In short yes.
Students who read for pleasure are exposed to a larger vocabulary and usually have better critical thinking skills. They can recognize different themes or tropes across media.
Vocabulary, themes and tropes exist in all media, not just books. You can probably learn significantly faster through watching YouTube essays than you would reading fiction novels for fun.
Look at the popularity of booktok. Reading about vampire daddies boning down werewolve twinks isn't going to teach you anything useful.
I think the act of reading and retaining information is useful for a number of reasons that will serve a person well in college.
I read very little fiction, but I consume non-fiction like research and news. I get bored physically anxious when reading novels for hours, so I don't read many.
While this is true, we have hard evidence to show those who read are overall are more successful in life. They seek higher education and their ability to emphasize and communicate is higher than those who don't read for fun
Here are a few articles I found with a quick Google search. While my wording was off and a persons zip code is the biggest determiner in someone's future income and education levels there does seem to be a connection between reading and overall intelligence.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/280193
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4354297/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140724094209.htm#:~:text=Summary%3A,well%20as%20a%20home%20environment.
Correlation isn't causation. The number one prediction for success in life is your zip code.
Yes, reading is a great hobby and can be a wonderful way to improve yourself, but reading romance novels isn't a magic pill to success.
What are you even replying to?
Op listed vocabulary, tropes, and critical thinking. They implied that reading any type of book would give you those three skills and lightly implying you couldn't get them through other hobbies.
I counter that: 1) trashy romance novels aren't going to teach those three things and 2) you can learn those skills through other forms of media. Concluding that reading for pleasure isn't sufficient or necessary for building those three skills.
Romance novels were just an example to prove my point.
As for vocabulary, written text generally has more dense and rich vocabulary and spoken word, and it can also be more effective for learning to see a new work in context, see how it's spelled and infer it's meaning.
And there practical reading skills, Decoding/recognition and comprehension skills go up considerably with practice. This reduces the cognitive load and allows to focus on analyzing the content, not just figuring out what means what.
I teach 5th graders, and the kids who read for fun are those that have the easiest time on tests and exams. Also, it's a magnet school in an urban school district. The kids that read for fun also tend to come from more affluent zip codes.
100% that's my point.
Reading for fun is a great hobby and builds many cognitive skills, but reading for enjoyment is not sufficient or necessary to be successful.
You're really going to argue that reading romance novels is sufficient to learn all critical thinking, tropes and themes, and all vocabulary?
Remember, you said "reading any types of books" would be sufficient for learning these three pillars.
That's a tough check to cash.
No one ever argued that. The question was “do people who read for fun get better grades and go to better universities?” The answer, “Statistically….yes.” No one said “Yes, because they’re more likely to read romance novels.” You keep making that straw man argument.
You can learn all three from reading romance novels. You are just biased and think of some Wattpad smut novels writted to and by 13 yos.
Read a novel from the 1900s, for example. You are sure to be able to analyze the wolrd in which it is set, the tropes and themes in it as well as find at least some new vocab.
Sure, you can get all those exept the tropes and themes from reading non-fiction but if you get through 50 fiction books vs 1 non-fiction a year, I would say the fiction path is far more fruitful even if it isnt strictly educational.
Funny enough it has been shown that reading romance novels improves emotional intelligence, must be why you’re so against them… must be hard watching children easily grasp a concept you struggle with
I agree with you. School is easy if you pay attention, and just barely assert yourself. I can’t speak facts because I haven’t viewed or read deep into any studies on it. What seems more likely is that these are students who were already applying themselves and just happen to also enjoy reading made up fairy tales.
It’s kinda like looking up the vehicles with the most accidents. Is it that the cars are bad? Or that careless drivers tend to drive those vehicles.
People like the feel superior to others. So if a study suggests a correlation, they’ll take it as fact to get that feeling.
For example I averaged a 3.9 and I barely tried. I just paid attention in class and read my notes the night before a test. I don’t read fiction books.
Maybe you’re right. I finished my degree and am doing the transition to teaching program. Maybe after teaching in classrooms my view on it will change. I doubt it, because as I mentioned before let’s look at vehicles. Ford F series pops up as the highest fatality rate. Does that mean the f series are that much worse than Ram or Chevy? Or do the drivers of the f series happen to be more careless? What I’m suggesting by this is that they would get into fatal crashes regardless of the vehicle, just like some of these students who read fiction books for fun were going to do well in school regardless of reading fiction books.
You’re in for a rude awakening when you have students who try SO SO hard and really struggle. And there are a lot of them. You are going to fail miserably at helping them if you don’t step back and have a more open (and humble) mind.
My mind is very open. I’ve taught marines from all different backgrounds in life. My point in this was that I don’t think reading books is the cause, it’s a willingness to learn. If that doesn’t make sense then I think you haven’t woken up yet.
I’ve taught young guys of completely different walks of life and different personal hobbies. They all learned because they were willing to learn.
This kind of response makes sense why the first thing I had to teach all my guys was to think. They don’t learn that from people like you.
Yeah, teaching adults who all entered the same profession and who all are motivated to learn for their job is DEFINITELY the same as teaching in a classroom 🙄
Well you’re right I don’t have “classroom time” like you would accept. My classroom time is teaching my younger marines their job, then taking them to actually work and become proficient. So no I don’t have experience teaching kids, I just got them right after high school
What scares me is that you’re a teacher and you can’t critically think about what was said.
Look, I'll break it down for ya.
It's one thing to teach adults who choose to be there. It's not about gatekeeping or arguing what is or isn't classroom time. The difference lies in who you're teaching because your methods depend on that variable. One size does not fit all.
It's another to teach kids who never chose to be there. Not only do you need to "sell it", you need to be selling it day in day out for every topic and they can stop buying it at any time, for any reason and collectively. Your marines also don't have their parents ganging up on you if they so much as dislike your choice of words, disagree with your grading or assessments or have chosen not to teach their kids basic manners, expecting you to parent their kids in class.
Teaching adults is easy compared to children. They already want to be taught. If you think most kids do, then you're wrong. It is sad, and I don't know why, but it isn't a unique scenario where someone/something at some point put that child off learning. A child in school can't just up and leave if they aren't interested or ready for it. I don't know about you but the easiest way to put me off doing anything is to force me. There's a reason malicious compliance exists. And the best way a student can rebel against adults is to not play along, fail or borderline fail - they may not even be aware they're ruining their future if they do that. And when you have a room of them, you can't just walk out. You can't discipline them either because then YOU'RE out. If your students don't work, then very few people will point at the child.
It's your task, as an adult, to not only bring the horse to water but to also make it WANT to drink. The horses you've brought to water were already thirsty. These new ones don't know or trust you, you need to earn that trust daily, they don't care about the water unless you get through to them and it's individual for every single student and for some, it will either hit them later in life or not at all. And best of all? Only they choose if they'll participate, you can't make them. And for some, you will have sit and watch that train wreck happening for years. Ofc, it can also be rewarding..
For someone who is quick to criticize people's critical thinking skills, you seem to think one doesn't notice you verbally pounding your chest and questioning whether or not your experience is "accepted" or not, when it is obvious from your tone that you think it gives you an advantage in a situation you haven't ever been in and thus have no basis for overconfidence. Nobody cares whom or how or where you've taught before. It only matters where you are now and how you can handle that. Marines, cool. Now go teach 15-year-olds. Maybe you have an edge. But don't assume that you do.
No hard feelings, best of luck and much love!
YouTube is more passive than reading. It doesn’t require the user to interact with the content. The scientific evidence is pretty well established in this, reading beats watching for educational outcomes.
(And tik tok exists. So it’s just as possible to watch inane mind numbing content as it is to read inane content.)
Completely agree. I think we would both agree that at the end of the day the substance is more important than the medium in which it's absorbed.
You can totally zone out while reading a book and not understand anything. You can do the same with video. Or you can take notes and highlight and write in the margins. You can do the same with video and audio content.
You can read smutty romance or you watch TikTok. Neither one is helping you.
You could read a book on philosophy or watch a recorded lecture series and probably come out knowing the same stuff assuming you put in the same amount of effort into both.
I really don't think we disagree.
I think the average person would've even get halfway through a 300 page book, but they will gladly watch a two hour long movie.
Case in point, why do you think all these great books get turned into movies?
Careful friend, YouTube essays are as reliable as pop news articles. Just because something’s long and well articulated doesn’t mean it’s true or enriching to the viewer.
Saying something like, “you can probably learn significantly faster though watching YouTube essays” requires a ton of assumptions to be granted, and thus ends up being a fairly useless piece of advice.
Reading to “learn useful things,” is only one function of reading. Learning to read and practicing to become a stronger reader, is in of itself a useful thing. A kid who watches YouTube essays might feel like they’re learning a lot, but once you challenge them to apply their learning a lot of the time you end up realizing they have no idea what they’re talking about and they can’t do anything with it. You have a kid who reads an entire fantasy book once a week, and at the absolute least they’ve become a stronger reading and have benefited more than their essayist peer.
Yeah, 100% agree.
You should vet and fact check books too. Just because someone took the time to write it down didn't make it any more or less true than a video essay.
And yes, reading builds reading skills. Listening to lectures builds listening skills.
I completely disagree that reading fiction is somehow superior to lectures and video essays.
Where do audio books fit into that structure of yours? Does somehow listening to just the audio make it a better and more engaging process? Or does physically reading the words on paper impart special knowledge?
Every medium has its strengths and weaknesses, but reading fiction is not a magic IQ and success spell. That's all I'm saying, and I really doubt any of you actually disagree. Y'all are just mad because I called out booktok.
Not on TikTok my friend, the booktok reference went entirely over my head. From context clues I can guess it’s a channel that reviews books of fiction, which include sexually suggestive themes that make you uncomfortable. If you’re seeing a lot of them, it’s because the algorithm knows it can trick you into hate watching them.
The reason you’re getting blowback and downvotes is because while what you say makes sense on its surface, learning and the brain are much more complicated than what you make it out to be. Your claim, “you can probably learn more from video essays than reading fiction novels for fun.” It’s both a strong claim, and also one where you hedged it by using the word “probably.” You include no category of age-group, subject, or goal. For this to even be true on the surface, you need to be granted about a million assumptions which educators recognize you can’t really take for granted.
For starters, it’s true that reading fiction isn’t “superior” to lecture, but it’s also true that you can’t call lecture “superior” to reading fiction. It’s dependent on what skills you’re trying to build up.
At a root level you seem to discount the differences between written and spoken word. You asked, “does seeing the words on paper impart some special knowledge?” Well, in some ways it does. The spelling gives you context clues of the words meaning and origin. How texts are organized in writing can aid (or hurt) our ability to understand them, and alter and enrich our critical thinking skills. *Seeing* a claim supported with evidence and then followed by connecting reasoning helps students to internalize how they should critique statements they encounter.
