Across the board, Australians are reading less than ever before, with young men reading the least and older women reading the most.
The trend is reinforced from a young age, with parents more likely to read to their daughters than sons.
Australia Reads, a book industry initiative, is calling for a national strategy that reminds people of the fun and comfort that reading can bring.
I read a lot of fiction books in my own time when I was in primary school for the enjoyment of it.
When I got to highschool I hated English so much. Analyse what the author’s theme was in this bla bla fuck off! Sucked the joy out of reading. Didn’t give me any useful skills for the career path I was heading in to either.
There needs to be an academic English subject for people who just need it to get in to STEM courses.
Took some years after high school to get back in to it, but I do occasionally read fiction when I have time these days.
We had that basically from the first grade of primary school. Each month a new book. It started with just summarizing the text, then gradually went from writing what you think the moral of the story is, to giving a full breakdown and analysis. 12 years of that, for the books I found mind-numbingly boring, that I ended up weaseling/cheatig my way through most of it without even reading. I remember giving my best to try read through the entire Crime and Punishment, but giving up 1/3 into the book. All the classic literature—just not for my brain.
Didn’t help that while my primary school teacher had tried to cultivate my creative writing (45 minute, graded assignment), my secondary school teacher was a snob who graded me lower just because she “didn’t like my style”. God, I hated school, lol.
I still like reading modern fantasy and some other genres, so there’s that, but school almost completely turned me off from reading.