Why do certain kids hate reading?

[mrjoe94]

Hello there, I got this idea from another topic by trezu (I hope i don't rip you off to much man ) I am a 17 year old high school student and I came up with a reason why kids today aren't a fan of reading. This is just my personal opinion, but I think it's because schools try to force books that kids have no interest for down their throats too often.

I am of this group of people. I've had to read quite a few books I either disliked completely or just wasn't interested in. If more schools let children pick a book they might enjoy reading, they could grow to love it.

Me personally, i'm of the sort who has to be VERY convinced in order to read anything that's not a comic book or graphic novel. Even then, i recently fell in love with the Dresden Files series.

If I knew about this series earlier those book reports may have been more bearable . I think that kids (by kids i mean like ages 12-18 xD)should give reading a chance. Have a look at your taste in films or video games and look for books that match those tastes.

So Escapist, since I know a lot of highschool kids and even younger are on here, what books made you like reading?

EDIT: I may need to clarify a bit more to the people who talked about "You didn't have a library in school?" or "You weren't read to as a young kid?" I was mainly talking about the fact that sometimes schools can drive kids away from reading. Yes they may have been
read to and so forth. I mean picking up a book and reading it of their own free will...normally when kids read a book it's a "classic" (Not knockin' classics Sherlock Holmes ftw) that are either "Too old" for kids or they just don't care about the setting or characters. When they aren't reading those and they hate it. I doubt they'd be inclined to go to a library where many "Scary" books are.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I don't know why kids don't like reading. Probably because gaming has become much more of an allure than it was when I was in elementary school <.<

Anyway, I've always liked reading. Even now I'll set down my DS or shut off the computer to read a history book on Stalin or ancient Rome. And I love fantasy/science fiction books. It's my dream to someday write and publish a successful novel....

 

[darkcalling]

The first book I remember really grabbing me and making me never want to put it down was Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman. That and the sequels (Dragons of Winter Night, and Dragons of Spring Dawning) were the first books I read that really made me care about the characters as if they were real people. I'd been a fairly big reader before but mostly of things meant for younger readers and anything based on Star Trek. lol

 

[Jonluw]

Donald Duck &co magazines were what got me into reading.
Not that I read a lot, really.

The first books that I got really into were the Harry Potter series and Phenomena (Ruben Eliassen). I even met the author of the Phenomena series. He signed my books and told me the secret behind one character's identity.

I don't support your theory though. I get the impression that lots of people I know aren't really fond of reading (though I've never asked). But schools around here don't force kids to read books they won't like.
In fact, I'm doing my first reading assignment at the moment (I'm 18).
Well, that's not completely true. I've been asked to read books in school before, but I've always been allowed to choose the books myself.

In other words: this is the first time the school has chosen a book for my class to read.
Even so, it's a really easily read book, and it's fairly light and entertaining.
"Naïve. Super" by Erlend Loe.

I don't like the aesthetic of it though. It makes me feel uncofortable. Feels like the polar opposite of Lolita (another book I read for school, which I happened to really like).

 

[shogunblade]

The only reason a kid wouldn't be into reading is because they haven't found the right book.

The books that got me into reading (in Junior High/high school) was stuff like the Series of Unfortunate Events series, Michael Crichton, and the Chronicles of Prydain (The Book of Three, Black Cauldron, Castle of Llrr, ETC) by Lloyd Alexander, and a lot of it was because I wanted to read the books first so I could watch the movies and compare them.

 

[Blackmagic1515]

I've loved to read ever since I can remember. The books series that got me into reading was the Biff and Chip books (so yeah, going back to when I was about 4 or 5) and I haven't stopped since.

Some people just don't like reading. I know quite a few infact who just cannot bring themselves to sit down and read a good book yet can waste hours infront of the TV or on facebook. It's sad really but too each his own I guess.

Also OP, excellent choice of books too get into. It's my favourite series and I'm currently rereading them myself.

 

[SckizoBoy]

It's my dream to someday write and publish a successful novel....

You and me, both, old boy!

It's a number of things:

1. the availability of other, generally perceived to be more engaging, forms of entertainment
2. the encouragement to read books
3. the availability of books, not just quantity but variation in content, style and subject
4. the influence of others and their reading habits

Depending on where you go, no-one reads precisely because no-one reads. The kids don't read because they see little reason to and the fact that their friends don't, and their parents don't either.

Still, with games, movies and other media, the book requires a comparatively heavy investment of imagination, thought and interpretation (depending on the book, of course). Me personally, I love to read, typically going through two fiction books in a fortnight, and perusing an array of books on military and scientific history and theory. Fun times...

 

[twistedmic]

One of the main reasons, in my opinion, that so many kids hate reading is because they were never exposed to books when they were younger. If a parent (or guardian) reads to a kid, take them to a book store or library or even just has books around the house/apartment the kid is much more likely to be interested in reading.

