Etusivu >

Column: Reading is not fun – it is a survival skill

Column: Reading is not fun – it is a survival skill

Aleksis Salusjärvi teaches boys to read. He leads a Reading Center’s project, which aims to improve poor literacy skills of young males in vocational institutes. He writes

“In practice, literacy skills mean the ability to comprehend your environment. A hockey coach is said to possess an ability to read the game. This means that by observing the events in the game the coach understands what changes he need make to defeat the opposing team. Everyone has some sort of ability to read ice hockey. The fun of watching the game bases on the ability to read events in the game.

Offsides, penalties and passes are the grammar of hockey. However, the literacy skills of ice hockey can never be perfect. Every hockey coach would be better in their work if he could take into account more things and interpret them better.

Likewise it it said that a sailor can read the sea. He knows how the waves form up and how the winds and the currents affect to the heave of the sea. The better the sailor, the more difficult conditions he can bring the ship safely to the harbor.

When we speak about reading a text our idea of literacy skills change for some reason

Likewise it it said that a sailor can read the sea. He knows how the waves form up and how the winds and the currents affect to the heave of the sea. The better the sailor, the more difficult conditions he can bring the ship safely to the harbor.

When we speak about reading a text our idea of literacy skills change for some reason. It is commonly thought that the information is simply transmitted from books with the aid of literacy skills. In real life, reading a text is a same sort of skill as reading a hockey game. We can read a thousand books or watch a thousand games but our understanding of them both is solely based on the ability to take observations from the world opening up before our eyes.

Young people I mostly meet in schools do not read as a hobby. Still they understand texts reasonably well as long as the subject is interesting enough to them. Their unifying feature is that they do not comprehend the vastness of their abilities. When reading is not enjoyable for them, they do not harness their capacity into it properly. That is why textual skills are at risk to stay hidden.

In primary schools reading is force-fed like your greens or brushing your teeth

There is a unifying feature among all these boys that they think literacy skills mean grammar. Just like maths were only calculus operations. This seems to be unnoticed in general. Our whole society keep on telling about the importance of literacy skills but rarely discusses what literacy skills actually mean.

In primary schools reading is force-fed like your greens or brushing your teeth. Young people think that the importance of literacy skills mean that reading should be increased as a form of entertainment. It hasn’t dawned to them however why that should be done. They already know how to form speech sounds from written alphabetical letters. They are puzzled when the enjoyment does not come automatically like it was told to. It is probable that as long as we understand literacy skill as a mechanical thing the zest of reading among young people continues to fall.

Ten year old children are in especially important age group in which reading is decreased most during last few years. It is revealing that in that particular age where reading is no longer a technical execution, it’s usage decreases considerably. Like children of ten years think they can read at the level that is relevant to their life.

No professional hockey team would recruit a 10-year-old hockey coach even if he knew the rulebook perfectly. Literacy skill takes huge steps still at adult age if only you work on it. Our conceptual thinking expands enormously at our teens. The connection between literacy skills and quality of life is not explained to children clearly enough.

Literacy skill takes huge steps still at adult age if only you work on it

The ability to adopt knowledge and have multiple points of view are crucial. You cannot get along in information society without these skills. Even more important is however that without the ability to name the problems facing us in our lives we can’t get a grip of them. A human of this kind is left alone. He isolates from others behind the language barrier caused by poor literacy skills.

One reason explaining this problem seems to be that children are taught that reading is fun. In terms of learning the fun in reading is an obvious incentive. Back in the day, boys were taught to read by waving a whip which made them hate it. The joy of reading is without a doubt important thing. But when we keep on talking about the importance of zest to read we ignore especially those boys who clearly do not enjoy reading. Every day I see boys of that sort.

The ability to adopt knowledge and have multiple points of view are crucial

They have typically impediments like word-blindness or learning difficulty. Reading is a struggle for them and forced conversion to books does not help with the motivation either. In the same way physical education or Swedish language are subjects that many regard as force-feeding. The benefits of physical education and language skills are however commonly recognized. This is not the case with extensive literacy skills.

Children in the fourth grade should be told all the many uses literacy skill is needed. Not for grammar or leisure but it is the key to comprehending conditions around you, just like navigating at sea. It does often bring pleasure, but first and foremost, it it a precondition to survival.

Author Aleksis Salusjärvi is an editor in chief and a critic based in Helsinki, Finland. He enjoys poetry and teaches writing about the arts in higher education institutes and courses. In 2017 he visits vocational colleges around Finland organizing workshops about rap lyrics. 

Read the whole column