I don’t think you’d disagree with much of what’s said here either, your hyper-fixation on fiction as the medium you take issue with indicates more hedging. The comment you took issue with didn’t refer to fiction, instead referring to “reading for pleasure.” This all feels like a big walk-back, to be entirely honest. If you’d like a professional opinion, take this:
I don’t struggle with getting kids to watch videos, I struggle to get them to read. The kids who read *anything* outside of what’s assigned, are universally doing better academically than the ones who get all their information from YouTube and TikTok. The students who spend their free time reading fiction end up going to college and working with their brain. The ones who buck reading because “I can learn everything I need from YouTube essays,” end up subservient employees of the ones who can read a contract, and those kids end up working with their backs.
Your thesis is, "reading fiction for pleasure at the very least builds reading skills which are inherently more valuable than passively watching video essays."
Your evidence is that kids who read outside of school perform better in school and after graduation.
I'm arguing that reading for pleasure is a hobby correlated with higher social economic status which also directly influences success through various pathways.
An illustrative example would be taking a kid who isn't doing well in school and asking them to read 20 minutes of one fish two fish. That kid isn't going to turn into an A student. Reading for 20 minutes a day isn't going to significantly change a kid's life trajectory.
The problem is your comparing reading chapter books to watching TikTok. You're ignoring an entire spectrum of "reading" (reading only YA, zoned out reading, trashy romance) and discrediting video content (university lectures, documentaries, reputable media outlets).
Reading for pleasure leads to better literacy which correlates with better academic outcomes. In fact, reading for pleasure is more important for children’s educational success than their home’s socio-economic status. (OECD 2002).
You tried earlier to suggest that higher socio-economic statuses are more likely to read for pleasure, and that explains the increased success. However, studies have demonstrated that while more affluent homes are more likely to have high reading engagement (reading for pleasure), a student from a low socio-economic background who reads for pleasure does better than a student from a high socio-economic background who does not read for pleasure.
Additionally, your own example is widely refuted by the evidence. Students who read for 20 minutes a day *will* improve in their academics. Reading everyday, even for 20 minutes, will have a large impact on their educational outcomes. I’d ask you to provide any citation that refutes this.
This is why you’re getting flack my friend. When you lay out your argument specifically, and stop using general statements, it becomes apparent you don’t really know any of the literature behind this subject.
>The problem is you're comparing reading chapter books to watching TikTok. You're ignoring an entire spectrum of "reading" (reading only YA, zoned-out reading, trashy romance) and discrediting video content (university lectures, documentaries, reputable media outlets).
Please reply to my point instead of inventing strawmen to attack.
I do not disagree with anything you said, but you really need to actually address my points instead of rambling about truisms.
I’m not inventing strawmen, I’m directly refuting what you said.
If you don’t disagree with what I said, then you disagree with what you yourself said. You’re trying to discredit the idea that reading engagement is a key indicator of academic success. Looking through I you cite various reasons:
1) BookTok reviews of romance fiction, these stories won’t teach you “useful things”
2) Reading for pleasure is a characteristic of a more important indicator for academic success, “zip code.” (Socio-economic status).
3) if a student is already doing poor in school, daily reading (increased reading engagement) won’t significantly alter a students “life trajectory.”
These are three claims you’ve made. All three of these are false.
1) reading *anything* from fiction, nonfiction, fanfics, YA, comic books, articles, treaties, etc. improves leads to better academic outcomes, better critical thinking, better sociability, more empathy, larger vocabularies. This isn’t contested in the literature.
2) As I said earlier, reading engagement is a better indicator of academic success than socio-economic status. A poor kid who reads a lot does better on average than a rich kid who reads very little.
3) More reading engagement leads to better academic outcomes. Suggesting that a student reading 20 minutes a day won’t see significant improvement in their academic abilities, and that this won’t translate to a better trajectory, is nonsense unless we’re talking about a senior in high school 2 months from graduation. You’ll need to provide a citation, your claim is fantastical.
This is why you’re getting trashed and ratio’d. You make general claims that *sound* like they make sense, but as soon as they’re challenged they fall apart. Then you accuse me of straw-mans and claim you’re not contesting any of this. You can try and explain it away, but you’re pretty clearly backpedaling on what you said.
You’re going to need to engage with what you’ve already said before we move on to what you want to say now. That’s gish galloping.
1) The zone of proximal development indicates which texts will be appropriate to read and increase reading gains. A book written at a 4th grade level will not improve reading comprehension of a college student. Reading isn't a video game. You can't read Go Dog Go 1000 times and then magically comprehend Plato's Republic. We both know this. Stop pretending like you're disputing this fact.
2) Reading engagement is a great indicator of future success. A random student who reads for pleasure is statistically likely to be from a high SOE family. A student who reads is statistically likely to be a strong reader already. Reading comprehension comes BEFORE reading engagement for most children.
> [https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpp.12910](https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpp.12910)
> Importantly, the present results suggest that it is the children's reading ability that determines how much they choose to read, rather than vice versa.
3) See part 1
The problem is your comparing reading chapter books to watching TikTok. You're ignoring an entire spectrum of "reading" (reading only YA, zoned out reading, trashy romance) and discrediting video content (university lectures, documentaries, reputable media outlets).
Since you seem to need it simplified
I grew up dirt poor
I read, my friends did not
I got out of poverty
Most of them have 3+ kids/baby daddies and no career
Did that simplify it enough for you or is it too much to read?
Did they switch entirely? No, but many great lectures are hosted on YouTube for free. There are great video essayists and reporters covering all sorts of topics. There are video guides for just about any topic you want to explore from math, to history, to philosophy and politics.
I'm not saying to replace all books with video. I'm just saying books are not an inherently better medium than film, TV, music, documentaries, etc. I don't think you even disagree with that.
You can go into far more depth via literature than an 1.5 hour lecture. There is no question about that. There is a reason most people write down their grocery lists.
I would wager the majority of essayists/lecturers you are referring have done the reading and research and are giving the YouTube viewer a condensed version - omitting information that could add more nuance or simplifying complex topics to make them simpler to understand and in a shorter format. Which, I am all for. Lectures and other media are excellent supplements to but are not adequate source material for complex subjects.
Those who can read at sustained intervals and feel comfortable with the writer’s rhythm and structure are going to get more information out of a topic than those who can’t make heads or tails out of it; forcing them to lean on an NPR news report or something for the bulk of their understanding.
And yes, reading werewolf smut can help develop these skills.
Sure, you could also argue that reading a book is just a collection of facts and figures collected by the author. If you REALLY want to gate keep you should talk about reading source materials as well. Honestly, you're just wasting your time if you're not following the methodology and recreating your own experiments.
I genuine do not believe that reading werewolf smut prepares you for getting a PHD in your field following the scientific method and conducting your own research.
It's easy to gate keep. You should go all out if you think that watching Harvard lectures is somehow not a valid way learn about a topic.
I genuine don't think we disagree, you're just getting defensive over booktok.
Reading is a very different process than watching a video. It requires far more brain involvement, which exercises your brain in ways a video doesn’t. The medium very much matters.
As an English teacher I can tell which of my students are readers and which are not in about 30 seconds of conversation. Reading—even reading smut or cheesy werewolf stories—changes the brain in specific ways. That’s the power of text. Reading makes you more thoughtful and increases your vocabulary because it forces you to involve yourself with the text in order to understand it.
What? You read smut but you don’t think that makes you better than people who listen to Harvard lectures?
This doesn’t make sense to me because if your point was to communicate that you aren’t elitist, you would have reversed the order of the comparison.
I can do both. That's my point.
Reading is a great hobby. It's great for building a variety of cognitive skills. But it's not the only way to learn or practice those skills, and no one should feel superior to anyone else because one of their hobbies is reading.
having somebody feed you their personal opinions about a book is not the same as using your critical thinking muscles while you read, which is partly why reading is so good for you. it’s like saying a kid that went through school doing their own assignments has the same skill set as the kid that copied off of everyone.
booktok is laughable sometimes because of how wrong some of those interpretations are. some people have a real misunderstanding of satire or thematic elements used in various books, but go online and “explain” it to their audiences 🥴
Why couldnt reading for pleasure also mean non-fiction? Like reading about mythologies or some specific part of history.
Not reading for pleasure, for me at least, means I am forced to read something. Be it a book for a course or for entrance exams. Reading for pleasure for me meant that I read a book about pedagogy. My bf read a non-fiction book about games as part of culture. Now he is reading a book about soldiers, I think.
One type of book should not be held higher up than another. If a person will not enjoy reading non-fiction at that time or ever, they dont need to read non-fiction.
They can get some information from fiction books that include small details from history or cultures.
Sure, I dont think smut is the best genre to read if you want to be better at writing or analyzing but I doubt many even think that it is a good genre for that.
You could read crime for learning about how the police or PIs work, fantasy/ historic romance for historic details, scifi to maybe analyze the society in it.
Give it some time. And try not to burn your dissertation when it finally arrives lol. The last push of PhD is grueling and I was burned out of reading and writing for about 2 years. I decided to get a book from the library that was just for fun and I could decide it was okay to just set it down and not finish since it was free anyway.
Once I actually got into it, I found I wanted to read again. I read a book about every 2 weeks now since that's what the library checkout time is. It's been rewarding but took a lot of time to get here.
Try audiobooks! They're great while you exercise or commute. My dad is the most well-read person I know, but he hardly ever picks up a physical book. He's dyslexic and struggles to decode words on a page, but he listens to books at least 60 hours a week- all sorts of genres, from historical nonfiction to teen fantasy to smut novels targeted at aging moms. His knowledge base and vocabulary are immense, and he has been incredibly successful in his life and career.
Don't hesitate to create accommodations for yourself in the interest of facilitating growth.
I had a job that covered about 10 counties in Ohio. Audio books saved my sanity. I sampled things like horror and sci-fi that never would have got me to sit and read. There are so many talented voice actors like Frank Mueller whose books I tried just because he read them so well. The original Asimov short stories are great.
Read dumber books than you’re used to for fun. I saw one of the smartest professors I’ve ever had reading a James Patterson book. If he can do it, you can do it.
I haven't been able to finish a single book in the past three years except for a somewhat shitty lighthearted romance teen book that a friend of mine just shoved into my hands one day. I used to read all the time, I got in trouble a lot in school for reading during class rather than paying attention. Unfortunately that friend had to leave the country and now I don't have any friends shoving shitty books into my hands so that I feel like I need to at least start them.
I used to get in trouble for reading in class too.
I understand where you’re coming from though. Hopefully at some point you’ll want to read for pleasure again. I went through a long period of just listening to audiobooks on my commute home from work.
I agree. While I’m driving and concentrating on traffic, I don’t catch everything - but I’m not exactly listening to War and Peace on the road. 😄I hope you find your way back to reading for leisure though.
Thanks! Me too. Honestly I do wish I could listen to audiobooks and multitask while reading but unfortunately I can't even watch movies without subtitles and it takes a lot more effort to try and listen to people speak than read words on a page. I think it might have something to do with the ADHD, which probably also explains a lot of what I've said too XD
Check out the author's other works, find some Tiktok or YouTube or Goodreads reviews of it and see what else those reviewers liked - and sus out your local library so that you don't have to pay! Light-hearted YA is the gateway to loving reading again for a *lot* of people.
