A new report into what children are reading at school shows a "marked downturn in difficulty of books at secondary transfer", it was revealed today. The books children are reading in year 7, according to the report What Kids Are Reading, include tons of Jeff Kinney's Wimpy Kid titles and David Almond's (wonderful) Skellig, along with Roald Dahl's The Twits and George's Marvellous Medicine. By year 7, says the study, which calculates the reading level of a book using software that measures the text's complexity, "students are reading at over a year below their chronological age".
According to the report's author, Professor Keith Topping, this is a "matter for alarm". According to Philip Pullman, speaking on Radio 4 on Wednesday, there's not much need for panic. "Isn't it only the natural thing to do? You go from being a big child in a small school to a very small child in a very big school. There's all sorts of new anxieties, new people to meet, thousands of new things to do – so isn't it natural you turn back to the things you felt safe with when you were younger? I remember doing that myself," said Pullman. "I am a bit puzzled why there's all this anxiety, that they're not reading for pleasure, that they're reading the wrong books. Well, no, it's not the wrong book. If the child is enjoying it, it's the right book."
Well, yes. Pullman's words cast me back to the worries of starting secondary school, and I vividly remember returning, once home, to the familiar worlds of Green Knowe and Kirrin Island, Redwall – oh, the late, lamented Brian Jacques – and The Borrowers. Ballet Shoes, White Boots, Apple Bough: I loved Noel Streatfeild, and it was comforting – more than that, it was wonderful – to be able to sink back into these much loved titles, regardless of the fact that I was starting to learn French and had my own locker and a packed lunch.
I asked children's writer Mal Peet what he thought. He identifies three reasons for the lack of challenge for younger readers. "Kids are often going through a reading programme that holds them back, and they get used to 'easy' reading. Also, teachers and librarians are quite properly keen to motivate kids to read, and sometimes fear to recommend books that pupils might find difficult in case it 'puts them off'. Publishers, for marketing reasons, are keen to slot books into fairly narrow market segments, and these 'genres' naturally aggregate linguistic levels (and indeed content) that are commercially viable - ie, safe.
"One of the most important by-products of our reading is that we expand, develop and refresh our grasp and use of language. That doesn't happen if everything we read is easy and already familiar. That's why challenging youngsters is vitally important. The trick is to write gripping or engaging stories in adventurous and ambitious prose. But it ain't easy. Nor should it be."
Kate Wilson, of the publisher Nosy Crow, agrees that old favourites have value. On Twitter this morning, she pointed to her own thoughts about "children choosing to read 'easy' books @ times of school transition", saying that it's something "to be celebrated", and picking out a host of books I'm now desperate to reread myself: The Little White Horse, The Secret Garden, Little House on the Prairie.
I may not be at school, but comfort reading, rereading and easy reading is something I've been doing rather a lot of lately. When I'm not reading for work purposes, I rarely have the energy to start something new. Instead, I'd rather return to something familiar, which – if I'm lucky, and it hasn't crossed my rereading path for a while – I'll probably have forgotten most of, so will be able to enjoy all over again.
In recent months, I've made my way back through all the Mary Stewarts I own (and have mourned the fact that she hasn't written more). I've returned to Georgette Heyer for the first time in years, and been delighted, again, by her Regency romances. And I've reread Needful Things and Gerald's Game by Stephen King to see how they measured up to my memories. (Not as good; I prefer It and Misery.)
In fact, the book on my bedside table right now is a reread: Robert C O'Brien's The Silver Crown. It was yanked off my bookshelf by a curious baby and I was instantly transported back to the world of 10-year-old Ellen, so I leapt back in yesterday evening. I'm not sure what that would put my reading age at, but I'd imagine, at 34, I'm being "seriously underchallenged". Ah well. The Silver Crown is just as good as I remember it being all those years ago, and I'm tired, so the age-appropriate stuff can wait.
