In a survey conducted this month to TCS high school students, only 36.6 percent of them claimed that they have reading habits. When current high school students were in elementary, they were exposed to many tools to build this habit, but based on results; those efforts were counterproductive. However, current middle school and elementary students prove that these tools worked for them. So, what changed between generations? For a long time, TCS has been striving to reinforce the importance of reading practices in students. Even though older generations did not, for the most part, acquire the discipline, the work has started to show results in the younger generations. 

There is a noticeable difference in reading culture between the current seniors and generations below them. The main reason for this disparity could have been implementing readers’ and writers’ workshops in the curriculum, “Amongst the seniors, it is a tiny percentage of them who have the habit of reading. It makes sense because the current eight-graders are the first ones that have had the workshops in their curriculum since K4. I  noticed that there is a higher percentage of students who enjoy reading in that group and the ones that have followed.” Clara Quintero, 6th and 8th-grade English teacher said. 

Even though high school teachers don’t apply writers and readers workshops in their classrooms, they notice the increase in reading habits between the current senior class and the generations that followed. Readers and writers workshop is a model in which students choose what they read. Readers and writers workshop was introduced to the senior class at around 4th grade, but in a very inconsistent manner during middle school. The beauty of this model is that it encourages and normalizes reading culture. It also gives the students freedom to explore what they love while still applying the strategies taught by their teachers. Some of the students’ options are any genre, audiobooks, graphic novels, and even Wattpad, instead of a novel study chosen by the teacher. Readers and writers workshop is a model that implies flexibility from the teacher. Still, if an institution wants to create an incentive reading culture, there has to be a space for everyone to read what they love.

Some may say that too much freedom makes it harder to manage the students that don’t enjoy reading because, as a less supervised model, it is easier for them to avoid reading the book and getting away with it. Despite this belief, Readers and writers’ workshops have been used more consistently with the generations that followed the current senior class, making this the strategy that has increased reading culture amongst students. 

Currently, TCS is doing a great job at creating a reading culture, but there’s still room for improvement, especially once the habit is attained. One of these places is the transition between high school and middle school. “My current 9th graders asked as soon as they came in, ‘when are we doing the reading unit’ and I answered, ‘No, you’re always reading,’ but they meant ‘when are we having that independent reading time.’ It’s a transition; we should have a better bridge from middle school to high school to maintain that reading.” Jodoin said. However, it is not just at TCS where this happens. In a recent study done by the University of Nebraska, researchers mentioned that “Reading habit tends to be associated with coursework and examinations, rarely with pleasure.”In middle school, teachers provide students with more time to read. Reading for fun is built into the schedule. However, in high school, the courses are more writing oriented, and there is more pressure to read certain things. For instance, in high school, the expectation is to write based on what you read. Writing is the product of reading, and as a result, there is not much incentive in reading for pleasure. The output of writing based on reading is what is more priced in high school. The high school curriculum has to focus more on writing because it reflects better in university. After high school, the program is widely based on assigned reading and then papers based on the text.

The generations that are coming into high school have the habit, but if the program does not adjust to keep it, it may be lost. On the other hand, older generations that didn’t come into high school with reading habits will go on without having it. TCS has come a long way from when the senior class was younger, and now, reading culture is spreading widely amongst students. Regardless, there is still room for improvement so that the new generations that have acquired this culture don’t lose it.