Are teens able to read anymore? – The cultures of reading in the writings of upper school teens

Authors

• Julia Harju Helsingin yliopisto

Abstract

The ways children read have changed, and their reading of traditional fiction has become just one hobby among many. This is evident in texts written by children in the Finnish Literature Society’s “Life as a Reader” collection, viewed through the child-oriented perspective in folkloristics. In the material, these ways of reading can be heard as the children themselves report them. Oral history data has rarely been collected from children, though oral history is an essential part of folklore. Written memoirs collected from children have special features: temporal and spatial perspectives are limited, and their written skills are not comparable to adults’. The school is a fundamental part of children’s reading. The challenge of incorporating literature in education is finding a balance between raising motivation and getting the children acquainted with different types of literature. Longing for freedom of choice is prevalent in children’s writings. Although the data-collection methods are designed and implemented by adults, the reading experiences of the children do not fit into adult-defined categories. For example, for children, magazines and books are not clear-cut categories. Magazines are read abundantly, and, in them, the biggest differences between the sexes are apparent. An exception to this is Donald Duck, which is read by almost all children. Similarly, books are described in two juxtaposing ways: few children say they read a lot, but many say that, when they find a good book, it really draws them in. Digital texts also compete with traditional forms of reading in terms of time, but this does not necessarily mean that reading is decreasing; rather, its forms are diversifying.