Back when I was a kid one of our neighbors read to their children every night and had a bookcase full of books in their living room (they didn't have a t.v.) and all of their kids loved reading.

My mom read to me (and my sister) fairly regularly, took us to the library and gave us money to buy books whenever the Scholastic Book Fair came to our school and we both read a lot.

 

[the rye]

Nope, screw what the kids want. They're going to learn Shakespeare, they're going to read 'Of Mice and Men'. I was reading 1984 and Great Expectations in my own time at age 14. I don't see why kids would have trouble reading the literature school make them read, sound like laziness to me.

Ok look i know you don't always get to read a novel your interested in but schools select those texts for specific reasons, mainly because its damn good literature that you young whippersnappers can't appreciate.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

When I was in elementary school everyone seemed to love reading, because of the Goosebumps craze going on at the time. But the school didn't make any particular books mandatory reading. Other than textbooks, it was all free reading time.

Middle school and high school no longer had free reading time, but instead had assigned books in our English courses. This is about the time that most of the people I knew, and myself included, stopped caring. This was the point where we stopped reading, and instead turned to things like SparkNotes to get us through the tests. I went through High School, passing all of the quizzes and tests on our assigned reading, having only actually read maybe two or three of the books.

I think the issue, or at least the issue for me anyway, was that the classics they were making us read just weren't very interesting. Yeah... The Great Gatsby may be a classic... but when you'd rather be reading science fiction it becomes a real drag.

I think more students would actually read if they were allowed to choose their own books, or at least given a choice out of a number of books selected for a given theme. I realize this would involve a lot of work for the teacher... but from my own personal experiences, I just don't know how else I personally would have been motivated.

 

[darth.pixie]

TV's easier to pay attention to.

That's basically the answer. Most kids never get past looking at the words and never get involved in a book. It's like the guy who's watching a movie but keeps fussing about, paying attention to other things and keeps going to the bathroom or outside to smoke and then comes back and says the movie is lame.

A book requires a bit of paying attention and some imagination and a lot of kids aren't willing to invest that since they can get a story, easily, in a video game or movie.

 

[Lilani]

This is just my personal opinion, but I think it's because schools try to force books that kids have no interest for down their throats too often.

This was very much my problem in school. In elementary school, they started up this system called AR, or Accelerated Reading. It was supposed to give kids a system of gauging the difficulty of books while also offering them a system of awards for reading the books. Every book has a reading level based on numbers. For example, a book with a reading level of 4.5 would be a book on the level of a 4th grader in the 5th month of the school year. It went all the way up to 12.9, which is of course 12th grade 9th month of the school year (the final month of high school). At the beginning of every quarter you take a test which gives you the estimated range of books that are on your level.

In elementary school, the reading level was more or less a guide. If you really wanted to you could get a book outside your level, I think all you needed was permission from your teacher (which they gave pretty much all the time). Every book has a test you take on the computer, and every book is worth a certain number of points. Naturally, a higher level book or a really long book will have the highest number of points. Every quarter you had a reading goal (also based on your reading level) and everyone who got 100% got a special reward, like maybe candy or a pizza party or something.

That wasn't so bad. Then middle school hit. From 5th grade through 7th grade, AR was worth 50% of my English grade. Meaning I had to get that goal in order to get a good grade in English. The people who tested higher had it the hardest, as they had to read the hardest books and had the highest number of points to get to. And they were much stricter about reading outside of your level, especially below. If I remember correctly, books that were below your level could not be counted toward your reading goal at all. In elementary school it was all fun, but in Middle school I wasn't choosing and reading books for fun. I was choosing them based on their level and point value. After a while the books within your range that you're actually interested in start to run quite low, so you start reading whatever you can in order to get the most points out of them. You start plowing through books with a strategy in mind, only absorbing enough content to pass the test and move on to the next one. It was horrible. I remember crying over books a few times because I wanted so much to not read them.

Finally in the 8th grade I moved on to junior high, and AR slowed down significantly. You no longer had to follow your reading level so much, you only had to read four books per quarter regardless of point value, and if you wanted to read a book not in the AR system you could write a book report instead to get the credit. That was much better for me, but I still avoided recreational reading like the plague for nearly three years. I didn't really start reading again til about mid sophomore year when my bookworm friends got me into Twilight. And it's not been so bad ever since. I still don't read a lot for fun, but I've gotten attached to several series' and I'm always looking out for new ones to get hooked into.

 

[repeating integers]

Ok look i know you don't always get to read a novel your interested in but schools select those texts for specific reasons, mainly because its damn good literature that you young whippersnappers can't appreciate.

