On Tuesday’s opinion page there was a column from Rich Lowry titled “Our screen culture increasingly can’t read” that struck a chord with me. In it he cites a New York Times survey that said 80 percent of teachers said that students at their schools have a device assigned to them and that more than 80 percent said that kids get devices assigned to them by kindergarten. He also mentioned a report that said over the past 10 years, reading scores have declined in 83 percent of school districts.

I was interested in this correlation as it’s something I’ve been curious about. I know devices are in classrooms and I’m not saying they shouldn’t be, although it was refreshing to hear at the most recent Granada-Huntley-East Chain School Board meeting that administration is looking to de-emphasize technology next school year. Instead of assigning one-to-one devices as in previous years, there will be a Chromebook cart in classrooms that teachers will use at their discretion. They acknowledged there is good in technology but also noticed students disengaging and misusing it, which shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

Now, I have no schooling in education but I would debate the merits of technology in the classroom. I too believe there is a time and a place for it and that it needs to be used responsibly.

But, moving away from talk about technology, I’d like to talk about books. And by books I mean physical, hefty, fragrant books.

It’s no wonder I love books. I was named “biggest bookworm” my senior year of high school, I have a degree in journalism and I work at a newspaper. I strongly agree with the quote, “Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river,” attributed to Virginia Woolf. In fact, the quote sits on top of the large bookshelf my dad and my husband built together for our home. The quote is one of the only things sitting on the bookshelf that is not a book.

That Rich Lowry column I mentioned also cites a report that said reading for pleasure has steadily declined since 2003 and I think that is very unfortunate. Not only is reading a book a break from the TV, the computer, the cellphone, but the benefits of it are endless. Reading builds vocabulary, boosts memory, improves creativity, etc. What Virginia Woolf said is true, too. Often times when I’m writing an article I’ll write out a word, pause, look it up and be surprised to learn that I used it correctly. It will be a word I didn’t even know that I knew, which I can only assume I remembered from reading it in a book.

You can look at say, pictures of animals and pictures of historic buildings, but there’s nothing like seeing them with your own eyes. It’s why we take kids on field trips to the zoo and class trips to the state capital. I think so much can also be gained from reading a physical book.

Sure, you can read an E book as it’s still reading after all. Of course I am partial to the physical book as I am to the physical paper, although the Sentinel has an E edition, too (more on that another time).

With the school year coming to a close very soon, my hope is that some teachers have assigned summer reading, and if not them, then I hope parents encourage reading throughout the summer months. If I could, I know I would I’d assign every kid the task of reading just one book (if not more) this summer.