Why do certain kids hate reading?

[hawkeye52]

Used to not read at all until I picked up the horrible histories series in year 4 (I think) and then read over 50 of those from all the different series (horrible science, Geography, The knowledge, maths etc) and then moved onto short stories by Jeffery Archer in year 10.

Started the Wheel of time series in first year of 6th form and finished it by the second and now reading the count of monte cristo.

I think that the answer is not only are children less inclined to read because of how modern media works (in terms of low effort high gratification) but also the forced reading that some kids are forced to do like "of mice and men" and shakespeare pretty much turned them off (I didn't mind I rather enjoyed it) especially to those who might not be able to follow the text as well and then forced to write assignments and tasks on it and have an exam on it later in the year.

Its being forced to learn something just because you have a test at the end of the year and it isn't one of those tests which you are "allowed" to fail either because every single institution will always ask for a minimum of a C in English at GCSE level if you are applying for jobs etc unless its in the manual labour sector like mcdonalds or something.

 

[Blobpie]

Many of them can't read very well, so they have to focus more time on the act of reading then the actual story. So in the end it become impossible to become invested in the plot.

Others just find movies and video games more interesting.

 

[fenrizz]

Getting a kid to love books is a labour of love. It takes years.

I started with my kid when he was just one year old. I read to him every night, can't be a chore, you have to like it. But more important, I got him involved. I made little performances to spice things up. See, you don't have to be Robin Williams, your kid will love it nonetheless.

We used picture-gram books, you know those that go "There once was a little (picture of a monster) who lived in...". He's supposed to say "Monster". We read the same book for many nights, and he learned substantial portions of it. Then he stared "reading" it to me. Moving his finger along and repeating the words... then I got to say "Monster".

I started to actually teach him how to read in Spanish one year before he got in school. I used the same book I had learned with as a kid.

By the time he got to school, could read fluently in Spanish, and picked up English lightning fast. Quickly, he was at Dr Seuss level, among the top of the class. We also gave him a sense of ownership over the books, allowing him to choose which ones to buy and letting him take it home. This reinforced the love for the media. He read Dr Seuss for a couple of years, every night. According to the School, his reading level was comparable to kids two or three years older than him.

The final transition happened when he was about eight. Having outgrown Dr Seuss I had to find something to keep him going. I got him this "39 Clues" novel, which is quite substantial. This is a real (200+ pages, no pictures) book, but aimed at kids. He was a bit scared at first, but I started reading in parallell so we could discuss what was happening. After that he was on his own.

To give you an idea of how successful this has been, he recently blazed through the thickest books in the Harry Potter series, in about a week. He's nine now. Sometimes I have to force him to put the book down because its a school night! Left on his own, he'll read until 1 or 2 AM.

Way to be a good parent, good Sir!

I'm ashamed that I have not put in the same effort into reading for my own kids.
Now I feel bad.
It's not like I don't read to them, it's just not as methodical and often.

But.
what you are saying makes much sense.
My mother read to me a lot and my linguistic skills are far higher than that of my younger siblings, to whom she did not read much.

 

[Avatar Roku]

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.

Ok, I know I'm kind of ignoring your point, but I'm so glad to see someone else who grew up with the Old Kingdom (i.e, Sabirel) series. My username on here actually used to be the name of a character from there. That series was my childhood.

And what angst ridden young adult doesn't relate perfectly with Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye?

*raises hand*
I read Catcher when I was 16 and hated it, honestly. I could see what Salinger was going for, but I actually ended up finding Caulfield less and less relatable as the book went on.

That book is right up there with A Separate Peace as the worst book I ever read, for school or otherwise. Go figure.

Most of them don't hate reading. They hate being FORCED to read. I love reading and I have for most of my life. However, I absolutely hated reading the "classics" many of which are terribly written. They are important for what they did at the time but 20-50-100 years later much of that meaning is lost and the writing style becomes very dry. That's not to say they are worthless but reading them for 8 years straight without any "new" works it becomes tedious.

Amen. I found most classics to be dreary and boring. I will say, however, that reading and hating Great Expectations really made me realize how amazing Shakespeare was, because his plays were even older than Dickens and are somehow still entertaining, whereas GE was dry, dull crap IMO. I mean, I would have had a decent opinion of Shakespeare regardless, but because of the contrast, I now see him as the genius all the teachers say he was, so mission somewhat accomplished? I guess?

