Reading Why Baseball Matters by Susan Jacoby recently, I was struck by the writer’s concern for the future of the game as a spectator sport. Apparently, attendances at games are down massively, especially for those aged under 25, who seem to prefer to access their sport in small, smartphone-friendly chunks.

Major League Baseball is very concerned. It seems that the next generation of sports fans has trouble with the patient build-up of play, the potential for low scores and the possibility of a game that could last at least three hours.

More recently, I had a fascinating conversation with my Higher English class about their fears over upcoming exams. Of course, they felt the pressure from all sides about doing their best. They put pressure on themselves. They seemed to believe that they’d been told that failure wasn’t an option - and that scared them. But what concerned them most about the exam itself was the necessity of sitting for three hours in silence (two halves of 90 minutes). To most of them, silence was anathema - it didn’t figure anywhere in their lives. They didn’t know how to cope with that level of concentration.

However, there is a way to overcome this problem: nurturing a culture of reading for pleasure might just be the answer. I read Twitter with horror at times, when I see that some folk think that expecting young people to read for pleasure is unnecessary and “not really our job”. I can’t fathom that. It doesn’t make sense. By depriving them of the experience of sitting for long periods in quiet contemplation with a book, think of all we are losing. Yet, how easily we give up on it, on them. And how damaging might that be?

Part of my reasoning for starting every lesson with 10 minutes of uninterrupted reading is that young people don’t often get any quiet elsewhere in their school day. Developing the ability to sit still and concentrate on what they are doing - even if it takes many of them a while to get there - is hugely important. They also get to see me reading: many never witness an adult reading, so modelling that process can be transformational. They begin to learn what reading “looks like”.

Reading for pleasure is not merely about consuming literature, whatever that might mean to the individual. It is about creating the conditions for thinking and contemplation, about respecting the silence of others. It is about so much more than just the reading material.

My most pleasing moments in teaching are when someone looks into my room and sees a class full of kids engrossed in their reading. American educator Nancie Atwell, in her 2007 book The Reading Zone: how to help kids become skilled, passionate, habitual, critical readers, sums it up well: “A child sitting in a quiet room with a good book isn’t a flashy or, more significantly, marketable teaching method. It just happens to be the only way anyone ever grew up to become a reader.”

So we all read for 10 minutes every day and, with persistence, encouragement and care, they all begin to develop a reading habit. Think of the changes in their lives later if they grow up to be regular readers - it’s hugely important that we don’t leave it to chance. It may be one of the most important gifts we give them.

Unnecessary hoopla

It seems crazy to suggest that being able to read well is enough, that reading is an optional extra. Think of the benefits of being a lifelong reader that we’ve all had. Think of the benefits they’ll reap later when they have developed the ability to concentrate on a rugby or football game, a movie, a Shakespeare play, without reaching for their phones. There are enough distractions for them. Let’s try and give them something that might help them with that.

In recent years, we seem to have been turning a corner. I’ve always been hugely impressed with first minister Nicola Sturgeon’s desire to encourage school-age kids to read for pleasure. As part of the first minister’s Reading Challenge (the Scottish government’s ongoing attempt to enhance literacy and narrow the attainment gap), children are encouraged to read as many books as possible and write short reviews to win prizes for themselves and their schools.

As one who has blogged, tweeted, presented at TeachMeets and written a book on the importance of reading for pleasure, I’m delighted that this has been placed, to an extent, centre stage of a literacy push. However, I do worry slightly about the competitive element and have been concerned by the “evidence” used to show that it works.

Surely, the value of any reading programme is not that we can get kids to read, it’s that we can get kids to read without the bells and whistles, the costumes and the hoopla, to enjoy it for its own sake and to read next year unprompted. And the following year. And the year after that.

The first minister’s comments on reading for pleasure echo mine exactly: “Research…shows that reading for pleasure is crucially important for children’s development, and I hope this scheme goes a long way in encouraging Scotland’s young people to see reading as an important leisure activity, as much as a school one.”