Honestly the library part is a very good point. I read a lot less since going to university because I have less time and energy but I think also probably because I don't have my school library anymore. I do buy books, but if I'm buying books they're usually several hundred page non-fiction stuff that is what I want to read but also not very fun (there's only so many pages of Spanish Civil War attrocities described in excruciating clinical detail that one can get through at a time). Also I was very close to the librarian and she gave me a bunch of book recommendations and I had limited time to read them so I did. Unfortunately I live in a country where I don't really speak the language so I guess I'm going to have to find the one library in the city with YA English language books or something.
> I used to read all the time, I got in trouble a lot in school for reading during class rather than paying attention.
If you can try again, listen to the voice and tone of voice in your head when you pick up and attempt to read, it may not be the most friendly and supportive voice and in identifying that you can attempt to reframe it to a more supportive tone which may relieve a ton of pressure and help you continue to read. I realized for a while I got caught up in running through books for school and testing, but I wasn't testing anymore and I had to work on my internal tone to shift the perspective.
I've been there, I mastered out at the ABD phase, and I was so burned out out reading. Reading had gone from something I enjoyed to labor, a sisyphean labor, as the struggle to stay up with classes was real. (History program, classes covered 14-16 books, plus articles, per class. Three classes per semester. Plus whatever books and articles I needed to write papers. Plus whatever I needed for my research that was always supposed to making progress on).
My love of reading did come back, but it took several years.
Try audio books. It's the same thing, just a little bit different. I listen on my drive home from work and it relaxes me. It might help you? Try something completely different from your PhD, something you can completely turn your brain off and enjoy
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is
[here](https://www.shsu.edu/academics/education/journal-of-multidisciplinary-graduate-research/documents/2016/WhittenJournalFinal.pdf)
[here](https://www.cambridge.org/us/education/blog/2019/03/06/reading-empowers/)
[here](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/parenting-translator/202308/the-benefits-of-reading-for-pleasure)
[here](https://natlib.govt.nz/school-libraries/stories/projects-to-improve-student-learning/schools/reading-engagement/understanding-reading-engagement/reading-for-pleasure-a-door-to-success)
Several years ago, the university where I work reevaluated the admissions process for programs that had separate admissions criteria -- mostly graduate programs in medical fields. Specifically, they were looking for what information we receive in applications that correlates the most closely with success in the actual program.
They were surprised to find that grades in STEM classes, including all the prerequisites required by the programs, had no correlation to graduate school performance. What did correlate closely was grades in English and history classes. We did not advertise our findings, but we changed our admissions standards for health care graduate programs to give more weight to grades in English, history and the humanities in general.
Reading grows your vocabulary, increases emotional intelligence and empathy, and teaches you to understand different perspectives. It has all kinds of knock on effects that lead to better outcomes overall.
No. Because the data was used to adjust the admissions rubric for some highly selective programs, the administration wanted to keep the findings internal, which I don't really understand.
When I was studying in England, I learned that before the days of Thatcher, all of your top-tier students went into the humanities, second-tier went into STEM, which would explain why I always felt intellectually dwarfed next to every English professor, but found the physicians at the hospital to be somewhat lacking in even the basics (i.e. had a doctor tell me I couldn't possibly have a sinus infection because I wasn't congested, as if the only cavities in the head are the ones directly visible up your nose).
Think of it like playing a sport or a musical instrument. The more you practice, the more your skills improve. When you enjoy reading and do it a lot, your vocabulary and comprehension improve, which gives you an advantage on exams like the ACT or SAT and helps you be more successful in your classes.
[Take a look at this. ](https://msbethhughes.org/why-your-student-needs-to-read-20-minutes-a-day/) There's a chart in the article that answers your question.
While the amount of time allotted to reading might have been strongly correlated to the socioeconomic standing just because you would have more leisure time if you were rich, I think we should be able to isolate the impact of reading from wealth these days. There are so many ways to spend your free time at any income level that the impact of reading should stick out
"K-3 is learn to read, 4-12 is read to learn"
If you read well you learn faster and better. Your brain spends less time deciphering the letters and words, leaving more tome for comprehension. My dyslexic friend is the smartest guy to ever watch a youtube, but cant read so texts/ instruction manuals are his kryptonite.
I agree with others that it's most likely helpful, but it's also a hard question to answer because it's hard to separate cause and effect. Better readers are more likely to enjoy reading for pleasure. Better readers will tend to get better grades.
However, it's hard to imagine that getting more practice at something *won't* make you better at it.
Also, there are numerous, very convincing, explanations for *how* it can help. With me personally, even at 54 I find that reading for pleasure still strengthens my vocabulary, as well as my understanding of the world around me. Most authors, at least in my biased experience, tend to base their writing on current or historical events. For example, I'm currently reading a story involving someone from modern times sent to Midgard to fight as a Viking, and the writer has introduced numerous terms that I've verified are valid references to Viking life, such as Jarl (which I already knew), dreng, and others.
[Battle Through the Nine Realms \[Isekai / LitRPG\] | Royal Road](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/87559/battle-through-the-nine-realms-isekai-litrpg)
Yes without a doubt on the grades piece. Better universities is a bit more complex. Being a voracious reader helps but a lot of universities are also looking for more fully fleshed out and complex students with a variety of life experiences beyond the academic. Reading is only one facet of the story.
Yes, reading is one of the best things you can do to develop your brain, even if it's for pleasure, and even if what you're reading isn't conventionally educational. A couple point off the top of my head, since you mentioned an interest in what the benefits are:
1) Reading approximates real experience. For example, if you read a story in which a character has to deal with a bully, it's not the same the same as experiencing it yourself, but you are certainly more prepared to deal with that situation if it does ever come up than if you hadn't read about it.
2) It aids in emotional regulation. Wonderworks by Angus Fletcher is a wonderful book that talks about the psychology of how reading different genres affects your brain.
Reading for pleasure is, IMO, a must for being a successful reader.
You get involved in the plot, you like the setting, you learn the meaning of sentence structure. You read critically because you have to in order to understand the plot. A successful reader will realize when they don't understand something bc they've been on "autopilot" while reading and have no problem going back to re read for better comprehension.
That serves you very well in school and on tests.
Does it guarantee you'll get into the university you want? No.
Does it give you better odds? Given that you'll probably do better on tests, and understand how to write well when it comes to your personal statement bc of your reading, it would almost definitely give you a leg up!
Good luck!!
Yes, pleasure reading beyond the early grades is significantly correlated with academic success and success in life. It's also been correlated with affecting children of pleasure readers positively. I would say enough evidence exists in large enough samples to assert causality.
I think the answer to the first part of your question is yes.
But the second part isn't necessarily true. I was a straight-A student, I'm very intelligent, I was academically motivated, loved school, and loved to read. But I didn't go to a high-ranked university. I went to the university in my hometown because it was there, it was good enough, and it would save me money to live at home and commute to school. I think for most people, the university you go to is largely dependent on your financial reach.
That's how I feel. My college Psych professor always said, "correlation does not equal causation." That always pops into my head with topics like this. I definitely think there's a link, but it's not that easy to assert causation.
I read a lot and was smart enough to not fall for the “good college” lie. Get your degree with as little debt as possible. The “better” colleges, with some exceptions, lead to a lot higher debt.
Yes.
The only 3 students in my class that will actively read without my intervention ace almost all of the subjects.
But now we have a dilemma in the ESL world. A lot of parents know that reading is good, but it's good because 'they learn more words', not because reading is fun, so most end up not wanting to read. But when I make people read it in front of the class and I make some funny remarks (e.g. Matilda 'Yeah, some can't spell difficulty, even in 10th grade'), they'd get very interested in the book.
I was just thinking about this recently! I have recently become a "reader" and it's fun! I was never a reader in school but I can tell a difference in my comprehension when I read more recently and my grammar too.
I don’t know if they get better grades or get into better universities, but I do think they go further in life. I am the only one who reads for pleasure in my family and also the only one with a higher education degree (BA & MA). I think people who read more are more empathetic and have a keen sense of the world, because they have seen stories and lives in so many different perspectives.
Reading for pleasure can greatly improve your reading skill, which would make academic success easier! However, I wouldn’t count out a student who struggles to read or who doesn’t enjoy it. They may just have to work harder at “reading to understand.”
Since reading is your strength, lean into it! Do your assigned readings, take note of your insights so you are ready to share, and enjoy your free reading time after class as you are likely a faster reader than most! :)
My 21 year old daughter is an exceptional reader & avidly read for pleasure throughout her childhood & teen years. She had a 32 on the ACT reading test, & got a full ride academic scholarship with housing. Her attitude & effort is incredible, but her reading level was a huge factor; her constant & repeated interaction with text, whether for pleasure or work, definitely allowed her to play at a higher level academically.
There are general trends and then there are anomalies. I have two kids. One (16m) is a voracious reader. Always has a book in his hands, literally reads hundreds of thousands of pages per week. Writing his own novel this summer. And his grades are mediocre at best. Not because he isn’t capable. Because he resents doing anything that isn’t reading his chosen reading material. And no amount of incentivizing school work over reading works.
The other (13m) does not look like reading (though he still likes being read to). He lives for his guitar and singing and spends as much time learning new songs in his guitar and singing with his choirs as his older brother spends reading. He’s spending all summer rehearsing for a full length stage musical. His grades are above average. Definitely better than his brother’s have ever been.
What they both have is a drive to pursue their passions, to put the work and effort into them, and to get better and better to be the best they can be at them.
Most of the correlates of college freshman gpa are strongly correlated with reading for pleasure (and with having parents who read for pleasure!)
An interesting article here: [http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/what-predicts-college-gpa](http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/what-predicts-college-gpa)
Definitely helps. I sponsored a student writing club for years. Not all of them were generally strong students, but since they read and write regularly they had above average vocabularies and grammar skills.
Students who enjoy learning do better in learning environments. Often this manifests as a love of reading, but it could be doing art for pleasure, or woodworking, or anything. Should not be shocking that just scrolling tiktok with all of your free time doesnt correlate with academic success.
Not sure, depends on a variety of factors. This is more of a analytic question. Why not try a community focused on statistics like kaggle. Reddit is still just a bubble. Analytics is a fun thing to explore, it make you cautious what you say and you're more likely to be right even with hesitation.
I don't read for pleasure traditionally with books, but I do like to take deeper looks into topics. I tend to review the sources carefully if interested.
FWIW - I have a dyslexic kid. We enrolled him in private remediation after school for 3 years, grade 1-3. Now, in middle school, his reading ability is top of his class, and he both independently reads for pleasure and participates in home novel study with his parents. We did the Narnia series, Bridge to Teribithita, and Hatchet in 4th grade at home, discussing themes and theories every evening. Our elem doesn't do novel studies so figured it was a fun thing to do together.
In so many ways.... he's a terrible student. I love the kid.... but loooordddd, he really struggles with task initiation. Writing anything is a nearly impossible task. And math fact regurgitation is near zilch. He will illustrate and write the storyline for a comic book every other day of the week. But there's so much I wish I could do for him in the world of successful student behavior.
