Hissy Fit - April 2026 - Wholly-Moly: And Now, the Rest of the Story

April 2026 Issue
by Elizabeth Skenes Millen

 
Let’s talk about reading. I’ll admit right upfront I’m a avid reader, usually logging more than 50 books per year. I’ve always thought if I could have a superpower, I would want to be able to teleport like Samantha in Bewitched. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to snap your fingers and be in Paris for lunch and back in the Lowcountry by suppertime? But if I could have a second superpower, I want to be able to hold a book to my head and it soak into my brain with full understanding in under a minute. My to-be-read list would never be backlogged!

I had to write about reading this month because I heard something disturbing that sent me straight into a hissy fit. (Naturally, I thought it would be appropriate to air it out here in my column entitled “Hissy Fit.”) Here’s what I heard: Most high schools no longer require students to read books in entirety unless the student is in honors or AP levels.

What?

You better believe I went to digging for the truth—if that is possible, and here’s what I found according to AI: “In many schools today, students are less often required to read entire books cover-to-cover, but that doesn’t mean reading books has disappeared.”

Well, isn’t that refreshing?

I dug further: Apparently, teachers are using more excerpts and shorter texts such as passages, articles, or selected chapters instead of full novels. Cited reasons include time constraints and packed curriculums, so digital and multimedia learning, a.k.a. videos, summaries, and interactive content, sometimes supplement or replace long reading.

You mean to tell me Cliff Notes (now known as Spark Notes) are now all that’s required? I’m calling Irmo High School and asking for an up-grade—pun intended! I read every necessary Cliff Note cover-to-cover. I learned more Shakespeare quotes than needed in a lifetime, but here, today’s kids are not even equipped with one
“Et tu, Brute?”

AI says today’s students must focus on standardized testing, which places importance on reading comprehension skills (analyzing passages) more than finishing whole books. What’s next? Not finishing whole sentences? And did AI just come up with an excuse for all this nonsense? Don’t tell me AI has children who aren’t doing so well in reading.

Question: If students don’t read full books, how can they comprehend them fully? Doth thou not needeth the whole picture to understandeth—and comprehendeth? What is going on-eth? What am I missing? Let me ask former CBS Correspondent Andy Rooney. He answered, “…the rest of the story.”

Exactly.

If school curriculum doesn’t have time for the average student to read a book cover-to-cover, I feel sorry for today’s youth and frightened for the future of our country. According to The Guardian, “Reading scores among high school seniors have fallen to historic lows.” And the National Literacy Institute reports, “About 64–69% of 4th graders are not proficient readers.” I used to volunteer to read to 4th graders because I was told by teachers that students not reading on grade level by 4th grade are at higher risk of ongoing academic struggles and lower graduation rates. Catching up becomes harder because they are behind in both reading skills and content knowledge. So, doesn’t this prove how important reading is? And, if so, why are we cutting back on it?

Students are being pushed too fast these days. They are completing courses in grades one or two years earlier than students did 25 years ago, and it’s just not sticking. We are being told as far as maturity goes that age 28 is the new 18, and a “child’s” brain doesn’t fully develop for making good decisions until at least age 25. Yet we are pushing some of the toughest courses to lower grades and younger children. What are curriculum educators thinking?

I’ll tell you what most believe: Those standardized test are rapidly reducing our children’s true knowledge and lessening the experience of well-rounded learning. And it’s such a mistake to “grade” teachers on children’s test scores. Why we allow this is beyond me. Because of this, teachers have been forced to dwindle subjects down to a multiple choice learning experience. Where is the wonder, the curiosity? What happened to the a-ha moments? I’m not saying they’re all gone, especially if you’re an honors student, but subjects as a whole have been diminished to mere pieces and parts. If you don’t agree, then why aren’t high schoolers reading books cover-to-cover?

And guess what else? According to AI, skimming and short-form content is the least beneficial type of reading. This includes quick summaries, short passages, social media posts and headlines. This sort of reading trains the brain to fast scan, giving quick information hits, which weakens attention spans (like we need more of that), reduces deep comprehension, and encourages shallow understanding
a.k.a. comprehension.

So, here we are full circle where it didn’t make sense to begin with, and it doesn’t make sense now that it's been dissected. But, no worries, because we can probably pass the standardized test:

What is the main idea of this passage?

A. Nothing makes sense anymore because no-one
has to read the whole book.

B. Nothing makes sense anymore because curriculum
people forgot what learning is about.

C. Nothing makes sense anymore because the
“system” goes against all common sense.

D. All of the above