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It's the environment the parents set up that's the issue.
At the younger grades, I think almost all kids would be motivated to read if they see their "role models" reading. As they progress to the higher grade levels, it will probably be harder.
A year or two ago, I was at a book signing where the author talked about being motivated to read in late elementary school, and then the grandparents followed up by buying him around 40 books for Christmas. My then six-year asked to go because the author went to her elementary school.
However, the distractions (video games, sports, busy schedules, home lives) are due mainly to the setup by the parents.
It's the parent's choice to provide their preschooler with an iPad/iPhone (NO, I'm not kidding) or to focus so much on sports, music, whatever, and not spend any money on books (or not go to the library, or try to force certain books on their kids, etc.).
I think in this area, probably 95% of the kids have iPhones by the time they are 7 (or 8).
You're right. It should begin in the home. The kids should be read to and being read to should be an enjoyable time that the kids look forward to. The kids should also see their parents reading because that sets a good example for them. Good role models are important.
But even at the tender age of six, there are plenty of kids who already don't like or don't care about reading. Their parents didn't read to them or set good role models. The parents don't have to teach the kids how to read but they need to make sure the kids see that reading is fun, that reading is something people like to do.
Some kids who don't like reading just came from a bad home environment but other kids who don't like reading dislike it because they struggle to learn to read. A teacher has to figure out what's going on with each individual kid and take it from there. If you can get them motivated=excited, that's a major step in the right direction.
My son has assigned reading every night that we have to log.
It can be anything he finds interesting.
Sometimes it's a subject we feel he should learn about.
It's easy to find all kinds of books at the public library. Junior nonfiction section has great stuff.
Sometimes he reads out of a fiction chapter book for 20 minutes. Or, like tonight, he just reads the whole nonfiction book (they are much shorter in general).
The log goes back with him to school.
During the summer break, we assigned him 4-5 books a week.
My wife reads, and I am in the middle of a 365 books in 365 days challenge, so he gets plenty of modeling.
Thank you all for your replies. We do a lot of the things that have been mentioned, and I believe a couple of the most important things we can do IN school beyond teaching the required curriculum are giving the children time to read books that they choose, and exposing them to quality literature through teacher read-alouds.
As a couple of people mentioned, a love for reading starts in the home, while sitting on a parent's lap, having stories read to them, being brought to the library, and seeing their parents read. Sadly, there are a lot of children who do not experience this.
On top of that, as I mentioned in my original post, we are competing with video games, sports (I've heard many times from teachers that students do not turn in their homework because they "had practice last night"), and lack of parental support.
Many of these kids are falling behind because they just don't read. We are doing our best with what we can do IN school to spark that love of reading. Thanks again.
...However, the distractions (video games, sports, busy schedules, home lives) are due mainly to the setup by the parents.
It's the parent's choice to provide their preschooler with an iPad/iPhone (NO, I'm not kidding) or to focus so much on sports, music, whatever, and not spend any money on books (or not go to the library, or try to force certain books on their kids, etc.).
....
There's less choice than you think in many areas. As we learned when ours were that age, and as some of our friends who now have kids that age, if they want to get any play with their friends, then they have to be on some sports team. Our kids would come home from school and there would be zero, none, no kids around to play with. Every other kid was involved in something -- sports, dance, cheer, something. It's a case of you either sign them up to play something or they sit at home alone playing video games.
I have always loved reading, but I usually hated being forced to read a certain amount of a certain book on a teacher's schedule. Kids who don't already enjoy reading aren't going to respond well when it's presented as a chore. I think the best thing is to recognize that *any* reading is a good thing and encourage the formats and subjects that interest each individual child.
My first grade daughter is stuck in a windowless classroom 7 hours a day. She only gets 20 minutes for recess daily and 30 minutes of PE once a week. The treatment is inhumane. As long as the sun is out, I'm not going to encourage her to do anything other than be outside.
I also think teacher's take the wrong approach to getting kids to read. Instead of preaching the importance of reading (for the sake of completing standardized tests), teachers need to help kids find their interests and passions. I started playing the civilization computer games with my son and it has developed into a deep interest in history and different cultures. Once kids discover their interests, they will read endlessly about their newfound interests.
Woody Allen said you can dissect humor just as you can a frog but both are likely to die in the process. Imagine having to dissect uninteresting standardized testing practice passages at school (over and over and over again)... the inner reader in any child is likely to die.
I was a SAHM so I was able to my kids to the library every week. We did the children's programs and we checked out books every week. I encouraged my children to read by finding books in their areas of interest. For one child, that meant I read science books from the non-fiction section about volcanoes. He was reading three months into kindergarten.
My second child went to a different school where material was presented differently. At the beginning of his first grade year I was told we was reading at the low end of average so I worked with him. He was a Star Wars fan. The easiest books were above his level, but we bought a few anyway and I read them to him until he could read them himself. We bought a Star Wars encyclopedia at the same time. It interested him enough that he would look at pictures until he could read the words.
My third child is a girl. She had been there for the library visits and she picked out her own books. Girl books are more abundant so we didn't have to search as hard. I bought her a few of the American Girl book series and Dork Diaries as she got older. The boys got the Wimpy Kid series which my daughter also read. I always made sure to get them boys that they were interested in.
My kids basically, hate books and will rip them apart or throw them out. My oldest reads only for information purposes not for leisure.
This sounds like very strange behavior. It's vandalism. Why do your kids do that? How old are they?
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