Books vs. Screens: It Doesn't Have to Be a Battle

Good Tidings Blog · For Parents & Teachers · 5 min read

It's 6:15 pm. Dinner's half-eaten, backpacks are still by the door, and somewhere between "five more minutes" and the third negotiation of the evening, you've had the thought every parent and teacher of a young reader has had at least once this week: are screens winning?

Here's the good news — this isn't actually a fight you need to win. It's a balance you get to build, one small, doable shift at a time.

The real numbers (without the doom and gloom)

Let's start with what's true, because you deserve real information instead of another guilt trip.

A large 2025 study published in JAMA Network Open followed thousands of elementary schoolers in Ontario over more than a decade and found that kids with more total screen time — especially TV and digital media — tended to score lower on standardized reading and math tests. It's one of the most robust looks yet at how early screen habits echo into the classroom.

At the same time, national reading scores in the U.S. have been slipping for over a decade, a trend that started before the pandemic and hasn't fully reversed. And on average, American adults now read for personal enjoyment only about 15 minutes a day — a habit kids absorb by watching us, not just by being told to pick up a book.

None of this means screens are the villain. Plenty of research shows educational apps and thoughtful screen use can support learning too. The takeaway isn't "screens bad, books good." It's that reading time is precious and finite, and it's worth protecting on purpose — because right now, it's quietly losing ground by default.

Why "just turn it off" doesn't work

If banning screens worked, every parent would have done it by now. The truth is, screens meet real needs: a few minutes of quiet for a tired parent, a wind-down for an overstimulated kid, a shared laugh over a favorite show. Reading has to compete with something fast, easy, and dopamine-friendly — and that's not a fair fight if books are framed as a chore.

So instead of a battle, think of it as a rebalancing. Small, consistent shifts beat big dramatic rules every time.

Five realistic shifts that actually stick

1. Anchor reading to something that already happens. Bedtime, the car ride home, right after snack — attach reading to an existing routine instead of trying to carve out a brand-new one. Habits stack better than they start from scratch.

2. Make books as reachable as the tablet. If the iPad lives on the coffee table and the books live in a bin in the closet, you already know who's winning. Keep a small basket of books somewhere your child naturally lands — the couch, the car, the backseat pocket.

3. Let screen time and story time coexist. You don't have to eliminate screens to grow a reader. Try a simple rhythm: a show after fifteen minutes with a book, not instead of it. The goal is addition, not subtraction.

4. Read the room, not just the clock. Some days, twenty minutes of a picture book flies by. Other days, three pages is a win. Especially for reluctant readers, short, joyful, low-pressure sessions build more trust in reading than long mandatory ones ever will.

5. Model it — out loud, sometimes. Kids notice what grown-ups actually do. Let them catch you reading for fun, not just telling them to. Even narrating it — "I can't wait to find out what happens next in my book" — plants the idea that reading is something enjoyed, not just assigned.

For teachers: small classroom shifts, big ripple effects

The same principles hold true at school. A five-minute read-aloud after recess, a classroom "book nook" that's cozier than the tech corner, or letting kids choose their own books rather than assigning every title — these small design choices quietly tip the scales toward reading feeling like a want to, not a have to.

The bigger picture

This isn't about perfection or eliminating screens from your child's life. It's about making sure books get a fair shot at competing for attention — a cozy, low-pressure, joyful shot, not a forced one.

That's exactly the spirit behind Good Tidings — poems and stories written to be the kind of reading a child asks for, not the kind they're assigned. Short, playful, and full of heart, they're designed to slip easily into the little pockets of the day where a book can quietly win out over a screen — bedtime, car rides, a few minutes before dinner.

The goal was never to fight the screens. It's to make sure books have just as inviting a seat at the table.

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Tags: screen time · reading habits · read aloud · elementary parenting · classroom ideas · Good Tidings blog