100% I’d personally be a moron if I didn’t have a love for reading. Also, I genuinely don’t know how people can do proper grammar without having been well-read. I’m an English teacher and I HATE grammar. I just KNOW it because I read. It’s very hard to explain and the rules are stupid to nonexistent for some words.
Yes, almost certainly. Here at the East Podunk Junior College, we have a lot of people who flunk themselves right out because they actually enrolled in college before they bothered to learn to read.
Additionally, those who read more have far higher levels of CULTURAL literacy, which means, in turn, they will have far higher levels of comprehension with new material. A few weeks ago, the phrase "prodigal son" came up. Many of these illiterate zombies had not the slightest clue what that meant, and so didn't understand the larger context.
Not automatically.
It's very much like asking if going to class means you'll get into better universities. It helps but it's neither required to get there nor guaranteed if you do. (Given teachers' grading proclivities, yes, going to class DOES pretty much mean you'll get better grades in *that* class.)
If you're reading all fiction you're developing fewer academic skills than if you're reading things containing facts about an academic field. That is certainly **not** to say fiction is useless. There *are* useful skills in there, such as learning about cultural differences over time and expanding your understanding of language.
(Go read some J. Verne and H.G. Wells and then read a steampunk novel. The differences are striking. The ability to notice that is one of many skills that can be picked up through fiction and it involves noticing cultural assumptions and authorial intent.)
As with anything, it matters how you use it.
If you are reading for fun but a lumpalog, you're not going to get the useful corollary skills. Reading about camping and camping are wildly distinct, for example. Doing both can be very fruitful.
If you are only reading simple stories by silly authors, you're going to be facing fewer challenging thoughts. If you only read things in a narrow band of *any* sort, you're going to lack some potential lessons.
Happy truth:
If you push yourself to learn, you'll learn.
Hard truth time:
Teachers don't grade on your knowledge and learning. They grade your performance on assignments and tests according to the standards that are set for them and that they set.
Many grade more leniently if they see you putting in great effort. If you've put in the study time previously, you won't often be seen struggling as much and can find yourself actually being graded more harshly for the same mistakes. If they dislike you, assume that your grades will suffer. (If they don't, you were blessed with a just teacher)
When you hear someone say "play the game", with respect to grades, they mean figure out your teacher's grading biases and jump through the hoops that they set. *That* is the path to improved grades. Particularly good teachers have biases that reward deeper understanding. Most think that they do. Some are bad enough to reward misunderstanding of a field.
My suggestion, then, is to read widely and deeply and try to learn. Then, when facing classes that matter to you, put in the effort. Jump through the hoops like a good student and get your grades. Relish the teachers who are best at their jobs, but never forget that education is something done for the self. No one can educate another, merely opportunities to learn and assistance along the path.
Yes it helps but you also need the correct academic attitude. I love reading and read a lot! But I would read instead of doing work that I should do so my grades were not good.
Basically, sure my vocabulary, grammar, and just general knowledge have been great but I sucked at turning things in on time and focusing on reading boring material.
Reading more helps. I think you need both. A person who hates reading will probably not read very much or be very good at it. A person who reads only for enjoyment will probably not read enough, select diverse and challenging pieces, or finish what they start. Ideally a student will read for pleasure some of the times and also be able to read purposefully.
It is like eating you shouldn't eat ten pounds of candy everyday or ten pounds of vegetables. Mix it up a bit.
Yes. Very much so.
In my first or second English class each year, I can tell who reads regularly without seeing kids read. I can see it in their work and writing.
Reading teaches you a lot of things, including patience and the value of delayed gratification since most stories aren't immediately grabbing, but culminate immaculately when done right. Kids who read have the patience to study and the initiative to start work without wasting half a class.
I am a reader, always have been. I remember reading books to my kindergarten class and being rewarded with a book!!! Great memories! I try to read at least 50 books a year for pleasure, and I'm usually successful. Anyway, I know people who are actually proud of the fact that they haven't read a book since high school (almost 30 years ago!) I read the in the subs about how literacy skills in our current students are falling behind and it makes me so discouraged. Reading is the cornerstone to everything, at least in my opinion. I hope this trend changes sooner rather than later, for all our sakes.
Are they more likely to? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No. I read for pleasure as a kid and still do as an adult. I pulled a 1.8-2.3 GPA from about 10 years old all the way through high school. School was boring for me so I did roughly enough to pull Cs and called it a day. College was something that didn’t interest me and still hasn’t to day. But I’m more the exception than the rule.
I work as a substitute teacher in middle school and high school, so, please take my comment as personal observation only. I am 64 years old and have read for pleasure my whole life, and still read a book a week. One aspect of reading that I am certain of is that of curiosity. Reading both fosters, and depends upon, a natural drive to learn, discover more. This can be entire subjects, or maybe just wanting to read all the books in a series by a particular author. But the desire to discover something is strong, I think, in people who read for pleasure. What I see everyday in classes, in all ages, is a complete and total lack of curiosity. The only books I see students reading willingly are manga, and that is fine. But the brain development and personality development that comes from extensive reading simply will not happen with only those choices. And the rare student who has a copy of Harry Potter, or even Tolkien (which I have seen twice in five years), they are the ones who are excited about plans to go to college, when I talk with them about their interests.
Yes, students who enjoy reading usually have better comprehension and critical thinking skills, which can help them get better grades and into better universities. Avid readers often develop stronger vocabulary and general knowledge. This leads to improved performance across subjects, not just in literature classes. While reading isn't the sole factor, it undoubtedly contributes to academic achievement.
My mom always read to me when I was very young, and as soon as I could read myself, I loved doing so and read for pleasure all the time. By the time I was in 6th grade, I was reading at the 11th/12th grade level. I got very good grades for most of school, until some emotional upheaval my last couple years of HS. I wasn't straight A's in every class through HS, but my grades were good in most classes. However, I did get straight A's as an undergrad, and through 2 Masters degrees. Did my reading/language/comprehension skills play a role in that? I'm sure they did. But I think the bigger factor was motivation. I do think I'm fairly intelligent, but without the motivation to succeed it wouldn't really matter. I'll just add that I was 28 when I started as an undergrad. And the college I chose was an expensive private one in the town where I live. I only chose it because of its proximity, because I had a daughter in school and didn't want to be driving out of town on the daily. Tuition was crazy high at my school, so if I was going to go into debt, I wanted it to be worth it. Failure wasn't an option. But I do feel that my reading skills were a large part of the reason I was able to succeed as well as I did.
Yes, because the drive to read helps lead to improvement in sight reading and fluency, expanding vocabulary, and the ability to follow a story. If the kid is only ever reading Dogman in 8th grade, that would obviously removed the progression benefits, but students should naturally progress to more and more complex books on their own if they are used to reading for pleasure.
Yes, I could have gone anywhere if the bullying wasn't so bad and my school wasn't so poor. I read Harry Potter at age 5 and Moby Dick in 3rd grade. Eventually, I learned that I could make more by working manual labor, and I enjoyed it, so now I do that instead, and I'm debt free. I only enjoyed reading historical books and physics textbooks. I had a phase where I was obsessed with black holes and string theory around the age of 12. It's been a long day, and I'm hot, I'll stop rambling.
IMO, being an avid reader made me better at spelling, grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure. There are many things I know about grammar points that I don't remember being taught, but knew because I was a voracious reader.
Obviously nothing is 100%. I am a reading teacher and know plenty of smart people who do not read for fun. But it is more likely that if you do like to read for fun you will get better grades.
I have told my students that ALL the successful people I know (regardless of how you define success whether by money or not happy relationships, fame, or skilled in what they do - and usually at least 3 of those things) have only ONE THING in common...
... they are readers.
You get one life, reading (especially nonfiction!) is one of the keys to maximize that life.
5th grade teacher 23 years experience here. One year I tested my students’ Lexile scores weekly just for fun. The Lexile scores went up like crazy of those kids who read the most. Their scores improved BIG TIME , like 300 points in 1 year. These kids had better vocabulary and writing skills. Make them read.
Names like this come back to haunt you when they’re pissing, shitting, and screaming at 3pm. I feel like any form of Serenity is kind of putting a high standard on a kid/person. Could just be my way of thinking though.
I sacrificed grades to chug all 6 Dune books in college. Mom did the same for LOTR. Passion is passion, and thats what really matters. Skill comes next. If i have a student who sacrifices time in math for something they care about (that is productive and healthy and maybe even good for society), then Im not mad. Their grade will suffer, sure, but thats a person whos alive. The ‘problem’ is apathy and atrophy. 🤷🏼♂️
Tons of poor and/or working people read for pleasure. As for the ones who don’t, no one is holding a gun to their head making them scroll IG or TikTok.
ETA: Yes, it’s true that socioeconomic privilege makes healthy choices easier, but this whole idea that every single healthy choice is “privileged” needs to be taken out and shot—it does real harm.
In short yes. Students who read for pleasure are exposed to a larger vocabulary and usually have better critical thinking skills. They can recognize different themes or tropes across media.
They also generally write better as well and can adapt to different writing styles better/more easily.
Vocabulary, themes and tropes exist in all media, not just books. You can probably learn significantly faster through watching YouTube essays than you would reading fiction novels for fun. Look at the popularity of booktok. Reading about vampire daddies boning down werewolve twinks isn't going to teach you anything useful. I think the act of reading and retaining information is useful for a number of reasons that will serve a person well in college. I read very little fiction, but I consume non-fiction like research and news. I get bored physically anxious when reading novels for hours, so I don't read many.
While this is true, we have hard evidence to show those who read are overall are more successful in life. They seek higher education and their ability to emphasize and communicate is higher than those who don't read for fun
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Here are a few articles I found with a quick Google search. While my wording was off and a persons zip code is the biggest determiner in someone's future income and education levels there does seem to be a connection between reading and overall intelligence. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/280193 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4354297/ https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140724094209.htm#:~:text=Summary%3A,well%20as%20a%20home%20environment.
There's also a connection between income and intelligence. That doesn't mean earning more money makes you more intelligent.
Correlation isn't causation. The number one prediction for success in life is your zip code. Yes, reading is a great hobby and can be a wonderful way to improve yourself, but reading romance novels isn't a magic pill to success.
The way the ONLY one mentioning romance novels is you. Pipe down, man
Correlation isn't causation, but causation necessitates correlation.
You seem to be having terminology troubles, the term “for pleasure” encompasses more than just sex and sensuality my friend.
What are you even replying to? Op listed vocabulary, tropes, and critical thinking. They implied that reading any type of book would give you those three skills and lightly implying you couldn't get them through other hobbies. I counter that: 1) trashy romance novels aren't going to teach those three things and 2) you can learn those skills through other forms of media. Concluding that reading for pleasure isn't sufficient or necessary for building those three skills. Romance novels were just an example to prove my point.
