National Assessment of Academic Ability: Poor Reading and Writing Skills Cannot Be Left Unaddressed

Editorial

15:20 JST, July 30, 2024

The spread of social media is likely responsible for the current situation. Exchanges involving short text messages are increasingly common, and opportunities to read and write long sentences are shrinking. An environment must be created in which children can focus on the printed word.

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry has released the results of this year’s national assessment of academic ability for sixth-grade elementary school students and third-year junior high school students.

Of the tests in Japanese and arithmetic/mathematics, the average percentage of correct answers in Japanese for junior high school students was only 58.4%, the lowest ever. Of the three skills of speaking/listening, writing and reading, the percentage of correct answers in reading was particularly low. Looking at the style of the questions, the percentage of correct answers to descriptive questions was also low.

The education ministry said “the content of the questions varies each year, so a simple comparison with past years is not appropriate.” In recent years, however, experts have repeatedly pointed out problems with children’s reading comprehension and their ability to create sentences.

The causes of low scores for reading and writing need to be thoroughly analyzed, but the current situation cannot be left unaddressed until the results of that analysis are known. First of all, the improvement of reading comprehension and writing skills must be hastened through guidance in reading books and writing compositions.

Many schools are reporting that children are only watching social media and videos, and not reading books. They have become accustomed to communicating with short text messages and emoji, and reading and writing long sentences is stressful for them.

The fact that in part of the descriptive questions for junior high school students, the percentage of unanswered questions was as high as 15% cannot be unrelated to this situation.

The central government devised the GIGA School Concept to promote the digitization of education, and had distributed a learning computer device to almost every student by the 2021 school year.

The third-year junior high school students who took the latest test belong to a generation that has been familiar with having their own computers since they were in the higher grades of elementary school. The impact of this is not likely to be small.

There have been reports of problems in many places with students taking their devices home and spending long hours watching videos and playing games. In response to complaints from parents, some local governments have made it possible for each household to limit the amount of time children can use the devices at home.

According to a questionnaire survey conducted at the same time as the test, 20% of elementary school students and 30% of junior high school students said they spend more than three hours a day watching social media and videos. These students were found to spend little time studying and to have irregular lifestyles, such as late bedtime.

The distribution of computer devices to students was hastened under the GIGA School Concept, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so the status of their use and the educational effects remain unclear. The latest findings should be used as an opportunity to examine the effectiveness of the program and any issues there may be.

The ability to read sentences and think is the foundation of human knowledge. It is imperative to take measures to curb the trend away from the printed word.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, July 30, 2024)