Children Don’t Like to Read; What Can be Done to Change This

By Dawn-Marie O’Neale

It’s official. Too many children are not keen on reading. My experience as an educator has made this quite clear to me over the last few years.

Although everyone has their preferences and children should be included in that ‘everyone’, for me, knowing that some children cannot appreciate the joys of reading is a little disturbing.

When I was younger, I loved to read. There was nothing better than getting a new book and finding a nice, quiet corner to sit in so that I could dive right into it.

I’m 23 now, and if I was given a choice between spending my entire evening reading and watching the newest movie that came out, I would choose to spend my evening reading.

However, in my teaching experience so far, I’m noticing that more and more children are shying away from reading.

It is a constant challenge to get many of my students to read the books or stories that are prescribed for Literature class.

Even worse, most times when I walk into class ready to facilitate discussion on what I asked the students to read during the week, I would observe certain children’s enthusiasm drain from their bodies.

This behaviour shocked me a little, because until then, almost everyone I knew loved reading.

I immediately started to ask questions such as “Why would children think this or feel this way about reading?” and “How can I help them see reading the way I do?”.

I haven’t conducted any extensive research as yet, but after interacting with groups of children (aged 11-16) every day during the last school term, I think I’ve found a few reasons for why some children dislike reading.

The most common one seems to be that some of them know they can’t read as well as others, so they may feel ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb’ when they have to do it, especially if they have to read out loud in front of their teacher, any other adult or their classmates.

Some children may even feel like others will judge or make fun of them because of the way they read.

Truthfully, they wouldn’t be wrong, but there are a few ways you can help children overcome this fear while encouraging them to become better readers.

As a teacher, I encourage all of my students to take turns in reading class notes aloud. This way, I hear and see reading mistakes all the time.

Most mistakes occur when students pronounce a certain word or two incorrectly. But I’ve found that those same students respond really well when you offer encouraging words such as, “That’s okay” or “We all make mistakes” before gently telling them how to say the particular word or words they were messing up.

Children are also appreciative when you set the tone with others before delving into a reading lesson.

By ‘set the tone’, I mean making sure that everyone knows the classroom is a learning space and as such, mistakes are not to be frowned upon, but corrected in a polite, gentle manner.

Once this is done, if a mistake has been made, I ensure that the child repeats the corrected word(s), and then I encourage them to keep reading. A rewarding comment may also be added such as “You were doing so well!” or “Keep going. You’re doing great!” before moving on with reading.

The abovementioned approaches are very useful in boosting a child’s confidence, and these are actually pretty simple techniques to try. I think children feel more comfortable when you apply this, instead of shouting at them for making a genuine mistake.

Many of my students have told me that they don’t feel pressured or stupid when I encourage them in this way, and that they actually want to continue reading because of my calm yet positive attitude in the situation.

Another reason children shy away from reading is because they think that it’s boring.

This one is pretty understandable. Children today have so many other things to keep them occupied -- video games, TV shows, movies, TikTok videos -- it’s easy to see why they would feel bored when it comes to reading.

In light of this, here are a few tips you can follow to make reading fun and interesting to them:

#1: Search YouTube for any audiobooks of the particular material your child is reading.

This would help them to easily read along with what is in the story or book, and it should help them with pronouncing any words they may find difficult. Using audiobooks has worked wonders with keeping my students engaged in reading, or just helping them to read a bit better in general. Lots of children learn by imitation, so you may find that your child gets better at reading after following along with an audiobook.

**Something to note here: if you find the person in the audiobook is reading too quickly, you can always slow down the playback speed by clicking the settings button on the YouTube video screen.

#2: If you can’t find any audiobooks on the material your child is reading, make your own.

Try making time to read along with your child as if you were the person in an audiobook. You can even record your reading sessions together if you like, for future reference.

Doing this can help your child to read with expression instead of seeing and calling words on a page. As was mentioned before: children learn by imitation, so they’ll learn what you teach them by following along with what you read.

Also remember to apply the ‘be gentle’ and ‘give a rewarding comment’ techniques mentioned earlier if the child makes any mistakes, as this would help to give your child extra confidence in the material they are reading, while helping them to see that reading can be fun.

#3: Try finding a PDF or EPUB version of the story or book your child is reading, and then break it down for them.

Sometimes, seeing long paragraphs of text intimidates children and makes them less eager to read.

If you can find online versions of what they’re reading, try copying and pasting some of the text into a Word document, and then put some extra space between the paragraphs, so it’s not too much for your child to read at once.

This may make reading much easier and may even inspire your child to read more.

Reading is so very important and our children cannot be allowed to not grasp that. We have to keep encouraging our children to keep reading, but we must also remember to be patient and optimistic while doing so.

Remember, ‘reading is knowledge, and knowledge is life’… it can do so much for us, and it can take us to so many places, literally and figuratively.