent Video Game Play to Time Spent in Other Activities”, JAMA Pediatrics, 161.7 (2007): 684-689. Web. 6 October 2014.

Dickenson, David K. Smith, Miriam W.  “Long-term effects of preschool teachers’ book readings on low-income children’s vocabulary and story comprehension.” Reading Research Quarterly. 29.2 (1994): 104-122. JSTOR. Web. 6 Oct 2014