Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class

Summary

“We do one book after state testing, and we did ‘The Great Gatsby.’ … A lot of kids had not read a novel in class before.”— Laura Henry, 10th-grade English teacher near Houston“My son in 9th grade listened to the audio of ‘A Raisin in the Sun.’ For ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ they watched the balcony scene instead of reading.” — Rebekah Jacobs, Rockville, Md.“We typically spend a ridiculous amount of time reading each book, such that in my freshman year, we read only one, ‘Macbeth.’”— Liv Niklasson, age 16, Los Alamos, N.M.Dec. 12, 2025In American high schools, the age of the book may be fading.Many teenagers are assigned few full books to read from beginning to end — often just one or two per year, according to researchers and thousands of responses to an informal reader survey by The New York Times.Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows, and college professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts.Perhaps that is to be expected in the era of TikTok and A.I. Some education experts believe that in the near future, even the most sophisticated stories and knowledge will be imparted mainly through audio and video, the forms that are dominating in the era of mobile, streaming media.We wanted to find out how students and teachers feel about the shift, and what role schools can play. So The Times asked educators, parents and students to tell us about their experiences with high school reading.