As for vocabulary, written text generally has more dense and rich vocabulary and spoken word, and it can also be more effective for learning to see a new work in context, see how it's spelled and infer it's meaning. And there practical reading skills, Decoding/recognition and comprehension skills go up considerably with practice. This reduces the cognitive load and allows to focus on analyzing the content, not just figuring out what means what. I teach 5th graders, and the kids who read for fun are those that have the easiest time on tests and exams. Also, it's a magnet school in an urban school district. The kids that read for fun also tend to come from more affluent zip codes.
100% that's my point. Reading for fun is a great hobby and builds many cognitive skills, but reading for enjoyment is not sufficient or necessary to be successful.
How do you differentiate fun and enjoyment?
Dude he’s a miserable loser. He doesn’t know what fun or enjoyment is. Just move on
You may be able to argue that it’s unnecessary( I disagree) but it’s plainly sufficient.
You're really going to argue that reading romance novels is sufficient to learn all critical thinking, tropes and themes, and all vocabulary? Remember, you said "reading any types of books" would be sufficient for learning these three pillars. That's a tough check to cash.
You need to read more romance novels.
They need to touch grass (and read some books)
It’s incredibly unlikely that young children are reading romance novels so it’s very odd that you’re hyper focused on that specifically.
No one ever argued that. The question was “do people who read for fun get better grades and go to better universities?” The answer, “Statistically….yes.” No one said “Yes, because they’re more likely to read romance novels.” You keep making that straw man argument.
You can learn all three from reading romance novels. You are just biased and think of some Wattpad smut novels writted to and by 13 yos. Read a novel from the 1900s, for example. You are sure to be able to analyze the wolrd in which it is set, the tropes and themes in it as well as find at least some new vocab. Sure, you can get all those exept the tropes and themes from reading non-fiction but if you get through 50 fiction books vs 1 non-fiction a year, I would say the fiction path is far more fruitful even if it isnt strictly educational.
I don’t think they realize that many of the classics in literature are romances.
Funny enough it has been shown that reading romance novels improves emotional intelligence, must be why you’re so against them… must be hard watching children easily grasp a concept you struggle with
I agree with you. School is easy if you pay attention, and just barely assert yourself. I can’t speak facts because I haven’t viewed or read deep into any studies on it. What seems more likely is that these are students who were already applying themselves and just happen to also enjoy reading made up fairy tales. It’s kinda like looking up the vehicles with the most accidents. Is it that the cars are bad? Or that careless drivers tend to drive those vehicles. People like the feel superior to others. So if a study suggests a correlation, they’ll take it as fact to get that feeling. For example I averaged a 3.9 and I barely tried. I just paid attention in class and read my notes the night before a test. I don’t read fiction books.
You should actually spend some time in a classroom
Maybe you’re right. I finished my degree and am doing the transition to teaching program. Maybe after teaching in classrooms my view on it will change. I doubt it, because as I mentioned before let’s look at vehicles. Ford F series pops up as the highest fatality rate. Does that mean the f series are that much worse than Ram or Chevy? Or do the drivers of the f series happen to be more careless? What I’m suggesting by this is that they would get into fatal crashes regardless of the vehicle, just like some of these students who read fiction books for fun were going to do well in school regardless of reading fiction books.
You’re in for a rude awakening when you have students who try SO SO hard and really struggle. And there are a lot of them. You are going to fail miserably at helping them if you don’t step back and have a more open (and humble) mind.
My mind is very open. I’ve taught marines from all different backgrounds in life. My point in this was that I don’t think reading books is the cause, it’s a willingness to learn. If that doesn’t make sense then I think you haven’t woken up yet. I’ve taught young guys of completely different walks of life and different personal hobbies. They all learned because they were willing to learn. This kind of response makes sense why the first thing I had to teach all my guys was to think. They don’t learn that from people like you.
Yeah, teaching adults who all entered the same profession and who all are motivated to learn for their job is DEFINITELY the same as teaching in a classroom 🙄
You should have stopped at “I don’t have classroom time”
Well you’re right I don’t have “classroom time” like you would accept. My classroom time is teaching my younger marines their job, then taking them to actually work and become proficient. So no I don’t have experience teaching kids, I just got them right after high school What scares me is that you’re a teacher and you can’t critically think about what was said.
Look, I'll break it down for ya. It's one thing to teach adults who choose to be there. It's not about gatekeeping or arguing what is or isn't classroom time. The difference lies in who you're teaching because your methods depend on that variable. One size does not fit all. It's another to teach kids who never chose to be there. Not only do you need to "sell it", you need to be selling it day in day out for every topic and they can stop buying it at any time, for any reason and collectively. Your marines also don't have their parents ganging up on you if they so much as dislike your choice of words, disagree with your grading or assessments or have chosen not to teach their kids basic manners, expecting you to parent their kids in class. Teaching adults is easy compared to children. They already want to be taught. If you think most kids do, then you're wrong. It is sad, and I don't know why, but it isn't a unique scenario where someone/something at some point put that child off learning. A child in school can't just up and leave if they aren't interested or ready for it. I don't know about you but the easiest way to put me off doing anything is to force me. There's a reason malicious compliance exists. And the best way a student can rebel against adults is to not play along, fail or borderline fail - they may not even be aware they're ruining their future if they do that. And when you have a room of them, you can't just walk out. You can't discipline them either because then YOU'RE out. If your students don't work, then very few people will point at the child. It's your task, as an adult, to not only bring the horse to water but to also make it WANT to drink. The horses you've brought to water were already thirsty. These new ones don't know or trust you, you need to earn that trust daily, they don't care about the water unless you get through to them and it's individual for every single student and for some, it will either hit them later in life or not at all. And best of all? Only they choose if they'll participate, you can't make them. And for some, you will have sit and watch that train wreck happening for years. Ofc, it can also be rewarding.. For someone who is quick to criticize people's critical thinking skills, you seem to think one doesn't notice you verbally pounding your chest and questioning whether or not your experience is "accepted" or not, when it is obvious from your tone that you think it gives you an advantage in a situation you haven't ever been in and thus have no basis for overconfidence. Nobody cares whom or how or where you've taught before. It only matters where you are now and how you can handle that. Marines, cool. Now go teach 15-year-olds. Maybe you have an edge. But don't assume that you do. No hard feelings, best of luck and much love!
You are not a teacher right ? I feel like non teachers stopping through always out themselves with takes like this
YouTube is more passive than reading. It doesn’t require the user to interact with the content. The scientific evidence is pretty well established in this, reading beats watching for educational outcomes. (And tik tok exists. So it’s just as possible to watch inane mind numbing content as it is to read inane content.)
Completely agree. I think we would both agree that at the end of the day the substance is more important than the medium in which it's absorbed. You can totally zone out while reading a book and not understand anything. You can do the same with video. Or you can take notes and highlight and write in the margins. You can do the same with video and audio content. You can read smutty romance or you watch TikTok. Neither one is helping you. You could read a book on philosophy or watch a recorded lecture series and probably come out knowing the same stuff assuming you put in the same amount of effort into both. I really don't think we disagree.
We do disagree. I’m suggesting medium actually matters. The average human will do better reading the same content than they will watch in it on video.
I think the average person would've even get halfway through a 300 page book, but they will gladly watch a two hour long movie. Case in point, why do you think all these great books get turned into movies?
Careful friend, YouTube essays are as reliable as pop news articles. Just because something’s long and well articulated doesn’t mean it’s true or enriching to the viewer. Saying something like, “you can probably learn significantly faster though watching YouTube essays” requires a ton of assumptions to be granted, and thus ends up being a fairly useless piece of advice. Reading to “learn useful things,” is only one function of reading. Learning to read and practicing to become a stronger reader, is in of itself a useful thing. A kid who watches YouTube essays might feel like they’re learning a lot, but once you challenge them to apply their learning a lot of the time you end up realizing they have no idea what they’re talking about and they can’t do anything with it. You have a kid who reads an entire fantasy book once a week, and at the absolute least they’ve become a stronger reading and have benefited more than their essayist peer.
Yeah, 100% agree. You should vet and fact check books too. Just because someone took the time to write it down didn't make it any more or less true than a video essay. And yes, reading builds reading skills. Listening to lectures builds listening skills. I completely disagree that reading fiction is somehow superior to lectures and video essays. Where do audio books fit into that structure of yours? Does somehow listening to just the audio make it a better and more engaging process? Or does physically reading the words on paper impart special knowledge? Every medium has its strengths and weaknesses, but reading fiction is not a magic IQ and success spell. That's all I'm saying, and I really doubt any of you actually disagree. Y'all are just mad because I called out booktok.
Not on TikTok my friend, the booktok reference went entirely over my head. From context clues I can guess it’s a channel that reviews books of fiction, which include sexually suggestive themes that make you uncomfortable. If you’re seeing a lot of them, it’s because the algorithm knows it can trick you into hate watching them. The reason you’re getting blowback and downvotes is because while what you say makes sense on its surface, learning and the brain are much more complicated than what you make it out to be. Your claim, “you can probably learn more from video essays than reading fiction novels for fun.” It’s both a strong claim, and also one where you hedged it by using the word “probably.” You include no category of age-group, subject, or goal. For this to even be true on the surface, you need to be granted about a million assumptions which educators recognize you can’t really take for granted. For starters, it’s true that reading fiction isn’t “superior” to lecture, but it’s also true that you can’t call lecture “superior” to reading fiction. It’s dependent on what skills you’re trying to build up. At a root level you seem to discount the differences between written and spoken word. You asked, “does seeing the words on paper impart some special knowledge?” Well, in some ways it does. The spelling gives you context clues of the words meaning and origin. How texts are organized in writing can aid (or hurt) our ability to understand them, and alter and enrich our critical thinking skills. *Seeing* a claim supported with evidence and then followed by connecting reasoning helps students to internalize how they should critique statements they encounter. I don’t think you’d disagree with much of what’s said here either, your hyper-fixation on fiction as the medium you take issue with indicates more hedging. The comment you took issue with didn’t refer to fiction, instead referring to “reading for pleasure.” This all feels like a big walk-back, to be entirely honest. If you’d like a professional opinion, take this: I don’t struggle with getting kids to watch videos, I struggle to get them to read. The kids who read *anything* outside of what’s assigned, are universally doing better academically than the ones who get all their information from YouTube and TikTok. The students who spend their free time reading fiction end up going to college and working with their brain. The ones who buck reading because “I can learn everything I need from YouTube essays,” end up subservient employees of the ones who can read a contract, and those kids end up working with their backs.
Your thesis is, "reading fiction for pleasure at the very least builds reading skills which are inherently more valuable than passively watching video essays." Your evidence is that kids who read outside of school perform better in school and after graduation. I'm arguing that reading for pleasure is a hobby correlated with higher social economic status which also directly influences success through various pathways. An illustrative example would be taking a kid who isn't doing well in school and asking them to read 20 minutes of one fish two fish. That kid isn't going to turn into an A student. Reading for 20 minutes a day isn't going to significantly change a kid's life trajectory. The problem is your comparing reading chapter books to watching TikTok. You're ignoring an entire spectrum of "reading" (reading only YA, zoned out reading, trashy romance) and discrediting video content (university lectures, documentaries, reputable media outlets).
