The news media regularly reports that children, and even adults, aren’t reading as much as they used to. That’s actually a misnomer, according to California State University, Northridge literacy experts Dominic Grasso and Mira Pak.

The issue isn’t that they’re not reading as much as they used to, argue Grasso and Pak. It’s that they are not reading what’s expected of them and not understanding what they read.

“Maybe nobody’s reading great literature, but I can guarantee that they’re reading something, even if it’s snippets of texts or on social media,” said Pak, who teaches literacy in the Department of Secondary Education in CSUN’s Michael D. Eisner College of Education. “We’re actually reading more now than we’ve ever read. But the issue is that we’re not comprehending what we read, not investing emotionally into what we’re reading, because everything is so quick and so rapidly available that we just skim and scroll through it. There was a study that says we’re reading four times more words that we’ve ever read before, even kids, but we’re not comprehending because we don’t need to. We can just scroll by something and then click.”

Grasso, who teaches literacy in the Eisner College’s Department of Elementary Education, agreed.

“Kids, older students and even adults are just skimming,” he said. “With adults, when they see something in the news, they just skim it and take it in without engaging in the process of asking where this is coming from? Or thinking about whether it’s a reliable source. There are so many sources now and everything comes so quickly that we don’t think about the process.”

Pak said the same thing happens when young people read.

“A lot of our students are using skimming in place of actual deep reading,” she said. “Skimming is not necessarily the enemy. When I am looking for something specific in a text, I don’t have to read the whole thing. I just need to skim to the part that I am looking for. The same thing happens when we read social media. We’re not really engaging. If we do, we can succumb to information overload. Instead, we skim.

“I think that happens to our students as well,” Pak continued. “They’re not thinking what type of reading skill and strategy might work from one thing, like social media, and not for something else. They’re assuming that it can work for everything, including deep reading. And, of course, we know that’s not true. As teachers, we need to teach students that skimming is great for one kind of purpose, but, when you really need to read something deeper, you’ve got to use different strategies.”

The secret to inspiring a potential reader is to encourage them to read a variety of texts — short, long, different viewpoints and different sources — including biographies, novels and informational texts, Pak said.

“Believe it or not, just that act alone helps students to start to discern,” she said.

Grasso agreed, adding that when elementary school teachers add themes to their coursework, it encourages students to read without making the act of reading seem like drudgery.

“Say we’re going to learn about the rainforest, they have to build the background knowledge they need to understand the subject, and that involves reading, even advanced texts,” he said. “Then teachers can do classroom projects like making some type of media release about deforestation or develop a fundraiser and stuff like that. All of those things involve reading and deep understanding of the subject. But the kids are still engaged and developing their comprehension and critical thinking skills.”

At the same time, Grasso said, parents and teachers should not shy away from phonics and recognizing letters and the sounds they make.

“A lot of people say this is ‘drill and kill. It’s not fun. It’s going to be boring,’” he said. “But actually, elementary kids like that stuff. They like phonics games and they like letter/sound correspondence. It’s one of the few areas in literacy where we can bring the manipulatives like letter tiles, dice and things that engage the students.

“A lot of teachers and parents are under the belief that we don’t want to ask the kids to sound out words anymore, but they need to do that,” Grasso continued. “When they get to secondary school, they are going to be reading much more challenging content and words. Memorization isn’t going to work. They need to be able to sound out those words to they can understand what they are reading.”

Pak said parents can play a key role in encouraging their children to read.

“A way to start is to find something they are interested in and start from there,” she said.

“While you’re making dinner and your middle schooler is reading at the table, ask them to tell you about what they just read in their own words. Ask them if they can shorten the summarization into a couple sentences. Can they tell you what was good about what they read? What did they like? What did they not like?

“Asking those kinds of questions while you’re making dinner and your kid is doing homework really does push comprehension along, as well making connections and encouraging critical thinking,” Pak said.

Grasso pointed out that reading doesn’t just occur while one is holding a bound paper book in their hands.

“I think we need to start being more embracing because the reality is that eventually there might be a generation of kids that never hold a paper book. Everything they read will be on a screen,” he said. “We’ll know for sure if that becomes the case a few years down the road. In the meantime, I think there are some really easy things that we can do as teachers and parents to use technology to encourage reading and reading comprehension.”

Elementary school teachers often encourage their students to create journal entries about what they’ve read as if they were writing from the viewpoint of a specific character in the book.

“Maybe they could create a blog or create an audio journal, even a podcast,” he said. “The idea is to get them engaged in the subject, and thinking critically about what they read.”

He and Pak pointed out that listening to an audio book or a podcast is no different from listening to a teacher or parent read something out loud.

“The key is that they understand what they are listening to and can think critically about what they heard,” Grasso said, adding that “it’s critical to not dismiss how important reading and comprehension are.

“In the medical field, if you mess up just one word concerning a prescription or something else, it can literally mean life or death for the patient,” he said. “In the trade jobs, whether you are a plumber or an electrician, a one-word error in something can cause a big problem in someone’s house. Even in service jobs, if they mess up one word on an order, the customer is going to be upset.”

Pak seconded that.

“Even if you don’t go to college, you’re probably going to need college-level literacy skills to do the types of jobs you want and succeed,” she said.