Reading is essential to integrate into society. We live surrounded by written information with which we learn. But it is also an excellent leisure activity.
But if there is no will to read, if there is no wants reading, it is impossible for this activity to generate knowledge or fun. And, for students to become full members of society, they have to saber read: that is, understand the texts. This takes time and perseverance: creating a habit.
The practice and habit of reading
Reading is a technique that must be acquired through a continuous and oriented routine. It’s like riding a bicycle, playing an instrument, or making a craft: these are tasks that require practice.
Home and school must contribute to this. The teaching staff, especially, must be prepared with specific teaching techniques and tools to face this challenge.
Which leads us to ask ourselves: have future teachers, today students in faculties of Education, developed a reading habit? And are they, therefore, qualified to transmit it and teach to want read to your students?
Reading is established as a leisure activity during childhood. But, as we enter adolescence, it plummets.
The factors can be many: disinterest, rebellion, distractions, greater leisure options… Furthermore, in Secondary School Literature begins to be treated as theoretical and historical content (many teachers have specialized in Philology and History of Literature, not in Children’s Literature). and Youth and reading animation) and no longer primarily as an enjoyment activity. That can contribute to the “break” of the habit.
Reading should also serve to educate us, not just entertain us. But this represents an important challenge in the classrooms. It is necessary to expand the educational function of literature, from leisure to learning, but without this implying that students lose the taste and reading habit acquired in Primary.
The role of teachers
To do this, we need teachers well trained in reading skills. And therein lies the problem: does the reading profile of the students of the faculties of Education respond to this requirement? The research in this regard does not paint a very encouraging picture.
In a recent study of Literature and Education students at the University of La Rioja, we found a worrying trend that is repeated in other Spanish faculties of Education. The future Early Childhood and Primary teachers have no habit or interest in reading.
The percentages of students who do not like reading range around 50% of those surveyed. They don’t usually read more than one book a month. Important deficiencies are detected in their interest in formative reading, which they do not always find useful. And the time they dedicate to reading does not exceed two hours per week.
From the theory to the practice
This paints a serious picture for the future. Teachers in the faculties of Education insist in our classes on the importance of reading. But the students, according to the research carried out, lack that perception.
This situation is not exclusive to the faculties of Education. The trend in lack of reading habit is repeated in other areas of knowledge and could represent a general problem in Spanish university students. Of course, we lack sufficient studies in this regard, so we cannot yet draw a complete map of the state of university reading.
In any case, the problem is evident and already arises during compulsory education. The rates of reading habit and reading comprehension at this stage have not improved significantly in the last 30 years.
A challenge for the future
In any case, we need teaching professionals who educate in reading comprehension and literary animation. And to do this they must be competent readers. There is no other way.
If reading training fails from Primary and Secondary, there will be no basis for reading habits and a taste for reading in the students of the faculties of Education. Students who, in the future, will have to train in skills that they may lack. Intervention in this problem must be comprehensive and global, or our efforts as trainers of future educators will fall on deaf ears.
Alberto Escalante Varona, Permanent Labor Professor. Department of Hispanic and Classical Philologies. Language and Literature Didactics Area, University of La Rioja
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.
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