 

[Launcelot111]

I agree with everyone whose explanation for people not reading points to no one reading to them when they were little and to poor choice of literature in school curricula.

I read all the time when I was young, but then I got to middle/high school and ran straight into the tortuous wall of a carefully structured study of literature. The only books I remember liking from high school are Heart of Darkness, the Odyssey, and Great Gatsby. Then they make us read classics like Pride and Prejudice or the End of the Affair which are simply quite difficult to relate to the life of a 21st century high schooler, no matter their literary value. On top of that, we had to read trash like A Separate Piece (why is this considered a classic in any sense), The Joy Luck Club, and The Secret Life of Bees. Just trash.

In college, I liked reading a lot more because I had my pick of what classes I could take and thus what books I was reading, so I could be perfectly happy with my Sartre or my Greek mythology or whatnot. I think that high school English classes would be much more successful if they offered two sections with different choices of books and students got to pick their course of study.

On a related topic, I don't think that Shakespeare should be taught unless the students are able to see the actual play, as so much of the difficult language is negated by hearing the rhythms of the speech and seeing the characters in motion. I honestly couldn't see how A Midsummer Night's Dream was supposed to be a comedy until I saw the play, and also after just reading Othello, I didn't realize Othello was supposed to be black. It's fine to teach students Shakespeare, but don't forget that they're plays and not novels

 

[James Raynor]

Because believe it or not old books aren't nearly as good as the books today. Books are also uninteractive in which you don't really do much of anything.

 

[Launcelot111]

*raises hand*
I read Catcher when I was 16 and hated it, honestly. I could see what Salinger was going for, but I actually ended up finding Caulfield less and less relatable as the book went on.

That book is right up there with A Separate Peace as the worst book I ever read, for school or otherwise. Go figure.

This is so true it's painful. Here's the plot of A Separate Peace for those of you who haven't read it: there's a boy at boarding school and he gets a roommate (Gene? I think his name was Gene) and Gene is apparently some sort of badass who's good at tackling people and climbing trees and then it's World War II so innocence is lost somehow and there's some crazy kid who loses his mind and then goes skiing and then there's a rousing laugh about some boy being called a Chinese lady (the exact insult was The Yellow Peril) and then the main character pushes Gene out of a tree or something because he's jealous of Gene's tackling prowess and then later the main character and Gene get in an argument about how Gene fell out of the tree again and then Gene falls down some stairs and a piece of bone gets into his bloodstream and goes straight to his heart and he dies immediately and then the main character mopes around and then I presumed that he grew up to become Cameron Crowe or something. The plot is a little hazy in my mind (thank God) but I just remember how absolutely devoid of merit this book was. There was a companion book that my teacher mercifully never assigned. Anyway, this book singlehandedly killed my desire to read for quite a while

 

[Varitel]

I agree with you, and I think that if kids found books that they could get into, they certainly could enjoy reading. I didn't like reading very much, but when on a friend's recomendation, I bought John Scalzi's "Old Man's War", I loved it. I read it for an hour or so every day until it was done. I think the fact that it is assigned reading is another problem. I think that a school could take a great book, like "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", make reading it an assignment, and almost all the kids would hate it, but if the students had all read it on their own, many would love it.

 

[Averant]

Lord of the Flies is considered a classic novel, and I had to read it in high school as an assignment.

IT. FUCKING. SUCKED. That book makes no fucking sense and doesn't deserve to occupy a place in my toilet let alone my bookshelf. Different people will have different opinions on books, even ones that other people tell them are "great."

I've read some classics in my life, mostly as school assignments, and I liked some, hated some, and was indifferent on others. I agree that having kids read these books for education is important, but they should do so to study and analyze them, not because us "adults" think it will enrich their minds, because that's just not true.

Also, Tale of Two Cities? Most boring book I've ever read. When a book makes a story about people getting their heads lopped off boring, it's pretty much a failure in my eyes.

Ah, yes. Lord of the Flies. I think I know another reason why it was so horrible. It's because it was so bogged down in symbolism there wasn't room for anything else.

