I recently called attention to Beth McMurtrie’s piece, “Is This the End of Reading?” which discusses the decline of reading in our schools and universities. McMurtrie’s piece ended on a bleak note with comments from a professor who suggested that we’re “entering into a hybrid oral-written culture.” He concluded, “Humanity is going to take its course no matter what I try to do about it.”

I agree completely. But whatever course humanity takes doesn’t mean that we and our children must follow blindly. We have a choice. Though the digital age is rapidly transforming how we live, work, and even think, we can endow our young with the gifts found in reading and comprehending books: the power of concentration, intellectual depth, character development, and wisdom.

Here are some ways to make this happen.

Dismiss All Expectations of Help or Change from Big Government

The 21st century has proven that our federal government destroys what it promises to fix. Healthcare, education, our legal system, our national debt, our social programs: all are broken. So don’t wait for positive change to come from above. Parents are the primary educators of their children. To navigate the straits in which our young people learn and think, we must take the helm.

Begin with Basics

To bring young people together with books, we must first make them competent readers. Whatever your situation – homeschool, private school, public school – this is key. As a parent, you need to discern whether your child is reading at an appropriate level. If not, then it’s time to give them a boost.

Unless a child has some disability like dyslexia, becoming a good reader is not rocket science. With the tools available today, hundreds of thousands of homeschooling parents are teaching their children to read. You can do the same.

Make Books a Part of Your Home Life

Just having books in your home doesn’t always make a child a reader. But set aside some time in the evening for reading, preferably with the whole family engaged. Read aloud together or silently. Seeing you with a book in your hand sends a powerful message to children and teens.

No Screens When They’re Young, Limited Screens as They Mature

By now, most parents are aware of the detrimental effects of phones and computers on the young. For a wonderfully concise report on this issue, I urge you to watch the speech British actress Sophie Winkleman delivered at the 2025 Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference. In just less than 20 minutes, Winkleman address this “unthinking crossover from the analogue to the digital” and nails all that’s wrong with giving children cell phones at a young age or failing to monitor their use when in the hands of teenagers.

One of her main points, so often overlooked, is that screens and books are in competition with each other, and books are generally the loser. Put an adolescent in front of a screen, Winkleman rightly contends, and he’s hooked. From then on, books are an afterthought, always in second place.

Keep Your Eye on the Homework and the Classroom

From elementary school through graduate school, grade inflation is now rampant. That “C” which once stood for average is in many places the bottom of the totem pole of grades, with more students than ever earning As. Meanwhile, college professors are finding that students today can’t handle the academic demands faced by their predecessors, and so lower their expectations of the students. The students complain, the workload and expectations go down, the grades go up, and the cycle continues year after year, brains, willpower, and concentration swirling down the drain.

Meanwhile, parents assume that their children are learning and being challenged, and so take a hands-off attitude. I saw this tendency even in the homeschooling parents whose children attended my Latin and liberal arts seminars.

Don’t give way to this temptation. Check your children’s schoolwork. Read those essays and see if they’re up to snuff. Have the kids read aloud from their history or literature texts to check their skill and comprehension. Weigh the load of academic work they’re carrying and ask if it’s sufficient to prepare them for college or for the workforce. If they do go to college, impress on them the importance of spending effort and hours on their studies.

Most students are far more capable of learning than we give them credit. It’s up to parents and teachers to steer them, guide them so that eventually they’ll have one foot in the analog realm of reading and the other in the digital realm now upon us.

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This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

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