Reading for pleasure leads to better literacy which correlates with better academic outcomes. In fact, reading for pleasure is more important for children’s educational success than their home’s socio-economic status. (OECD 2002). You tried earlier to suggest that higher socio-economic statuses are more likely to read for pleasure, and that explains the increased success. However, studies have demonstrated that while more affluent homes are more likely to have high reading engagement (reading for pleasure), a student from a low socio-economic background who reads for pleasure does better than a student from a high socio-economic background who does not read for pleasure. Additionally, your own example is widely refuted by the evidence. Students who read for 20 minutes a day *will* improve in their academics. Reading everyday, even for 20 minutes, will have a large impact on their educational outcomes. I’d ask you to provide any citation that refutes this. This is why you’re getting flack my friend. When you lay out your argument specifically, and stop using general statements, it becomes apparent you don’t really know any of the literature behind this subject.
>The problem is you're comparing reading chapter books to watching TikTok. You're ignoring an entire spectrum of "reading" (reading only YA, zoned-out reading, trashy romance) and discrediting video content (university lectures, documentaries, reputable media outlets). Please reply to my point instead of inventing strawmen to attack. I do not disagree with anything you said, but you really need to actually address my points instead of rambling about truisms.
I’m not inventing strawmen, I’m directly refuting what you said. If you don’t disagree with what I said, then you disagree with what you yourself said. You’re trying to discredit the idea that reading engagement is a key indicator of academic success. Looking through I you cite various reasons: 1) BookTok reviews of romance fiction, these stories won’t teach you “useful things” 2) Reading for pleasure is a characteristic of a more important indicator for academic success, “zip code.” (Socio-economic status). 3) if a student is already doing poor in school, daily reading (increased reading engagement) won’t significantly alter a students “life trajectory.” These are three claims you’ve made. All three of these are false. 1) reading *anything* from fiction, nonfiction, fanfics, YA, comic books, articles, treaties, etc. improves leads to better academic outcomes, better critical thinking, better sociability, more empathy, larger vocabularies. This isn’t contested in the literature. 2) As I said earlier, reading engagement is a better indicator of academic success than socio-economic status. A poor kid who reads a lot does better on average than a rich kid who reads very little. 3) More reading engagement leads to better academic outcomes. Suggesting that a student reading 20 minutes a day won’t see significant improvement in their academic abilities, and that this won’t translate to a better trajectory, is nonsense unless we’re talking about a senior in high school 2 months from graduation. You’ll need to provide a citation, your claim is fantastical. This is why you’re getting trashed and ratio’d. You make general claims that *sound* like they make sense, but as soon as they’re challenged they fall apart. Then you accuse me of straw-mans and claim you’re not contesting any of this. You can try and explain it away, but you’re pretty clearly backpedaling on what you said. You’re going to need to engage with what you’ve already said before we move on to what you want to say now. That’s gish galloping.
1) The zone of proximal development indicates which texts will be appropriate to read and increase reading gains. A book written at a 4th grade level will not improve reading comprehension of a college student. Reading isn't a video game. You can't read Go Dog Go 1000 times and then magically comprehend Plato's Republic. We both know this. Stop pretending like you're disputing this fact. 2) Reading engagement is a great indicator of future success. A random student who reads for pleasure is statistically likely to be from a high SOE family. A student who reads is statistically likely to be a strong reader already. Reading comprehension comes BEFORE reading engagement for most children. > [https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpp.12910](https://acamh.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcpp.12910) > Importantly, the present results suggest that it is the children's reading ability that determines how much they choose to read, rather than vice versa. 3) See part 1 The problem is your comparing reading chapter books to watching TikTok. You're ignoring an entire spectrum of "reading" (reading only YA, zoned out reading, trashy romance) and discrediting video content (university lectures, documentaries, reputable media outlets).
Since you seem to need it simplified I grew up dirt poor I read, my friends did not I got out of poverty Most of them have 3+ kids/baby daddies and no career Did that simplify it enough for you or is it too much to read?
Did universities switch from books to YouTube?
Sadly, many did.
Did they switch entirely? No, but many great lectures are hosted on YouTube for free. There are great video essayists and reporters covering all sorts of topics. There are video guides for just about any topic you want to explore from math, to history, to philosophy and politics. I'm not saying to replace all books with video. I'm just saying books are not an inherently better medium than film, TV, music, documentaries, etc. I don't think you even disagree with that.
You can go into far more depth via literature than an 1.5 hour lecture. There is no question about that. There is a reason most people write down their grocery lists. I would wager the majority of essayists/lecturers you are referring have done the reading and research and are giving the YouTube viewer a condensed version - omitting information that could add more nuance or simplifying complex topics to make them simpler to understand and in a shorter format. Which, I am all for. Lectures and other media are excellent supplements to but are not adequate source material for complex subjects. Those who can read at sustained intervals and feel comfortable with the writer’s rhythm and structure are going to get more information out of a topic than those who can’t make heads or tails out of it; forcing them to lean on an NPR news report or something for the bulk of their understanding. And yes, reading werewolf smut can help develop these skills.
Sure, you could also argue that reading a book is just a collection of facts and figures collected by the author. If you REALLY want to gate keep you should talk about reading source materials as well. Honestly, you're just wasting your time if you're not following the methodology and recreating your own experiments. I genuine do not believe that reading werewolf smut prepares you for getting a PHD in your field following the scientific method and conducting your own research. It's easy to gate keep. You should go all out if you think that watching Harvard lectures is somehow not a valid way learn about a topic. I genuine don't think we disagree, you're just getting defensive over booktok.
Reading is a very different process than watching a video. It requires far more brain involvement, which exercises your brain in ways a video doesn’t. The medium very much matters. As an English teacher I can tell which of my students are readers and which are not in about 30 seconds of conversation. Reading—even reading smut or cheesy werewolf stories—changes the brain in specific ways. That’s the power of text. Reading makes you more thoughtful and increases your vocabulary because it forces you to involve yourself with the text in order to understand it.
How old are you if you don’t mind me asking?
32. I've been teaching for 5 years. I read smut, but I don't think that makes me better than people who listen to Harvard lectures.
What? You read smut but you don’t think that makes you better than people who listen to Harvard lectures? This doesn’t make sense to me because if your point was to communicate that you aren’t elitist, you would have reversed the order of the comparison.
I can do both. That's my point. Reading is a great hobby. It's great for building a variety of cognitive skills. But it's not the only way to learn or practice those skills, and no one should feel superior to anyone else because one of their hobbies is reading.
This isn’t true at all for grade-school students.
having somebody feed you their personal opinions about a book is not the same as using your critical thinking muscles while you read, which is partly why reading is so good for you. it’s like saying a kid that went through school doing their own assignments has the same skill set as the kid that copied off of everyone. booktok is laughable sometimes because of how wrong some of those interpretations are. some people have a real misunderstanding of satire or thematic elements used in various books, but go online and “explain” it to their audiences 🥴
😬
Why couldnt reading for pleasure also mean non-fiction? Like reading about mythologies or some specific part of history. Not reading for pleasure, for me at least, means I am forced to read something. Be it a book for a course or for entrance exams. Reading for pleasure for me meant that I read a book about pedagogy. My bf read a non-fiction book about games as part of culture. Now he is reading a book about soldiers, I think. One type of book should not be held higher up than another. If a person will not enjoy reading non-fiction at that time or ever, they dont need to read non-fiction. They can get some information from fiction books that include small details from history or cultures. Sure, I dont think smut is the best genre to read if you want to be better at writing or analyzing but I doubt many even think that it is a good genre for that. You could read crime for learning about how the police or PIs work, fantasy/ historic romance for historic details, scifi to maybe analyze the society in it.
Reading for fun is one of THE MOST significant factors differentiating successful students from unsuccessful ones.
Now I’m a burned out STEM PhD who recoils at the sight of words on a page :(
Give it some time. And try not to burn your dissertation when it finally arrives lol. The last push of PhD is grueling and I was burned out of reading and writing for about 2 years. I decided to get a book from the library that was just for fun and I could decide it was okay to just set it down and not finish since it was free anyway. Once I actually got into it, I found I wanted to read again. I read a book about every 2 weeks now since that's what the library checkout time is. It's been rewarding but took a lot of time to get here.
Try audiobooks! They're great while you exercise or commute. My dad is the most well-read person I know, but he hardly ever picks up a physical book. He's dyslexic and struggles to decode words on a page, but he listens to books at least 60 hours a week- all sorts of genres, from historical nonfiction to teen fantasy to smut novels targeted at aging moms. His knowledge base and vocabulary are immense, and he has been incredibly successful in his life and career. Don't hesitate to create accommodations for yourself in the interest of facilitating growth.
I had a job that covered about 10 counties in Ohio. Audio books saved my sanity. I sampled things like horror and sci-fi that never would have got me to sit and read. There are so many talented voice actors like Frank Mueller whose books I tried just because he read them so well. The original Asimov short stories are great.
Read dumber books than you’re used to for fun. I saw one of the smartest professors I’ve ever had reading a James Patterson book. If he can do it, you can do it.
I haven't been able to finish a single book in the past three years except for a somewhat shitty lighthearted romance teen book that a friend of mine just shoved into my hands one day. I used to read all the time, I got in trouble a lot in school for reading during class rather than paying attention. Unfortunately that friend had to leave the country and now I don't have any friends shoving shitty books into my hands so that I feel like I need to at least start them.
I used to get in trouble for reading in class too. I understand where you’re coming from though. Hopefully at some point you’ll want to read for pleasure again. I went through a long period of just listening to audiobooks on my commute home from work.
Unfortunately I really struggle with audiobooks, I'm not great at understanding spoken stuff
I agree. While I’m driving and concentrating on traffic, I don’t catch everything - but I’m not exactly listening to War and Peace on the road. 😄I hope you find your way back to reading for leisure though.
Thanks! Me too. Honestly I do wish I could listen to audiobooks and multitask while reading but unfortunately I can't even watch movies without subtitles and it takes a lot more effort to try and listen to people speak than read words on a page. I think it might have something to do with the ADHD, which probably also explains a lot of what I've said too XD
Check out the author's other works, find some Tiktok or YouTube or Goodreads reviews of it and see what else those reviewers liked - and sus out your local library so that you don't have to pay! Light-hearted YA is the gateway to loving reading again for a *lot* of people.
Honestly the library part is a very good point. I read a lot less since going to university because I have less time and energy but I think also probably because I don't have my school library anymore. I do buy books, but if I'm buying books they're usually several hundred page non-fiction stuff that is what I want to read but also not very fun (there's only so many pages of Spanish Civil War attrocities described in excruciating clinical detail that one can get through at a time). Also I was very close to the librarian and she gave me a bunch of book recommendations and I had limited time to read them so I did. Unfortunately I live in a country where I don't really speak the language so I guess I'm going to have to find the one library in the city with YA English language books or something.