Also, I'm reminded of something one of my old english teachers told me. "The books we read in class are some of the most inventive, innovating, and novel books of their time. Unfortunately, that doesn't usually mean that they're "good" by today's standards."

 

[rekabdarb]

Why take intake from one of the slowest methods of speech when you have flashing lights and explosions from the television/monitor.

On that note i'm gonna ignore Night watch which has been sitting on my to read list and go watch some television. Possibly play Star Wars.

Although i didn't really 'get' into reading until i was in middle school. or it might of been high school.

Pretty sure high school. Although my favourite genres ad a little bit narrow i still read a ton in those genres.

 

[lacktheknack]

I was an extremely avid reader as a kid. Four things went right:

1. I had a little Phonics Board toy that taught me letter sounds.

2. I learned to read at age four because Mom and Dad left "Calvin and Hobbes" and "Asterix" books on the coffee table. They were fun to look at, but if I wanted to know what was going on, I had to use my newfound phonic abilities to make coherent words. Mom says she thought I was talking to a spider one day, but when she looked into my room, I was just trying to read one of Calvin's improvised poems.

3. I got addicted to a little Sierra edutainment game, "Yobi's Basic Spelling Tricks", at age five. They don't make edutainment like that anymore. It expanded my vocabulary a lot.

4. In grade one, there was a year-long contest where we would write down the titles of the books (albeit of any length) you read and got an adult to verify with a signature. Every hundred books got you a free book, and the winner got five more.

I won, with 816 books.

 

[II Scarecrow II]

It made me rather sad that there were people in my year 12 class that were unable to string more than a sentence together when we were reading, and I'm not talking Shakespeare here either. 12 years of schooling and some people still could not read. I think that is a failure of the curriculum if anything is.

I have always been an avid reader, probably because I started at a very young age, hell I was reading Wilbur Smith at age 10. Reading is something that you have to be interested in though, and unfortunately, the books that schools attempt to force down your throats severely lack that. While I don't doubt they have a huge value in terms of teaching literature, many of the books fail to entertain this generation, and that is the purpose of books. Personally, I enjoyed reading To Kill A Mockingbird or Macbeth, but I am sure I was a minority in school.

I think the belief that many people hold is that reading is for nerds and is uncool, especially when it is something forced on them by teachers. Reading needs to be something you do of your own free will, and you have to find something you like. I can list numerous series that I thoroughly enjoy, and those books I can read in under a few days because I just enjoy the so much. Hell, I finished Inheritance in four days. Reading is addictive, you just need to find your drug.

EDIT: To the person who commented about Tale of Two Cities... I agree with every freaking word. I actually went and borrowed it of my own volition, and I don't think I ever finished it because it was just so damn boring. Again, I'm sure it has a lot to teach in terms of literature, but as a story, I think it fails in modern culture.

 

[II Scarecrow II]

*raises hand*
I read Catcher when I was 16 and hated it, honestly. I could see what Salinger was going for, but I actually ended up finding Caulfield less and less relatable as the book went on.

That book is right up there with A Separate Peace as the worst book I ever read, for school or otherwise. Go figure.

The worst book you've ever read?

You either haven't read many books or the books you've read have all been spectacular, because that's ridiculous. I think the worst book I read was probably Tom Clancy's Net Force Explorers: Virtual Vandals or maybe like a Hardy Boys book or something...

Ahaha, I remember both of those series. In retrospect both of those are so ridiculously childish, I'm not even sure why I finished them

 

[II Scarecrow II]

I remember hating reading when I was little. I got over it as I grew older though.

Probably one of the books that really got me into reading was Silverwing. It was back in Middle School and we got to choose our own books. It was one of the few books I found myself having trouble putting down.

But yeah, I think you may be right in saying that kids don't really enjoy reading when it's forced upon them. I know I sure didn't back then.

Silver Wing was an amazing book and part of a brilliant trilogy. It's been probably more than a decade since I read it, but it was pretty awesome from memory.

Hmm, this thread is making me think of some of the books I read when I was still young....

The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden is simply brilliant. I read that in grade 5, it was part of the curriculum at my school in grade 11 :S

The Inheritance Series

The Northern Lights/Golden Compass - Movie sucked, books were pretty good.

