Reading challenge aids understanding

As the operators of a printed word medium, we applaud the Worcester County Library for continuing to offer its annual summer reading challenge to promote childhood literacy.

All the library’s branches — Pocomoke, Snow Hill, Berlin, Ocean Pines and Ocean City — will be participating in this exercise, the theme of which this year is “Dinosaurs.”

That’s ironic and possibly even appropriate that kids will be reading about dinosaurs while a vanishing species of communication — a newspaper — congratulates them for it.

Of course, both librarians and newspaper people revere the written word, since it is the most effective way to help people understand what they see and why they are seeing it.

Unfortunately, however, it’s a fact that more of society’s information is transmitted via visual media these days, but it is also a fact that society’s understanding of this information has declined: a 2024 study of young adults (18-24) showed 40% could only answer one out of four standard civics questions correctly.

That’s according to the National Literacy Institute, which also found that approximately 40% of U.S. students cannot read at a basic level.

Based on those findings, here’s a scary thought: as these students reach adulthood, it’s likely that nearly half of them will not be able to communicate as effectively as the other half.

 Their understanding of or interest in the events and issues of the day will be limited, which means their participation in society will be limited to having decisions made for them.

Childhood literacy is more than a nice, clean noncontroversial goal to support. It’s also about giving young people what they need to survive and succeed when their turn at the wheel arrives.