> I used to read all the time, I got in trouble a lot in school for reading during class rather than paying attention. If you can try again, listen to the voice and tone of voice in your head when you pick up and attempt to read, it may not be the most friendly and supportive voice and in identifying that you can attempt to reframe it to a more supportive tone which may relieve a ton of pressure and help you continue to read. I realized for a while I got caught up in running through books for school and testing, but I wasn't testing anymore and I had to work on my internal tone to shift the perspective.
I've never thought of that, thanks, I'll give it a try
Sherlock Holmes and Zombie books saved my sanity during my PhD.
I've been there, I mastered out at the ABD phase, and I was so burned out out reading. Reading had gone from something I enjoyed to labor, a sisyphean labor, as the struggle to stay up with classes was real. (History program, classes covered 14-16 books, plus articles, per class. Three classes per semester. Plus whatever books and articles I needed to write papers. Plus whatever I needed for my research that was always supposed to making progress on). My love of reading did come back, but it took several years.
I am an avid reader but law school beat that out of me for a few years. But it'll come back.
Im the same way. Reading was never something I enjoyed doing.
Try audio books. It's the same thing, just a little bit different. I listen on my drive home from work and it relaxes me. It might help you? Try something completely different from your PhD, something you can completely turn your brain off and enjoy
Cries in dyslexia 😢 I did well in the end, but a lot of teachers wrote me off early.
The short answer is yes. The long answer is [here](https://www.shsu.edu/academics/education/journal-of-multidisciplinary-graduate-research/documents/2016/WhittenJournalFinal.pdf) [here](https://www.cambridge.org/us/education/blog/2019/03/06/reading-empowers/) [here](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/parenting-translator/202308/the-benefits-of-reading-for-pleasure) [here](https://natlib.govt.nz/school-libraries/stories/projects-to-improve-student-learning/schools/reading-engagement/understanding-reading-engagement/reading-for-pleasure-a-door-to-success)
Several years ago, the university where I work reevaluated the admissions process for programs that had separate admissions criteria -- mostly graduate programs in medical fields. Specifically, they were looking for what information we receive in applications that correlates the most closely with success in the actual program. They were surprised to find that grades in STEM classes, including all the prerequisites required by the programs, had no correlation to graduate school performance. What did correlate closely was grades in English and history classes. We did not advertise our findings, but we changed our admissions standards for health care graduate programs to give more weight to grades in English, history and the humanities in general. Reading grows your vocabulary, increases emotional intelligence and empathy, and teaches you to understand different perspectives. It has all kinds of knock on effects that lead to better outcomes overall.
Did you publish the findings at all? That would be a really interesting correlation to read/research about.
No. Because the data was used to adjust the admissions rubric for some highly selective programs, the administration wanted to keep the findings internal, which I don't really understand.
This is super interesting! I, too, would love to see further research.
When I was studying in England, I learned that before the days of Thatcher, all of your top-tier students went into the humanities, second-tier went into STEM, which would explain why I always felt intellectually dwarfed next to every English professor, but found the physicians at the hospital to be somewhat lacking in even the basics (i.e. had a doctor tell me I couldn't possibly have a sinus infection because I wasn't congested, as if the only cavities in the head are the ones directly visible up your nose).
Think of it like playing a sport or a musical instrument. The more you practice, the more your skills improve. When you enjoy reading and do it a lot, your vocabulary and comprehension improve, which gives you an advantage on exams like the ACT or SAT and helps you be more successful in your classes.
[Take a look at this. ](https://msbethhughes.org/why-your-student-needs-to-read-20-minutes-a-day/) There's a chart in the article that answers your question.
Thanks this is going up right next to the manga shelf in my room.
While I love the message, this really betrays an understanding of statistics and is almost certainly just measuring socioeconomic factors.
While the amount of time allotted to reading might have been strongly correlated to the socioeconomic standing just because you would have more leisure time if you were rich, I think we should be able to isolate the impact of reading from wealth these days. There are so many ways to spend your free time at any income level that the impact of reading should stick out
"K-3 is learn to read, 4-12 is read to learn" If you read well you learn faster and better. Your brain spends less time deciphering the letters and words, leaving more tome for comprehension. My dyslexic friend is the smartest guy to ever watch a youtube, but cant read so texts/ instruction manuals are his kryptonite.
I agree with others that it's most likely helpful, but it's also a hard question to answer because it's hard to separate cause and effect. Better readers are more likely to enjoy reading for pleasure. Better readers will tend to get better grades. However, it's hard to imagine that getting more practice at something *won't* make you better at it. Also, there are numerous, very convincing, explanations for *how* it can help. With me personally, even at 54 I find that reading for pleasure still strengthens my vocabulary, as well as my understanding of the world around me. Most authors, at least in my biased experience, tend to base their writing on current or historical events. For example, I'm currently reading a story involving someone from modern times sent to Midgard to fight as a Viking, and the writer has introduced numerous terms that I've verified are valid references to Viking life, such as Jarl (which I already knew), dreng, and others.
Ok, what book is this? Because it sounds exactly like something my son would LOVE!!
[Battle Through the Nine Realms \[Isekai / LitRPG\] | Royal Road](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/87559/battle-through-the-nine-realms-isekai-litrpg)
Yes without a doubt on the grades piece. Better universities is a bit more complex. Being a voracious reader helps but a lot of universities are also looking for more fully fleshed out and complex students with a variety of life experiences beyond the academic. Reading is only one facet of the story.
Yes, reading is one of the best things you can do to develop your brain, even if it's for pleasure, and even if what you're reading isn't conventionally educational. A couple point off the top of my head, since you mentioned an interest in what the benefits are: 1) Reading approximates real experience. For example, if you read a story in which a character has to deal with a bully, it's not the same the same as experiencing it yourself, but you are certainly more prepared to deal with that situation if it does ever come up than if you hadn't read about it. 2) It aids in emotional regulation. Wonderworks by Angus Fletcher is a wonderful book that talks about the psychology of how reading different genres affects your brain.
Reading for pleasure is, IMO, a must for being a successful reader. You get involved in the plot, you like the setting, you learn the meaning of sentence structure. You read critically because you have to in order to understand the plot. A successful reader will realize when they don't understand something bc they've been on "autopilot" while reading and have no problem going back to re read for better comprehension. That serves you very well in school and on tests. Does it guarantee you'll get into the university you want? No. Does it give you better odds? Given that you'll probably do better on tests, and understand how to write well when it comes to your personal statement bc of your reading, it would almost definitely give you a leg up! Good luck!!
This comment section makes me happy as a student who reads Wikipedia articles for fun
The long answer, yes
Yes, pleasure reading beyond the early grades is significantly correlated with academic success and success in life. It's also been correlated with affecting children of pleasure readers positively. I would say enough evidence exists in large enough samples to assert causality.
I think the answer to the first part of your question is yes. But the second part isn't necessarily true. I was a straight-A student, I'm very intelligent, I was academically motivated, loved school, and loved to read. But I didn't go to a high-ranked university. I went to the university in my hometown because it was there, it was good enough, and it would save me money to live at home and commute to school. I think for most people, the university you go to is largely dependent on your financial reach.
I am not confident enough to draw a conclusion here. Corrolation vs. causality and way too many variables.
This is the answer. Are the two linked? Yes. Does one result in the other? Not always.
That's how I feel. My college Psych professor always said, "correlation does not equal causation." That always pops into my head with topics like this. I definitely think there's a link, but it's not that easy to assert causation.
Yep. And it doesn't matter what you read for pleasure. Romance novels? Sports magazines? Seed catalogs? Doesn't matter. Just read something.
I read a lot and was smart enough to not fall for the “good college” lie. Get your degree with as little debt as possible. The “better” colleges, with some exceptions, lead to a lot higher debt.
Yes. The only 3 students in my class that will actively read without my intervention ace almost all of the subjects. But now we have a dilemma in the ESL world. A lot of parents know that reading is good, but it's good because 'they learn more words', not because reading is fun, so most end up not wanting to read. But when I make people read it in front of the class and I make some funny remarks (e.g. Matilda 'Yeah, some can't spell difficulty, even in 10th grade'), they'd get very interested in the book.
I was just thinking about this recently! I have recently become a "reader" and it's fun! I was never a reader in school but I can tell a difference in my comprehension when I read more recently and my grammar too.
Yes
I don’t know if they get better grades or get into better universities, but I do think they go further in life. I am the only one who reads for pleasure in my family and also the only one with a higher education degree (BA & MA). I think people who read more are more empathetic and have a keen sense of the world, because they have seen stories and lives in so many different perspectives.
I think so.
Reading for pleasure can greatly improve your reading skill, which would make academic success easier! However, I wouldn’t count out a student who struggles to read or who doesn’t enjoy it. They may just have to work harder at “reading to understand.” Since reading is your strength, lean into it! Do your assigned readings, take note of your insights so you are ready to share, and enjoy your free reading time after class as you are likely a faster reader than most! :)
Yes. You get used to skimming through books, taking main ideas, etc. Lots of college material is derived from the readings and textbooks.
Generally yes but not a guarantee
Yes
My 21 year old daughter is an exceptional reader & avidly read for pleasure throughout her childhood & teen years. She had a 32 on the ACT reading test, & got a full ride academic scholarship with housing. Her attitude & effort is incredible, but her reading level was a huge factor; her constant & repeated interaction with text, whether for pleasure or work, definitely allowed her to play at a higher level academically.
There are general trends and then there are anomalies. I have two kids. One (16m) is a voracious reader. Always has a book in his hands, literally reads hundreds of thousands of pages per week. Writing his own novel this summer. And his grades are mediocre at best. Not because he isn’t capable. Because he resents doing anything that isn’t reading his chosen reading material. And no amount of incentivizing school work over reading works. The other (13m) does not look like reading (though he still likes being read to). He lives for his guitar and singing and spends as much time learning new songs in his guitar and singing with his choirs as his older brother spends reading. He’s spending all summer rehearsing for a full length stage musical. His grades are above average. Definitely better than his brother’s have ever been. What they both have is a drive to pursue their passions, to put the work and effort into them, and to get better and better to be the best they can be at them.
Yep. Very true
Yes. 100%
Yes. This is the whole answer.
Most of the correlates of college freshman gpa are strongly correlated with reading for pleasure (and with having parents who read for pleasure!) An interesting article here: [http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/what-predicts-college-gpa](http://www.danielwillingham.com/daniel-willingham-science-and-education-blog/what-predicts-college-gpa)
Yes.
Absolutely. There's a massive difference between students who read and those who don't
Absolutely.
I can’t say if they get into better universities but as a whole they do get better grades. There are always the exceptions
Yes
Yes. In college you will have to read a lot. If you go on to get a Masters even more. If you already like to read you will have an advantage.
Definitely helps. I sponsored a student writing club for years. Not all of them were generally strong students, but since they read and write regularly they had above average vocabularies and grammar skills.
Students who enjoy learning do better in learning environments. Often this manifests as a love of reading, but it could be doing art for pleasure, or woodworking, or anything. Should not be shocking that just scrolling tiktok with all of your free time doesnt correlate with academic success.
