The post-literate society is not inevitable

Parents have the power to turn things around

James Marriott has gone viral with his unsettling insights into the dawn of the post-literate society.

Take your baby to the park and… watch Paw Patrol.

In the US, about a third of 12th graders do not have basic reading skills. In Britain, one in five people aged between 16 and 65 can only read at or below the level expected of a 10-year-old, and 40% of British adults have not read or listened to a single book in the past year.

You don’t need me to tell you this, and you don’t need me to tell you that it has serious repercussions for us all, far beyond the now-common sight of children in restaurants spending the entire meal on their iPad.

But here’s the good news: It’s not inevitable.

How to get complimented on your parenting skills every time you leave the house

This week I had to go to the bank to open a US bank account. The appointment took 30-40 minutes, and my children (they’re 7 and 9) spent the entire time sitting in the foyer, reading their books. As always happens when my children read in public, people told me how amazing it is. The lady who opened my new account said she’d never seen anything like it. When she went to collect some documents from the printer, she came back and said that everyone was talking about my children reading their books. This is not limited to the US—it happened all the time in the UK too. It’s proved to be a great way to strike up conversations!

I’m not the only one.

Joel Bowman

shared a Note describing his reading sessions with his young daughter in cafes: “Hardly a session passes us by when at least one person – a waiter, a fellow cafe goer, a random passerby – doesn’t stop to comment.”

Children reading in public should not be a remarkable sight

Maybe you think your child couldn’t do this. Maybe you’re right. I don’t know your child and I’m not an education professional or a child development expert.

But I do know my own children, and they’re not geniuses. They are normal children. They are picky eaters, they squabble, they get bored, they watch TV, they can make bad jokes about bodily functions all day long. They’re bright but not preternaturally so. They’re normal.

If my children can read books in public for half an hour, most other children can too.

We homeschool, and perhaps it helped that they weren’t in school to absorb the message that reading is boring, an activity that must be done purely because the teacher insists. I know plenty of children who learnt early in their school career that reading = work, and is therefore to be avoided as much as possible.

It’s also true that they are insulated from children who might tell them how much fun Minecraft is, or think it’s weird that my children don’t have their own devices. Maybe if my daughter had been in school for the past five years I wouldn’t have found it so easy to take such a firm line. (Although my natural Luddite tendencies have served me well in this regard.)

I hesitate to blame the parents. If we’re going to step back from the brink of a post-literate society it’s going to take a society-wide effort. If people were kind about the toddler screaming on the bus, maybe the mother wouldn’t feel the need to sedate him with Cocomelon.

But it’s also true that if the post-literate society can be avoided, it won’t happen without the parents.

And this is all it takes:

1. Surround your child with books of all kinds. Never leave the house without a book or five. If the child can’t read, read to them as much as you can, whatever they want, over and over. Don’t stop once they can read for themselves.

2. Don’t provide an alternative form of entertainment. This is the reason my children will read while I open a bank account. It’s that or stare at the wall. There is no iPad, no phone, no headphones, no videogames. If there were, I guarantee they wouldn’t open the books. For goodness’ sake, don’t take the iPad to the park.

Remember that you, and everyone before you, went through childhood without a screen to pacify you wherever you went.

If your child expects screen-based entertainment when they’re out and about, break the habit. Try The Analog Family for ideas on reducing screentime or cutting it out altogether, and

Jacqueline Nesi, PhD

for screen-free activities and data on what too much screentime is doing to our children.

School of the Unconformed

has great posts on creating a culture of reading in your family.

If your child is small and you haven’t introduced screens yet, don’t. Then you never have to be pestered about them! Breaking a habit is so much harder than not starting it in the first place.

We don’t have to accept a post-literate society, although we may have to make some tough choices to avoid it. I love the interactions we have when people see my children reading out and about, but I’d love it even more if children reading in public was simply a normal activity that passed without remark.

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