How to Encourage Teenagers to Read

How can we encourage teenagers to read?

When I was eight years old, I suddenly found myself in an English only third grade class without knowing a word of the language. I remember well the children and the teacher trying to communicate with me, but I did not understand a thing. I do not recall the process of acquisition I went through, but within six months I could speak and understand fairly well. In fourth grade, I discovered the library, and I began to read avidly. I took a book home almost every day, and I could not stop reading until I finished it, even if it was late at night. The Nancy Drew Mystery Stories and Encyclopedia Brown were my favorites, also I read Little House on the Prairie and many other adventures books. Reading for me was a pleasure and I never thought of doing it to improve my English considering I was not a native speaker. However, now I realize that reading the way I did, helped me become competent in English very quickly, and it was probably the reason why within a year I was exceeding academically. During that time, I never received instruction so that is why I say my language skills were acquired, and definitely, books played a major role.

This exemplifies Krashen's Pleasure Hypothesis that states that "What is good for language development and literacy development is perceived to be pleasant by the acquirer and the teacher " (Krashen, Pleasure Reading, 2007). Furthermore, he holds that there is evidence that shows that students prefer free reading to traditional language instruction, and that this is also true with learners of a second language. It seems that many studies "consistently show that those who read more show more literacy development", and that there is a positive relationship between the amount of reading and second language competence (Krashen, Pleasure Reading, 2007).

According to Krashen, research says that Free Voluntary Reading (FVR) is effective in increasing and improving reading and results in superior general knowledge. It also improves spelling, writing and grammar, thus increasing the score on tests. Students show better reading comprehension, vocabulary and become better thinkers.

Regarding vocabulary, the studies show that it is best developed over time and in small doses and through real encounters with the words in context. As for spelling, they prove that more reading results in better spelling. This notion is supported by psycholinguistic research in reading that deals with how the memory keeps images of the words that have been read several times. Cuetos (1994) refers to it as a visual lexicon that contains representations of all the words the reader knows. As a matter of fact, there is evidence that children can spell a number of words they haven't been directly taught. Therefore, FVR seems to be as effective or more than teaching vocabulary and spelling (Krashen, The Power of Reading, 2004). The reason for this is that "if you read a lot, your knowledge of the conventions or writing, your knowledge of vocabulary, grammar is acquired, not learned; it is subconsciously absorbed; it is stored deep in your central nervous system, and it becomes part of you"(Krashen, The Power of Reading [video], 2012).

When you give kids interesting things to read, they will read them, no question.

One positive reading experience can make you into a reader.

In order to obtain the benefits listed above, Krashen strongly recommends Sustained Silent Reading in schools, meaning a few minutes out of school time to read whatever students want. Studies show overwhelming results over SSR sustained silent reading, few minute out of school time to read whatever they want. He also proposes replacing spelling practice and instruction with free reading and providing greater access to books (Krashen, The Power of Reading, 2004).

Contextualizing this information in our country we find that unfortunately, a survey for 2010-2011 showed that 51% of the population had not read a book in the previous and that only 20% read for pleasure. However, 98 % of the interviewees can read. This information made The Ministry of Youth and Culture feel that "we were taught how to read, but not to love reading" (own translation, Ulloa, 2012). In the case of children and teenagers, many prefer chatting online than reading a book and some of them only read the books that are part of the school curriculum. For this reason MEP started working on projects to motivate reading among elementary and high school students, for example, with book donations