That we place reading for pleasure at the heart of any literacy development is crucial, especially in the early years, if we are to develop lifelong readers. Anything we can do to encourage that must be seen as a positive step. From experience, however, I think there may be some flaws with this venture.

Pleasure turns to burden

Education Scotland recently released another toolkit - yes, I know - allowing schools to embed the programme into their planning. And what seems to be done with all good intentions just comes across as another burdensome admin task that just gets in the way. It seems that getting kids to read is a very simple task, so why do we make it so complicated?

I’m also slightly disconcerted by the added burden of the book review. I’m not wholly against writing about reading, but I think we open up problem areas for some kids if we mesh something that we present as being for pleasure with something else that has its own pitfalls. Writing book reviews, long or short, can be a wonderful experience for kids who are confident readers and writers. For reluctant readers, though, the thought of having to do some writing after they’ve finished reading a book can turn them off reading forever. They are faced with all of the issues they have with literacy, now hitched to something that, remember, was supposed to be about pleasure.

I also have an issue with choice. To paraphrase Donalyn Miller, writer of The Book Whisperer - as I do time and time again - in order to create lifelong readers, we should provide three things: time, choice and love. Closing down the choice of reading material to a set list chosen by adults is a potential disaster. Kids like to read books recommended by their friends. The books may be terrible in our eyes but, with reluctant readers who we simply want to start reading, nothing should be off the table at first. Then perhaps, later on, we can start to push other books their way.

I love the fact that Nicola Sturgeon is talking publicly about her favourite books. We should all be doing the same in our classrooms and in our homes. I perhaps worry, though, that in order to take this forward, someone felt that it should be made into a competition. So one kid can read 10 short books while another reads one long door stopper: who should get a prize? If you teach kids, you’ll probably know that reading for pleasure is not as big a disaster area as we are led to believe. But for those who are still reluctant readers, we need to be careful to get our approach right.

Let’s accept that we, as teachers, help to create negative attitudes to reading through lack of choice, lack of good books, lack of time to read in school, lack of care. Together with a culture in which reading for pleasure has become an extravagant extra in the classroom, we are in the midst of creating a national scandal.

Save the Children, in its 2014 report Read on. Get On, claimed that, rather than raising achievement for all, “Our education system too often entrenches disadvantage and inequalities”. We have never been able to change that situation. For generations, we have placed our trust in a political framework that - surely! - had our best interests, and those of our children, at heart. But our education system just isn’t working for those that need it most: those kids that we spit out at the end of a 10-year period, little better prepared for the rest of their lives than when they entered it.

Gibberish of ‘21st-century skills’

If there’s one thing we can do, it is this: we can help to create a generation of kids who’ll be able to tell when they’re being shafted. Too often, we vote for those who will impose their political ideologies on us because we fail to engage in the detail of the debate. We don’t read the newspapers; we don’t know about the intricacies of the economy; we accept things too easily. We even resent those who protest on our behalf, for causing trouble and blocking our streets. So maybe by creating the conditions for our students to become good readers - readers who read because they choose to, who question, who think - then we can at least in some small way prepare them for the impact of politics on their lives to come.

Rather than concerning ourselves with the gibberish of “21st-century skills”, let’s get our young people reading - and enjoying reading. The kids who sit in front of you and me in our classrooms every day could well be future teachers, doctors and lawyers; a child in your S1 class might be the girl who finally cures cancer; the boy next to her might invent something that solves global warming. Shrugging your shoulders and harrumphing “What can you do?” just doesn’t cut it.

Literacy is a political as well as social act. Learning to read and write competently is a foundation of what it takes to lead a full and active life, and to take our place in society. Historically treated as a “moral virtue”, literacy is today treated more as a cognitive skill, but creating the environment for children to become readers, who read because they enjoy it and value it, must be the backbone of any education system.

If you are in a position where providing reading opportunities is possible, never, ever let that precious time slip away. Nothing else is so important that it can’t wait.

In short: let them read.

Kenny Pieper is a teacher of English based in Scotland, and author of Reading for Pleasure: a passport to everywhere

This article originally appeared in the 22 February 2019 issue under the headline: “Silence is olden”