‘The Kids Simply Cannot Handle It’: Why New York Students Are Reading Fewer Books

More than a decade ago, Queens teacher Nicole Radosti Pipia’s fifth- and sixth-grade students seemed to love reading novels in school. 

“The Giver” by Lois Lowry was prized for its mystery. “Wonder” by R.J. Palacio taught them about kindness and acceptance. “Freak the Mighty” by Rodman Philbrick showed them the power of friendship. 

Now, she said, they don’t read any. Instead, students often spend class time reading excerpts and short stories to better prepare them for the sorts of questions they’d encounter on standardized exams.

The demands of her school’s reading program leave no room to study novels, the English teacher said.

“We’re told that we cannot deviate from the program, and if you have to do the program, there’s literally no time,” Pipia said. 

Another New York City middle school teacher, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, said her school taught novels before the pandemic. Now, “it can be done, but not with the constraints placed on us as teachers,” she said. 

For the past few years, her school has required her to have her students — most of whom are English language learners and struggling readers — spend half of each 40-minute class period, four days a week, completing an online targeted reading intervention program, she said. They often end up clicking through the program and visiting Spotify and YouTube instead. The remainder of the period is devoted to the school’s core curriculum, which does not require novel studies. 

The classroom library she spent a decade building has become “purely decorative,” she said. With teachers no longer using books, she said, her school is “literally throwing them away.” Even if she had the time to teach a book, the veteran teacher said, her students either have no interest in reading or barely know how. 

“Half of them have never read a book,” she said. “In 10 years, we went from kids reading multiple novels in class to them having never opened a book.” 

All New York City elementary schools and most middle schools use one of three city-approved reading curricula. Two of them — EL Education and Wit and Wisdom — require full-length books, while HMH Into Reading and Into Literature do not.

In a statement provided to New York Focus, New York City Public Schools Press Secretary Nicole Brownstein emphasized that English class is “not the only time students have access to full texts.” 

“Literacy is foundational for every child’s success and every New York City Public Schools student has access to whole books both in their classrooms and via the citywide digital library,” she said, adding that there was a 14 percent increase in digital book checkouts last school year compared to the year prior. 

There’s limited data on how much students are actually reading in school. In New York state, where districts have significant autonomy over curriculum, reading programs can vary widely depending on the district, campus, and even classroom. 

For more than a decade, classrooms across the state have been shifting away from full-length books and toward shorter literary works, largely to align with state learning standards and assessments. In interviews with New York Focus, English teachers from across the state lamented that teaching novels has also become more challenging because students have less stamina for or interest in reading them anymore — even in districts that still encourage it.

“I teach fewer novels because the kids simply cannot handle it,” said Lori Atkinson, a 37-year high school English teacher at the rural Copenhagen Central School District in the North Country.

Atkinson has seen a slump in endurance and attention span. She cited the impact of the Common Core, a set of academic standards for English and math that most US states, including New York, adopted in the 2010s. It placed a greater emphasis on students’ ability to analyze short, complex passages of text. (In 2017, New York eliminated Common Core and adopted a similar state-specific set of standards.) 

“I believe the decline in reading happened when we were forced to excerpt everything, because when you excerpt, you are not building stamina or background knowledge,” Atkinson said. “It became all about standardized tests and trying to get the mark that you were proficient.” 

But Atkinson primarily blames students’ lack of reading skills on technology, social media, and the rise of artificial intelligence. Teenagers addicted to instant gratification do not have the concentration and skills they need to stay engaged through a long novel, she said, and turn to AI to generate summaries for required reading.

When Atkinson taught ninth and 10th grade in the 1990s, she said she typically taught five novels and a Shakespeare play each year. Now, teaching 11th and 12th grade, she considers herself lucky to get through three books. She said she used to lend out 20 books a week to students, and now lends out one or two a month. 

The challenge extends beyond novels. Atkinson said that when she assigns a two-page article at the beginning of class, she often sees about half the class stop reading within three minutes. 

Even things that were once a treat are now a challenge to their attention spans. Last school year, after her seniors read “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt, she showed them a five-minute movie trailer for the Netflix adaptation. She said most of the teenagers stopped paying attention halfway through. 

Saranac Lake Central School District in the Adirondacks, where high school English teacher Kelsey Francis has worked for 26 years, still encourages educators to teach full-length texts. 

In recent years, however, the number of books Francis can get through during the school year has dropped dramatically. She attributes that, in part, to how AI has affected teaching and learning. Francis has largely stopped assigning homework because she expects students will turn to AI to complete it. Instead, students have to do most of their work by hand in class. 

Making those changes has left significantly less class time for reading. 

It also takes students much longer to get through a book. Since the pandemic, Francis said, she’s seen a major decline in student vocabulary skills and stamina. 

“They fatigue after more than a few pages,” she said. “If I were to ask them to independently read for 30 minutes, that is going to be really tough.” 

English teacher and education consultant Emily Aierstok had a similar experience in her Capital Region school district. 

Because students have shorter attention spans, she’s had to slow down the pace of reading assignments. Instead of assigning two chapters of reading for kids to do at home, she now assigns one. And in addition to requiring 20 minutes of independent reading for homework, she now begins each class with five minutes of reading time to support struggling readers. 

But last school year, Aierstok’s seventh graders read eight books through in-class and independent reading — the most in her 26 years of teaching English. She said she’s been able to overcome challenges with student stamina and interest by giving her students agency in choosing which books to read. 

New York state’s English Language Arts standards require that students read “both shorter-text and excerpts, as well as full-length works.” In a statement to New York Focus, State Education Department spokesperson JP O’Hare said the agency is committed to ensuring all students have access to skilled instruction, but also noted that local school boards and districts are responsible for selecting curricula and instructional materials. 

“Exposing all students to grade-level reading materials with age-appropriate complex ideas and language is critical to mastering the learning standards and developing the knowledge and skills necessary for success beyond the classroom,” the statement reads. 

Fewer than half of New York students in grades 3–8 are proficient in reading, according to state data. Jeff Smink, deputy director at the advocacy group EdTrust-New York, said student’s lack of exposure to full-length books has contributed to the state’s literacy crisis. 

Smink said it’s important for students to read full-length books to build stamina, learn about context, and develop a love for reading. But he’s also concerned that too many students don’t have the foundational skills to reap the benefits of reading and said that teachers should be focused on building literacy earlier.

“Just giving a book to a kid that doesn’t have those foundational reading skills is also problematic and can lead to disengagement,” he said. 

Atkinson, the Copenhagen teacher, said it’s critical teachers continue teaching students full-length books to “rewire their brain” and show students the rewards of persistence. Younger educators are not being taught the importance of novel studies in college and in teacher preparatory programs, she said, so it’s up to veteran educators to spread awareness. 

“If we never teach them a novel, then shame on us because we’re the ones who are not giving them the opportunity to build those skills,” she said. “If all we expect from them is an excerpt, then all we’re going to get from them is the bare minimum.”