Why do certain kids hate reading?

[2fish]

It is more the books they want yu to read rather than the reading itself for me. I was happy to read my own books but while I could see the value of "classics" for exposure and study of they went on forever with it. I was exposed to shakey in 2 books of his work, I don't need to read the whole book either. Some of the went right over my head, making it no fun to read (also hurt by lack of context).

The trick seemed to be a nice mix of classics and stuff the class fund interesting. Not everyone likes reading the sam thing. So forcing a whole class to read one set of things seems like a mistake.

 

[wintercoat]

Why is the default "liking books"? Shouldn't the default state be "I have no opinion about reading"? Trying to force children to read because you think it's good for them does more harm than them not reading. It instills the notion that reading is something that needs to be forced. Let them come to it on their own, leave books out, but don't give it to them. The joy of reading comes from the discovery. And if they don't like reading, well then they don't like reading. There's nothing wrong with not liking a certain form of entertainment.

 

[OblivionFenix]

I know my brother hates books, but that's mainly because he's autistic. He doesn't hate reading per-se but because he can't comprehend most of what he reads, he has negative feelings towards books.I think it's also because he lacks imagination (also a byproduct of his disability)and so can't visualise anything he reads. I can't imagine books being very interesting to people who can't attribute a picture to words...

 

[Thespian]

I dunno, there's a lot of forms of entertainment that are more immediately satisfying than books, I guess. I know I'm sort of less interested in reading books these days than comics or games(Though I am just about to finish the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy... And I have Game of Thrones (the first one) and two Neil Gaiman books lined up... It was a good christmas) but then I also think people have glorified books a little. Books aren't automatically better than other forms of media. I think a parent would prefer a kid to read a crappy book than a really good comic, or game, too often. Which is just training bad habits into kids.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

My nephew went up three reading grades when I bought him a Nintendo DS...

Kids just need it to be presented in a way that entertains them. A lot of the time teachers give them the driest material available or the child only reads at school. This immediately associates it with studying and hard work.

Amazing how much better a kid will get when he wants to know what to do in his computer game

When he's old enough he will gain access to my comics.

 

[scorptatious]

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.

 

[ultrachicken]

Probably depends on the kid, but there's also the fact that books are extremely passive and require a lot of focus and thought to enjoy. I'm not saying that kids aren't capable of focusing, but because kids already spend the majority of their days focused in school, they're likely too tired to continue doing that for fun.

 

[bpm195]

I strongly dislike reading novels because it takes be about the same amount of effort to study a college text book as it does to read Harry Potter. As such I find it a tremendous waste of effort to read a novel. I also dislike watching movies and long stretches of television.

Notably at the tender age of 22 I was diagnosed with predominately inattentive ADD which explained a lot of things. While on drugs for it I did pick up books and was a lot more bearable, but after finishing a couple books I just reaffirmed that books were overrated and started learning an instrument instead.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Sounds logical to me so of course it's likely something that the local school board would ignore. There are a ton of interesting books and series out there but I agree: the books that I remember having to read at school were completely uninteresting to me (with one exception: Lord of the Flies). If I had the choice to have read any of the Discworld books or, Hitchhiker's Guide it would have been different for me but no...they were too busy trying to make me give a crap about the Canterberry Tales.

 

[As Seen On 360]

Visual media is too dominant in multiple cultures for books to ever make a comeback as an entertainment giant. For any one notable event in a book that a youth can vaguely remember, they have 100 assorted and random movie/tv/game moments they vividly recall and admire. If books aren't actively promoted by a child's family at a young age, it's very difficult to just jump in at a later date.

I enjoy reading myself, but it's not something I prioritize or value as much as I could. Schools drill the importance of reading which makes education synonymous with boredom to kids. Generally speaking, the first thing you do after a comatose day in classes is typically not gonna be your homework, and books are usually related to that. You drop everything and go wild outside, have fun with friends, see the new big movie (which is heavily glamorized due to marketing, books get little to no exposure to the masses) or play a game.

tl;dr - Unless reading is incorporated early in life, it's not fun, and the only thing a kid cares about is fun. The first day of school they're hyped for next summer, and they're most certainly not planning to spend it curled up in bed reading themselves to sleep.

 

[him over there]

Mostly because of difficulty, lack of exposure and other things like gaming and the internet being more enticing. Personally I like reading, it makes me feel weird though and I can't explain why. Probably because I can't piece together visuals in my head very well based on words. It's just a jumbled mess, like a ball of blur.

Another thing is that people generally take in, experience and learn in one of three different ways. Auditory, visual and kinaesthetic. Almost everyone in my resource class is kinaesthetic, me and one other person are visual learners and we only have one auditory learner. Books naturally appeal only to visual learners plus most people at least I know say hearing a narrative feels weird and they can't stand descriptions or narration. Probably why they choose films over books.

What's the big deal though? Why does it matter? People don't like books for one reason or another. it doesn't mean reading as a whole will collapse and usher in a society incapable of communication without speech.

 

[tthor]

I actually read a theory on this recently. A child's interest in reading is generally tied to their linguistics level, which is largely tied to how much their parents etc talk to them. So in poorer families, where the parents are much more busy working, they can't spend as much time with their young children, so their children develop weaker linguistic skills, and thus feel less interest in reading.
I think I summarized it correctly..

 

[ottenni]

Reading involves sitting down. Why sit down when you could be outside running around catching bugs and stuff. At least that's how i remember it from when i was a kid. When i say kid i mean under the age of 12, after that i starting reading allot. Anyway the point is that kids who dont want to read probably have something they would rather be doing. I know id rather be off doing something as opposed to reading about it.

 

[Kennetic]

Not everyone likes reading. I personally love reading but I can understand if others don't

 

[Orks da best]

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.

Hooray! someone gets it forceing a kid to read a book does not make them like reading if anything its makes them hate it, I don't care if the book is called a classic or its your favorite let a kid what he wants to so he will learn to love reading rather then hate it.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Dresden Files? Overrated (trollface.jpg)

But I think that's part of the problem. Life has gotten a great deal more exciting in the passed 20 years, and there is a lot to do if you're bored.

Sitting down to read a book takes a long time. You could just as easily not be reading a book and playing videogames, or facebooking, or drugs. Getting lost in the world of a book when you could just as easily be running over hookers and joining the dark side really is hard to do for some of these kids.

Edit: And a good deal of the books these kids are forced to read are literally the most unimaginative pieces of crap I've ever had to read. If you can make it through Heart of Darkness without turning to Sparknotes, you're a fucking superhero.

 

[Alssadar]

I used to be bored with my time, and turned into depression due to lack of friends.
And then I played Star Wars Republic Commando. After beating the game for the second time, I found the back of the manual saying "Oh, hey, there's a book." So I'm all "Why not?"
And then, two more books... I find a friend who likes WH40k, and start buying those...find Starcraft and Warcraft books in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi, and now they're all mine. And then I realized how pitiful my complaints about society were when I could be a clone/conscript fighting for some cause to only save my brothers with no possible end in sight, so I began looking better upon life.

I thank you video games for making more literature-astute and changing my life in the enventual.

 

[Jodah]

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.

If kids were allowed to choose what they want to read and didn't have a strictly enforced timeline I feel interest in reading would skyrocket.