Everything by Matthew Reilly - Scarecrow and Jack West are two of my favourite heroes.

The Red Wall Series by Brian Jaques. Pretty childish, but as an eight year old, I love it. Speaking of Brian Jaques, his series starting with Castaways of the Flying Dutchman was very good.

I think I was reading some stuff by Elizabeth Moon around age 12/13. Good Sci-Fi author.

Wilbur Smith was pretty good as well, though I don't doubt a fair bit of his work went over my head.


Alright, I'll stop. Many of these books probably aren't great in terms of teaching literature, but they were enjoyable books to read nonetheless, and many of those are great for children. Reading doesn't have to be a chore, there are plenty of good books out there for kids to enjoy. All they have to do is find a good one without having it forced on them.

 

[TehCookie]

I'd say because 90% is shit, just like any other media. (Alright not that high of a % but still...) I love a good book, but I hate finding a good book. A lot of kids won't look for good books and be forced to read terrible ones in class and just assume all books are terrible.

 

[A Raging Emo]

Of Mice and Men'.

I hope you've actually read that book. Sure, a lot of high school kids have to read it (I first read it when I was 13), but it was actually insanely good. Just because it's lighter than things like The Picture of Dorian Gray or 1984 doesn't mean it isn't as good.

Steinbeck was a very talented author.

And Shakespeare is a sort of "have-to" read. Even if you don't like it, Shakespeare was a massive influence on the English language.

(I apologise in advance if I have interpreted your post; my Sarcasm Sense was tingling).

 

[chaosyoshimage]

I think it's because schools try to force books that kids have no interest for down their throats too often.

While I don't think every kid is like that, I'm sure that's a major reason. They basically think it's a chore because the school made it into one. I rarely liked reading books for school as a kid (Never had to in High School though because my school was dumb), but I loved my own books.

 

[theheroofaction]

Really, there are two problems.

1. A book is the least engaging of mediums, holding nothing but words written in plain text. Even on a forum, such as this one, you've got a physical form to attach my words too, even if it is just "the fish guy"

2.Reading assignments in school. Namely, they assign the most boring and irrelevant books in the universe under the guise of classics. See, apparently, a "classic" has to be a cliche storm as well as a commentary on issues that were only relevant a century ago.

 

[Smiley Face]

I've always been a huge reader. Picked up Green Eggs & Ham and never looked back. Started on Harry Potter when I was... 6? Maybe younger? I dunno. Redwall at 7. Artemis Fowl & Series of Unfortunate Events at 8. I still love a good 'kids' book. Anyways, it sort of snowballed. It's a rare day that I don't have a book somewhere on my person.

It's a little hard for me to say why some kids don't hook on reading, just because my love of reading had absolutely nothing to do with my school environment. I was always reading way ahead of the rest of my class, and I was never bullied - I just read. When I hit Grade 7, though, we had a wicked sharp class, so we read Brave New World and 1984. The board dedicated to discussing themes had SEX in big bold letters, dead centre. Boy, that class rocked. Later English stuff was boring, except the Shakespeare, I've always been able to read it pretty easily. Richard III ftw.

I think there's something to the idea that kids who haven't learned to enjoy the benefits of reading, who are taught the skills and have to work at it, will see reading as busy-work, as is pretty much all schoolwork, rather than something that can have real rewards.

Strangely enough, my brother, who's very much like me in most ways, is not a big reader - he rejects book suggestions, and takes forever to get through a page - although with my constant nagging I've gotten him into some stuff (he's partway through Feast for Crows at the moment).

One thing I think it might be is that there a great many more accessible forms of storytelling out there - Television, Film, Video Games - They all serve to fill essentially the same role for me, and as such, as I've watched more and more TV Shows and whatnot, my reading level has gone down, it's more sporadic (which is probably an improvement from non-stop). They're different mediums with different strengths and styles, but they fulfill the same role, and I imagine for a kid, having to struggle slowly through a book isn't worth a story if you can just get it from TV, which they're very familiar with. Maybe that's why I read so much when I was young - I didn't get cable TV 'til I was 9.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

I love reading and I have ever since I first learned to read but school books almost turned me off reading. They couldn't pick a book that was at least slightly interesting?