The reading comprehension of Spanish students has worsened, according to international evaluations. (According to the PISA Report), (the first edition in which Spain of the) participated. Gemma Lluch, Professor of Philology at the University of Valencia, has just published with seven colleagues the conclusions of 20 years of research. The books we read, who, where and how do you decide? It is a work that dedicates many pages to children and adolescents, and the role of the school. The interview takes place in Lluch’s office, born 67 years ago in the port of Sagunto (Valencia), with the sun that filters through the window while spilling on lots of volumes.
Ask. His research summarizes the characteristics of the books that recommend to the kids the influencers. How are they?
Answer. We have been investigating it since 2003. We start analyzing the forums of, then blogs,, now, and despite the time elapsed and the different platforms, the characteristics are the same. The type of book they recommend is narrative fiction, epic, epic fantasy, and more and more romantic. Mostly, translated from English and with a repeated narratological pattern. They are the same books continuously. If you ask for a teenager who tells you the arguments, many times it is difficult to distinguish them.
P. Are there differences with what they find in public libraries and at school?
R. In Spanish libraries there is an abysmal difference between what adolescents ask at the counter, without mediation, of what they read in those organized by their own public or school libraries, in which there is such mediation by the librarian or a teacher. In the counter ask practically the same as recommended by the book influencers. We can say that they are always reading the same, it is like a pattern that they need to repeat continuously. In the case of reading clubs, mediation is magical. They are not only news, but books of different historical moments. They come from different cultures, for example, in reading clubs the different languages of the State are read, something that happens very rarely when they ask at the counter.
P. And in schools?
R. There are some books that would be the same characteristics as those of the book influencer. We find three or four repeated titles, but we also see works that belong to cultural heritage.
P. In their research they point out that children and adolescents tend to demand stories with which they identify.
R. Yes. It occurs in different ways, but there is a type of book that is deeply rooted in its reality, its daily life. There are research that suggests that in a few years these books can be read as a period diary. And there is a type of book that gives their life problems. Both PISA and a government survey on cultural consumption agree that adolescents and post -adolescents like less and less to read fiction, but they do like to read, say, of things in life, and that they offer them solutions. And this type of narrative fiction, which puts them in front of them, for example, of a problem of bullyingof, etc., and provides some type of solution, perfectly league with that preference. On the one hand it is fiction, and on the other it shows that there is a way out of the vital conflicts they have in that time of personal construction that is adolescence. Then, within narrative fiction, Harry Potter represents a paradigmatic example of identification. It begins with an 11 -year -old boy, who begins schooling, and the reader grows as the protagonist does. JK Rowling (its author) uses different mechanisms to capture her attention. The choral prominence of the work means that if you are a reader, you identify with the girl. If you are a little more patious you identify with the boy … each reader finds his alter ego. And the abundance of dialogue, common in these books, which makes the rhythms very fast, adapts a lot to the current youth reader.
P. Does it connect with your audiovisual culture?
R. Yes. Authors of Sagas of great success, such as (Suzanne Collins), are television series screenwriters, and that shows in style.
P. Why do sagas succeed (a universe that closes with the last book) and the series (one book behind another) among the kids?
R. They become familiar with the characters, they are predictable, they are easy to read and recognize in that fiction universe. They always expect the same reading. At the same time, parents, mothers and teachers facilitate things because they know that these books are going to succeed and are reliable. The question is whether they stay alone in that or if it is the obligation of the school that grow and break that model to go more.
P. Should the educational centers offer students these types of books they demand, even if only as a way to get them to read?
R. There is no data to be able to say if that type of literature is a bridge to reach another. But I think it is important to break the mental construction that associates classical reading, both ancient and modern, with obligation and boredom.
P. Does science say anything about the effects that kids read classic works?
A. An investigation carried out in Germany over time, among adolescents who read the type of books we commented and adolescents who read modern classics, has measured how it influences their, like empathy. In the first case it was seen that I did not influence, and in the second yes, there was a major empathy. Because? A hypothesis is that most classics, modern or traditional, pose different worlds from those of boys. Characters with more depth, of different ages, geographical, cultural, and ethnic origin, with problems and historical moments other than yours. And that breaks that inertia of our time, reinforced by social networks and algorithms, which leads us to think about ourselves, and to talk to people similar to us. We must investigate more, but until now we defended the reading of the classics as a cultural aspect, and now we see that it is not only cultural. It seems that there is a benefit, say, psychological, and that it helps to form them as citizens and to see diversity.
P. Does the adapted classics include in this?
R. Yes. We attended a school library in which a chapter of the eRan children aged nine and ten, who then asked comments, questions and highlighted what had caught their attention. The book raised issues: “Why does Lazarillo not report the blind to the police?”, “What it does is prohibited, cannot be mistreated by a child”, “If you are hungry, because you are not going to a social dining room?” “Why didn’t the mother give it to adoption?” The book speaks of the reality of a historical moment of Spain that clashes with yours and causes a number of questions that other books, in which a school and an environment like the one they live, can hardly cause.
P. Reading classics is more complex.
A. Yes, but in many educational centers and school libraries, magnificent practices are carried out. There are a series of reading competitions of complex texts that are obviously acquired in literature class. And there are others that are acquired in the school library. They are experiences that can be acquired with the rest of the educational community, teachers, families. And that does not only imply literature class, but also can involve others, such as history, geography or plastic for example.
Q. How is the health of school libraries in Spain?
A. There is a big difference between autonomous communities. They work wonderfully in Extremadura and Galicia. And in other places they are left of the hand of God regarding public education policies, although there may be schools with good experiences because teachers have worked on them.
Q. Spanish teenagers read less and less?
A. There are no conclusive data. Between 2009 and 2018, the percentage of those who read for pleasure fell five percentage points, and that of those who considered that reading was a waste of time, five other points went up, according to data from the PISA report. But they are prior to the pandemic. What there is is a huge, growing gap, among the children of families with cultural capital, who read at home, and those who do not have it and do not. And that has an impact on their educational results. The school has the obligation to level the cultural capital that the boys bring from home.