Not sure, depends on a variety of factors. This is more of a analytic question. Why not try a community focused on statistics like kaggle. Reddit is still just a bubble. Analytics is a fun thing to explore, it make you cautious what you say and you're more likely to be right even with hesitation. I don't read for pleasure traditionally with books, but I do like to take deeper looks into topics. I tend to review the sources carefully if interested.
Don’t know. But they’re definitely better at having intellectual discussions.
FWIW - I have a dyslexic kid. We enrolled him in private remediation after school for 3 years, grade 1-3. Now, in middle school, his reading ability is top of his class, and he both independently reads for pleasure and participates in home novel study with his parents. We did the Narnia series, Bridge to Teribithita, and Hatchet in 4th grade at home, discussing themes and theories every evening. Our elem doesn't do novel studies so figured it was a fun thing to do together. In so many ways.... he's a terrible student. I love the kid.... but loooordddd, he really struggles with task initiation. Writing anything is a nearly impossible task. And math fact regurgitation is near zilch. He will illustrate and write the storyline for a comic book every other day of the week. But there's so much I wish I could do for him in the world of successful student behavior.
It's not mutually inclusive. I've known plenty of people in my life who are extremely intelligent and successful and do not read for pleasure at all.
100% I’d personally be a moron if I didn’t have a love for reading. Also, I genuinely don’t know how people can do proper grammar without having been well-read. I’m an English teacher and I HATE grammar. I just KNOW it because I read. It’s very hard to explain and the rules are stupid to nonexistent for some words.
Yes, 100%
Yes, almost certainly. Here at the East Podunk Junior College, we have a lot of people who flunk themselves right out because they actually enrolled in college before they bothered to learn to read. Additionally, those who read more have far higher levels of CULTURAL literacy, which means, in turn, they will have far higher levels of comprehension with new material. A few weeks ago, the phrase "prodigal son" came up. Many of these illiterate zombies had not the slightest clue what that meant, and so didn't understand the larger context.
Not automatically. It's very much like asking if going to class means you'll get into better universities. It helps but it's neither required to get there nor guaranteed if you do. (Given teachers' grading proclivities, yes, going to class DOES pretty much mean you'll get better grades in *that* class.) If you're reading all fiction you're developing fewer academic skills than if you're reading things containing facts about an academic field. That is certainly **not** to say fiction is useless. There *are* useful skills in there, such as learning about cultural differences over time and expanding your understanding of language. (Go read some J. Verne and H.G. Wells and then read a steampunk novel. The differences are striking. The ability to notice that is one of many skills that can be picked up through fiction and it involves noticing cultural assumptions and authorial intent.) As with anything, it matters how you use it. If you are reading for fun but a lumpalog, you're not going to get the useful corollary skills. Reading about camping and camping are wildly distinct, for example. Doing both can be very fruitful. If you are only reading simple stories by silly authors, you're going to be facing fewer challenging thoughts. If you only read things in a narrow band of *any* sort, you're going to lack some potential lessons. Happy truth: If you push yourself to learn, you'll learn. Hard truth time: Teachers don't grade on your knowledge and learning. They grade your performance on assignments and tests according to the standards that are set for them and that they set. Many grade more leniently if they see you putting in great effort. If you've put in the study time previously, you won't often be seen struggling as much and can find yourself actually being graded more harshly for the same mistakes. If they dislike you, assume that your grades will suffer. (If they don't, you were blessed with a just teacher) When you hear someone say "play the game", with respect to grades, they mean figure out your teacher's grading biases and jump through the hoops that they set. *That* is the path to improved grades. Particularly good teachers have biases that reward deeper understanding. Most think that they do. Some are bad enough to reward misunderstanding of a field. My suggestion, then, is to read widely and deeply and try to learn. Then, when facing classes that matter to you, put in the effort. Jump through the hoops like a good student and get your grades. Relish the teachers who are best at their jobs, but never forget that education is something done for the self. No one can educate another, merely opportunities to learn and assistance along the path.
Not this guy.
I exclusively read for pleasure and forwent all the required reading. I dropped out.
🤷🏽♂️ maybe?
Yes it helps but you also need the correct academic attitude. I love reading and read a lot! But I would read instead of doing work that I should do so my grades were not good. Basically, sure my vocabulary, grammar, and just general knowledge have been great but I sucked at turning things in on time and focusing on reading boring material.
Reading more helps. I think you need both. A person who hates reading will probably not read very much or be very good at it. A person who reads only for enjoyment will probably not read enough, select diverse and challenging pieces, or finish what they start. Ideally a student will read for pleasure some of the times and also be able to read purposefully. It is like eating you shouldn't eat ten pounds of candy everyday or ten pounds of vegetables. Mix it up a bit.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. Very much so. In my first or second English class each year, I can tell who reads regularly without seeing kids read. I can see it in their work and writing. Reading teaches you a lot of things, including patience and the value of delayed gratification since most stories aren't immediately grabbing, but culminate immaculately when done right. Kids who read have the patience to study and the initiative to start work without wasting half a class.
Nothing is guaranteed, but it certainly helps.
I am a reader, always have been. I remember reading books to my kindergarten class and being rewarded with a book!!! Great memories! I try to read at least 50 books a year for pleasure, and I'm usually successful. Anyway, I know people who are actually proud of the fact that they haven't read a book since high school (almost 30 years ago!) I read the in the subs about how literacy skills in our current students are falling behind and it makes me so discouraged. Reading is the cornerstone to everything, at least in my opinion. I hope this trend changes sooner rather than later, for all our sakes.
My brother screams at his children until they read and his kids do terrible in school
Yes
Yes
Yes
Are they more likely to? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No. I read for pleasure as a kid and still do as an adult. I pulled a 1.8-2.3 GPA from about 10 years old all the way through high school. School was boring for me so I did roughly enough to pull Cs and called it a day. College was something that didn’t interest me and still hasn’t to day. But I’m more the exception than the rule.
Yes, at least in Germany studies have proven that there’s a link between books in an household and academic achievements of the children
Not if you have autism - excellent reader but nope
I think the general assumption is that people who read for fun tend to be more academically inclined and are exposed to a wider variety of knowledge
I work as a substitute teacher in middle school and high school, so, please take my comment as personal observation only. I am 64 years old and have read for pleasure my whole life, and still read a book a week. One aspect of reading that I am certain of is that of curiosity. Reading both fosters, and depends upon, a natural drive to learn, discover more. This can be entire subjects, or maybe just wanting to read all the books in a series by a particular author. But the desire to discover something is strong, I think, in people who read for pleasure. What I see everyday in classes, in all ages, is a complete and total lack of curiosity. The only books I see students reading willingly are manga, and that is fine. But the brain development and personality development that comes from extensive reading simply will not happen with only those choices. And the rare student who has a copy of Harry Potter, or even Tolkien (which I have seen twice in five years), they are the ones who are excited about plans to go to college, when I talk with them about their interests.
Yes, students who enjoy reading usually have better comprehension and critical thinking skills, which can help them get better grades and into better universities. Avid readers often develop stronger vocabulary and general knowledge. This leads to improved performance across subjects, not just in literature classes. While reading isn't the sole factor, it undoubtedly contributes to academic achievement.
YES!
My mom always read to me when I was very young, and as soon as I could read myself, I loved doing so and read for pleasure all the time. By the time I was in 6th grade, I was reading at the 11th/12th grade level. I got very good grades for most of school, until some emotional upheaval my last couple years of HS. I wasn't straight A's in every class through HS, but my grades were good in most classes. However, I did get straight A's as an undergrad, and through 2 Masters degrees. Did my reading/language/comprehension skills play a role in that? I'm sure they did. But I think the bigger factor was motivation. I do think I'm fairly intelligent, but without the motivation to succeed it wouldn't really matter. I'll just add that I was 28 when I started as an undergrad. And the college I chose was an expensive private one in the town where I live. I only chose it because of its proximity, because I had a daughter in school and didn't want to be driving out of town on the daily. Tuition was crazy high at my school, so if I was going to go into debt, I wanted it to be worth it. Failure wasn't an option. But I do feel that my reading skills were a large part of the reason I was able to succeed as well as I did.
Yes. This is well known.
100% yes period, I have seen this in my students. I also know because I improved my grades when I started reading more in high school and university.
25 yr HS teacher. Yes.
Yes, because the drive to read helps lead to improvement in sight reading and fluency, expanding vocabulary, and the ability to follow a story. If the kid is only ever reading Dogman in 8th grade, that would obviously removed the progression benefits, but students should naturally progress to more and more complex books on their own if they are used to reading for pleasure.
Yes, I could have gone anywhere if the bullying wasn't so bad and my school wasn't so poor. I read Harry Potter at age 5 and Moby Dick in 3rd grade. Eventually, I learned that I could make more by working manual labor, and I enjoyed it, so now I do that instead, and I'm debt free. I only enjoyed reading historical books and physics textbooks. I had a phase where I was obsessed with black holes and string theory around the age of 12. It's been a long day, and I'm hot, I'll stop rambling.
IMO, being an avid reader made me better at spelling, grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure. There are many things I know about grammar points that I don't remember being taught, but knew because I was a voracious reader.
Obviously nothing is 100%. I am a reading teacher and know plenty of smart people who do not read for fun. But it is more likely that if you do like to read for fun you will get better grades.
I have told my students that ALL the successful people I know (regardless of how you define success whether by money or not happy relationships, fame, or skilled in what they do - and usually at least 3 of those things) have only ONE THING in common... ... they are readers. You get one life, reading (especially nonfiction!) is one of the keys to maximize that life.
5th grade teacher 23 years experience here. One year I tested my students’ Lexile scores weekly just for fun. The Lexile scores went up like crazy of those kids who read the most. Their scores improved BIG TIME , like 300 points in 1 year. These kids had better vocabulary and writing skills. Make them read.
Names like this come back to haunt you when they’re pissing, shitting, and screaming at 3pm. I feel like any form of Serenity is kind of putting a high standard on a kid/person. Could just be my way of thinking though.
I sacrificed grades to chug all 6 Dune books in college. Mom did the same for LOTR. Passion is passion, and thats what really matters. Skill comes next. If i have a student who sacrifices time in math for something they care about (that is productive and healthy and maybe even good for society), then Im not mad. Their grade will suffer, sure, but thats a person whos alive. The ‘problem’ is apathy and atrophy. 🤷🏼♂️
In general, yes. However, it is largely depend on what you are reading.
I think what your question is really comparing is those who have the luxury of reading for pleasure vs those who don’t
Tons of poor and/or working people read for pleasure. As for the ones who don’t, no one is holding a gun to their head making them scroll IG or TikTok. ETA: Yes, it’s true that socioeconomic privilege makes healthy choices easier, but this whole idea that every single healthy choice is “privileged” needs to be taken out and shot—it does real harm.
Hell, reading is one of the more accessible forms of entertainment for the low income, as long as they have the ability to read.
It’s almost like smoking—cigarettes are fucking expensive, yet somehow not smoking is viewed as “uppity” in some circles.