Are there any of you who disliked reading for one reason or another at some point in your life and then changed? Maybe you had an experience or read a book that completely flipped your relationship with reading. I’d love to know!
I asked this question recently on Instagram, and when I did, people shared stories of two different kinds: 1) their reading being affected by some sort of physical limitation or emotional trauma and 2) boredom or disinterest before encountering a topic or book that changed them.
I was thinking a lot about this because of the profoundness of how the second one has played out for my children.
When you look at a child as a developing reader over a span of time, many different factors influence the progress that you see them making. Age and maturity, new skills gained, and more time to practice them are perfectly good explanations for forward movement in reading. But combine that with the experience of finally finding a book that inspires you or that triggers an excitement about reading that you haven’t known before, and you have the perfect recipe for an impactful encounter with literature.
There is reading research that suggests what many people in my informal survey have experienced: that as children become more motivated to read, it is more likely that they’ll want to practice their reading; and the more they practice, the stronger their reading skills become or the more they can read. This, in turn, increases the likelihood that they will genuinely desire to read more.
Motivation is a powerful element of any reader’s journey. This is why it is so important to be attuned to the interests of our children. When a reader is struggling, they are often also experiencing boredom with the texts adults put in front of them to read.
As parents, we usually have a book list in mind of stories we want our children to know because we value their message, we think they’re examples of quality writing, or we once enjoyed them ourselves. When our children make a book choice that we deem subpar, we’re not as enthusiastic about them reading it, and it’s probably not something we encourage either. So how can we reconcile our desire to devour good books with our children with a desire to have them discover books that incite them to read more?
Enter the read-aloud. For the stories I want to read together with my children, I read them out loud or we listen to the audiobook together. We have great, thought-provoking discussions and I am satisfied by our consumption of great books. As for the books my children are reading independently, I work hard to figure out what topics and genres draw them. On more than one occasion I have been surprised by a particular book’s ability to absorb my child’s attention.
Allowing room for the possibility of a deep connection to a story and maintaining a sense of hope that our child can indeed find it, is critical if we don’t simply want our children to learn to read, but to learn to desire reading. This is true for those who struggle with reading and those who don’t.
Cultivating interests is so often closely associated with self-directed learning. When cultivating these interests in the home, we commit to valuing our children’s interests. We make space for them to work out their ideas and do work that is important to them.
It is not a stretch to also see the connection between interests and self-directed reading. Aside from reading material that is directly related to passions or areas of intrigue, browsing books at the library or bookstore and following suggestions of what to read from friends are great ways of exploring new areas for potential interest…even if you aren’t initially impressed or supportive of the book choice.
I have a child who at 10 years old, decided to try a book suggestion from a friend. It was the first in a series of four books. Before this point, he had never read a chapter book alone. Because of dyslexia, it was easier for this child to consume books auditorily. A bookworm was born, one who loved the book’s genre and was reading a topic that kept his nose in the book no matter how difficult it may have been. This child went on to read the entire series, acknowledging that reading was slow but the love of doing it was strong. Now, this child reads book series of the same genre at an astoundingly quick pace considering how things first began. The triad of reading, interest, and motivation continues to be at work.