Then why not let them read damn good literature which they can appreciate? Giving them a book, expecting them to like it, then just saying "You're too stupid to like it" when they don't is going to turn them off reading for good.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

Your parents didn't read books to you from the time you were born and buy books for you or take you to the library throughout your early childhood?

You'd be surprised how many people would answer no at the moment. (Although that's not my answer)

I've always been a fan of fantasy novels, Eragon, Sabriel/Lirael/Abhorsen, The Black Magician trilogy, anything of those types, from a very early age, yet its quite obvious that others don't read anything at all unless they have to.

I've also found that there's a bit of a social stigma around being a person who reads and goes to the library when you're in say, secondary school (around 10-16 years old), which pressures people into not reading, even if they might enjoy it given the chance. Boggles my mind how reading is considered something a loser would do yet almost everybody lays in front of their TV for at least an hour a day to watch absolute crap/repeats and nobody bats an eyelid.

Nope, screw what the kids want. They're going to learn Shakespeare, they're going to read 'Of Mice and Men'. I was reading 1984 and Great Expectations in my own time at age 14. I don't see why kids would have trouble reading the literature school make them read, sound like laziness to me.

Ok look i know you don't always get to read a novel your interested in but schools select those texts for specific reasons, mainly because its damn good literature that you young whippersnappers can't appreciate.

I read a lot of this in my own time before we went through it at school, and all I can say is I found a lot of it very tedious and didn't enjoy it. Just because something is considered a masterpiece or a classic, does not mean everybody will enjoy it. Great Expectations is one of the most overrated books I've ever read in my opinion, it really isn't Dickens' finest. Also, Romeo and Juliet (although I admittedly did enjoy it) really isn't the most interesting Shakespeare play, yet it's almost taught in every school and the pupils aren't even introduced to any of his historical plays or more interesting, philosophical ones.

 

[Loner Jo Jo]

How come no one has brought up the fact that reading is very difficult for many people out there? Newspapers are written at a 6th grade reading level for a reason.

For whatever reason, be it lack of exposure to books when they were young or some medical problem with reading, many children enter school with no or lackluster reading abilities. This is part of what's known as the achievement gap and it only gets wider with age. People do not like doing what they find difficult or impossible to do regardless of what it is; this explains why many children do not get into reading later in life.

What you said about giving kids the option of books is exactly what a teacher is supposed to do. While teachers shouldn't let kids go hog-wild, typically a teacher should offer the children several books with a similar theme or something to that effect and let the child pick one written at a level most appropriate for their abilities. However, this gets more difficult as children get older, partially because the achievement gap widens and partially because many schools and districts have specific books that the child must read at that grade level, no matter what level they are on. When it comes to the latter, the teachers' hands are tied except for how they teach it and for the former, I'll give you an example. I have been in a 7th grade classroom where some students were already reading at a high school level or beyond while other students were at a second or third grade reading level. I am not exaggerating when I say that. Even if I were to choose a book at a 7th grade reading level, some students would be so frustrated trying to read it they wouldn't learn and some would be so bored they wouldn't learn. It becomes very difficult to balance it all and many children, unfortunately, slip through the cracks.

 

[ChildishLegacy]

]I've also found that there's a bit of a social stigma around being a person who reads and goes to the library when you're in say, secondary school (around 10-16 years old), which pressures people into not reading, even if they might enjoy it given the chance. Boggles my mind how reading is considered something a loser would do yet almost everybody lays in front of their TV for at least an hour a day to watch absolute crap/repeats and nobody bats an eyelid.

I have to say I never ran into that. But, if they had gotten a good start at an early age at home, wouldn't matter a lick by that time, it would be a part of them. I know 2 and 3 year olds that pretend to read books even before they can and think getting books is THE BEST GIFT EVER!!!!

Where abouts do you live? Reading is becoming a very underappreciated pass-time for the current 10-20 year olds in the UK it seems (or at least in my chavvy, scumfilled section of the UK), I can't remember the last time I've talked to anybody around my age (17) about books, because nobody fucking well reads xP

 

[omega 616]

Too much thinking required, I suspect.

I have read about 3 books voluntary, I know figuring out the meaning of each sentence takes 0.0000000001 seconds to figure out but if I watch a film there is no thinking. *Turns brain off, sits and stares*, nothing more to it.

Gaming, gives me something to do other than turn the page/eyes. I make stuff happen and so it is easily more interactive.

Also books hurt my neck, as do hand helds.

 

[Zantos]

I actually think there's a point here. I've only recently got back into reading many years after secondary school. Admittedly I'd have probably got back into them sooner without games or TV, but being forced to not only read stacks of books I didn't enjoy, but then go over and analyse them, really put me off reading. I used to enjoy it, but by then it just felt like a chore.

Now though, I have started reading again after finding a subject I actually enjoy reading about. It's totally not Space Marines. Ok, it's space marines.