Are students being asked to read fewer full-length novels in school?

Are students being asked to read fewer full-length novels in school? In short, there’s no definitive data on how many schools are reducing the number of books on their curriculums. But teachers and administrators are seeing a reason to assign more short texts (even excerpts from books), articles, or digital texts, matching the media landscape students see in real life—and their potentially shorter attention spans. It’s also a reflection of teaching toward the end of scoring well on standardized tests, which sometimes means reading less of each book to cover more material. But there’s obvious push back: experts in academics say it won’t benefit students’ critical thinking skills, and might even impact their ability to empathize with others’ lives. As it stands now, likely due in part to pandemic learning, fourth and eigth graders reaching reading proficiency was down “significantly” in 2022 from 2019. (ABC News)