Books Reading and Libraries

Recent research by the Pew Research Center found that the share of Americans who have read a book in any format in the last year has remained steady at 73%, unchanged since 2012. The average number of books read per year has also remained steady since 2012 at 12. While this is US research it is probable that a survey of New Zealanders reading habits would return similar results. 

The second article “The big school shake-up” from the New Zealand Herald reports that some New Zealand children are starting school without the ability to speak in sentences. Reasons cited for this decline in the spoken-language ability of new entrants include increased screen time in front of electronic devices and fewer parents reading to their kids. The article notes that children with poor oral skills are going to struggle with reading and writing. 

The messages I draw from these articles is that in the digital age we live in people are continuing to read lots of books which is gratifying. The oft predicted demise of the public library, usually made by people who don’t use or understand libraries, is not about to happen anytime soon. The second point is that a number of parents are not finding time to read to and have conversations with their children and this may mean they may lag behind when they start school. 

Bringing your preschoolers to the library, reading them stories and discussing them are great ways of building oral language skills. Story time sessions are held at all our libraries each week and numbers attending have shown a marked increase in the last few years which shows that many parents and grand-parents are aware of the importance of books and reading in a child’s overall development.