10/15/2026
Finding time to read, by Ashlee Nouri:
Once adolescents reach high school, they often cite time constraints as one of the biggest obstacles to having a reading life (Merga & Moon, 2016; Tlou & Snyman, 2020; Wilkinson et al., 2020). Between school, extracurricular activities, jobs, chores, and other responsibilities, the time crunch is a real issue. In truth, though, the problem is less about having time and more about taking time. Recently, 9th grade students at LHS were tasked with brainstorming times throughout the day when they could fit in a few minutes of reading rather than trying to find long spans of reading time. Here are a few solutions that showed up repeatedly:
1. Listen to an audiobook while showering, doing chores, cooking, or riding in the car.
2. Read in the bathroom. 🙂
3. Replace some screentime with reading.
4. Read on the bus or car ride to school and extracurricular activities.
5. Read while waiting in line.
6. Read before school, during activity period, or during lunch.
7. Read after finishing work in classes.
Students were further instructed to estimate the amount of time they found in their brainstorming process, and the numbers ranged anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour daily. The time is there; kids just have to be explicitly taught how to find it and be deliberate about taking it.
Merga, M.K., & Moon, B. (2016). The impact of social influences on high school students’ recreational reading. The High School Journal, 99(2), 122-140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944118779615
Tlou, C., & Snyman, M. (2020). Leisure reading: A case study of adolescent readers at Lethabile Community Library. South African Journal of Libraries & Information Science, 86(1), 1-14. http://dx.doi.org/1.7552/86-1-1795
Wilkinson, K., Andires, V., Howarth, D., Bonsall, J., Sabeti, S., & McGeown, S. (2020). Reading during adolescence: Why do adolescents choose (or do not choose) books. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 64(2), 157-166. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2015.1048503
