By Min Park
Managing Editor of Features
Starting from an early age, many students are encouraged to develop a habit of reading through designated reading time in elementary school, reading logs in middle school, and independent reading assignments in high school.
However, as more forms of electronic entertainment have started to gain popularity and students are juggling busier schedules, many have noticed that student readership has declined drastically, where some students don’t even read one independent book the entire year.
According to Newton South librarian Morgan Harper, book checkouts average about 25 books per day which is not a lot compared to the 2000 students who come into the library every day.
Despite the drop in reading, Newton South librarian Jennifer Dimmick says that there are many academic benefits that come from reading such as increased vocabulary, better grammar, and better standardized test scores.
However, Dimmick believes that reading can most importantly benefit the students’ minds and relax them, which can be useful for busy and stressed students that she sees in the library every day.
Although Dimmick understands that students would often choose the option of watching Netflix over reading, she says that it’s important for students to resist those forces as best as they can.
“There are studies showing that readers are happier, face less depression, and have a stronger empathy since they are more open to many different characters and life experiences,” Dimmick said.
She also says that since the brain is made out of muscle, it is obvious that students who read more will show overall academic success across the board from exercising this muscle.
She believes that exercising the brain will help with other classes other than just English, and students who read are always going to be presented with unfamiliar ideas which can develop different thinking skills.
However, junior Abigail Miller argues that in order to pursue activities that they are interested in, many students simply don’t have time to read.
Miller admires those who read in their free time, and believes that reading offers many benefits academically, but states that books have never created an escape for her as a source of entertainment and fun.
“Right books are important, but it’s really frustrating how long it might take when you don’t know if it’s going be a good book until I get into it. I don’t want to waste time reading something I don’t even like,” she said.
Miller believes that the source of her dislike comes from middle school reading logs, which have forced her to associate reading with homework rather than something enjoyable.
Newton South librarian Margaret Schoen says that because of the common lack of reading, the library has implemented many fun games and challenges throughout the library to encourage student reading habits.
The Newton South library’s main goal this year was to generally increase reading all across the board, and the deans and the English department worked together with the library in an attempt to fulfill this goal.
“We work with English classes where teachers just come down with classes to pick out books, guides on websites, work with deans on activities for house cup,” Schoen said.
This year, the library did a march madness challenge focused on books as well as house cup challenges for which students took selfies with books or “shelfies”, in order to earn points.
There were around 150 students that participated in the March Madness challenge, which the librarians hope will expand year by year.
“We would love it so much if everyone left with a book every day, but that’s not necessarily going to happen, so we just want to create more opportunities for students to have books available for them,” Schoen said.
A student that still loves to read, junior Noah Klein believes that reading allows him to learn more about current events since there are articles online and on social media available to students every day about general knowledge.
He believes that in order to increase reading levels at South, the one school one question should give books with a variety of different genres that would open up interest for a diverse group of readers.
Klein believes that the library is doing a great job in making books more available to students by highlighting books and showing that it is the student’s jobs to read rather than something that is forced upon them.
He also agrees with Miller’s previous statement against reading logs which created an incentive for students to read, but tied grades and work to reading, which was unnecessary.
“I personally think that students need to take the initiative themselves to read. They should not be forced to read. Making people do something with grades works, but teachers know that I read because I read constantly in class anyway,” Klein said.
Although he still enjoys reading, Klein notices that reads much less than he did in middle school since he actually has access to technology and has many more reading devices available, such as his phone and nook.
Dimmick says that the library has started an ebook collection with more than a thousand of books and audiobooks that students can access on a phone, tablet, or the newest Kindle.
Librarian Morgan Harper says that the library was reorganized so that the fiction books are now entirely in the middle of the library, which provides eye catching covers for students.
Harper notices that many students check out books with fun covers, which created a larger checkout group for many science fiction books than any genre.
Also, many English teachers received a small budget to create mini libraries in their classroom, and bring in boxes of books in which the librarians would replenish with different books from the library.
“I get seniors who are graduating and say that it’s their first time checking a book out from the library. That really breaks my heart,” Dimmick said.
She believes that libraries are important because libraries are available for free all over the world, thus students will always have free entertainment and escape available.
“Reading is a mechanism for lifelong learning, which is something you can carry with you your whole life,” she said.
