Is Reading Difficult Books Possible for High School Students?

Families are stronger when individual members know how to read, enjoy reading, and can comprehend what they are reading, and strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations. Parents can help their children to develop reading and comprehension skills by introducing books to them at an early age and reading lots of books to them before and after they learn how to read for themselves.

One crucial point about encouraging children to read books: example is the greatest teacher. Parents should set a good example by reading books themselves as well as reading to their children.

I remember my concern with my youngest daughter when she enjoyed picture books more than books with words. When I spoke with her about my concern, I mentioned that words can paint wonderful pictures in our minds. To illustrate what I meant, my daughter and I began to read the first book of a nine-book historical fiction series titled The Work and the Glory. The series tells the story of the early years of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Our reading time became sacred to both of us, and something that we both enjoyed.

By the time we finished the series months later, my daughter was bringing home library books more appropriate for her age. As our children grow older, we can share diverse types of books with them to prepare them for reading and understanding books in high school and college.

Dr. John J. Goyette, vice president and dean emeritus at Thomas Aquinas College, shared his experience in reading a work of William Shakespeare as a 14-year-old freshman in high school. He described his difficulty in understanding the archaic vocabulary, confusing syntax, and the “relentless political maneuvering.” 

But, with the teacher’s help, I fought my way through, page by page, scene by scene, until I not only finished the tragedy, but appreciated it – the powerful rhetoric, the interplay of poetry and prose, the ominous imagery and macabre foreshadowing.

When I was done, I felt as if I’d just scaled Mount Everest, and a lifelong love of literature and learning was born.

Had my teacher assigned only an excerpt from “Julius Caesar” – or a shorter work, such as a sonnet – I wouldn’t have experienced that sense of accomplishment or intellectual growth. I would have suffered the same, initial frustration without attaining that ultimate joy.

Unfortunately, frustration without joy is the norm at most high schools these days, where dispirited teachers coddle students rather than educate them.

A New York Times survey of 2,000 educators, students, and parents finds that most high schoolers read very few, if any, full-length books anymore. Citing a lack of time, short attention spans, and a compulsion to teach to standardized tests, respondents reported that most students were lucky to read one or two books, per year, from beginning to end.

The result is a debased and diminished education.

When it comes to learning, there’s no substitute for reading a difficult book. It’s an unparalleled exercise in what the business world likes to call “deep thinking” – a sustained grappling with complex ideas or problems.

Research shows that long-form reading develops brain connectivity, intellectual stamina, critical thinking, and cognition.

Long books, especially the great ones, are the antidote to the micro-attention spans wrought by social media. For a generation that’s been reared on 30-second videos and 140-character messages, they are more needed than ever.

Generous excerpts, of course, have their place. I teach at a college that studies the Great Books, nearly all in their entirety, yet even we sometimes assign shorter texts and select passages from longer ones. Still, no one would ever claim that the short story, which is necessarily limited in its depth and themes, is literature’s finest form, and excerpts can never take the place of full works.

Pluck a canto from “The Divine Comedy” and you lose the scope of Dante’s epic journey, his character’s development and the recurring themes that shape his masterpiece.

Great poets and novelists present their readers with a complete story – one with a beginning, middle, and end, punctuated by surprises and plot twists. When teachers isolate key portions, they push their own interpretation at the expense of the author’s intended meaning.

At best, excerpting the great works highlights excellent writing, but it nonetheless strips these books of their magnitude and greatness, highlighting style while foregoing substance. Studying just a few pages of “Anna Karenina” or “The Brothers Karamazov” is the literary equivalent of looking at the “Mona Lisa” through a microscope.

We do our high schoolers a disservice by assuming they can no longer handle the quantity or quality of literature routinely read in past generations. When held to high standards, today’s students can – and do – flourish.