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.

mrjoe94:
If more schools let children pick a book they might enjoy reading, they could grow to love it.

Your school didn't have a library?

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?

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

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).

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.

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.

Redlin5:
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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

mrjoe94:
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.

the rye:

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.

Kendarik:

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.

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.

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.

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.

Midgeamoo:

Kendarik:

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)

And if they answered no to those, I'd blame the school for no library (seriously, they have elementary schools without libraries?), and I'd blame the parents for neglecting a proper home environment.

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!!!!

Kendarik:

Midgeamoo:
]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

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.

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.

I think a lot of it simply isn't interesting to people who're around 12-17. When I was in school, around the age of 13-15 I had to read Steinbeck, Whitman, Twain, Shakespeare and whatnot and I despised it. Now, they're some of my all time favourites and I'd quite happily sit down and read Leaves of Grass. I do, quite often. I still don't enjoy Shakespeare, but that's just down to personal preference.

But stuff like that just doesn't stimulate a lot of today's youth. They don't find it relevant to their lives and it's quite difficult to comprehend the themes behind it at a young age. I mean I'm only 21, which doesn't sound like much of an age gap, but anyone who's 21 plus I think will agree that there's a massive gap in intellect and maturity between the end of high school and the end of university (or that age). I don't mean to sound condescending, but that's the case with many younger people. I know there are exceptions, many of them likely here, but for the majority, I think I'm right.

That said, I'd prefer to be taught the classics to kids rather than half the modern crap that's coming out these days. I'm looking at you, Twilight.

Eh, I don't remember being read to much, and was a kid that wasn't really reading much. Then I hit the science fiction/fantasy genre about 5th grade or so (whenever the first HP movie came out) and started to devour books, getting into LOTR and Eragon and lots of other little series. And now I read when I find a good book or get bored.

Reading isn't everyone's cup of tea. Personally, I love to read, but I don't watch TV because I just can't get interested. I suppose it's the other way around for some people.

It's fair enough. I like books, films, games...but I don't care for plays or musicals. Why don't the kids like plays and musicals?

In my opinion, films are the go-to entertainment because they're great. I'll take a film over a book everytime, I just think it's better.

I'm just too busy, honestly. Every week, I already have to read +200 pages of POSTMODERN BULLSHIT JESUS CHRIST THEY WROTE THIS TERRIBLY ON PURPOSE! Seriously, these people won awards for how bad they wrote. I just-
*ahem*

Honestly, I think the act of reading a physical book is put on a bit too much of a pedestal. Why not let kids have an audiobook if they don't like reading? Sometimes the voice actor just makes a book for me.
I think part of the problem is that by being so sacred, it makes it more intimidating or even just more boring. Books aren't exactly advertised as something to go keeping on your person unless you're the stereotyped egghead.
ANd I don't think that is a matter of "Oh, I don't want to be an egghead!" I feel that its more of, "I am not that person. I don't have the social expectation to be the sort of smart guy who reads books, so I'm not going to bother."

The "reading is for smart people" idea is just stupid. Reading is for everyone.

Some kids find it hard to read. Other find the prospect of picking up a book daunting because its too long (most fantasy books are like 400 pages). Some cant get into books.

Mostly, its because they havent found the right genera. They dont care about main stream books that you see on TV or that are in the "charts" or "bestsellers" and there are no easy ways to find out about a new genre, its always guna be time consuming with the risk you might not like it and many genres used to though less and less come with a certain social stigmas attached.

I'm 22 and have always hated reading books. It has nothing to do with school though. The problem lies with my short attention span.
Ooh, shiny...

i stopped reading because of teachers telling me not to read the books i liked and i continue not to read because of an eye problem. me left eye sees a copy of whatever image im looking at slightly below and to the right of the image which makes readying text really difficult

i think if teachers and parents fostered their childs exploration within reading and make it come off as exciting it would make kids learn to love reading again but as of right now teachers try and force kids to read "high brow" books with deep meanings (which the kids are usually to young to realize) and parents would rather watch tv

I remember I used to enjoy reading. Took down three books a week in the school library, six a week in the summer thanks to a hard-working library being within walking distance of my house. And then, things started slowing down. I can and will blame a good part of it on my school faculty's refusal to share lesson plans with each other, causing me to re-read the Outsiders every year for seven years. I hadn't thought about how I stopped reading until one of my classmates in college showed off some of his published works. I felt embarassed for the guy having his name attached to what I thought were shoddy books at best, but then it hit me: I haven't touched a book for myself since junior year in high school. How can I properly judge?

So I've been chipping away at a massive cardboard box I've liberated from one of my uncles (his bookshelves were literally buckling under the mass of his collection) and assorted stuff I picked out of Borders. Y'know, back when those guys existed and everything.

As for why kids these days aren't reading more, I think we can chalk it up to the way reading is generally treated in schools. When you're asked to interpret books for the majority of your education, it's treated more as a test of comprehension than interpretation. While this process works well enough for the early years, it gets ridiculous when applied to your teenage coursework. What you're supposed to feel after reading Chapter 7 or Act II is supposed to be an objective fact, and if you can't put it into one of the bubbles on your multiple choice test then you must be wrong. That kind of thinking eventually instills a fear that you're not reading something the "right" way, and not even Cliff Notes will give you any idea of what the proper solution should be. So tell me this: After being told implicitly for years that books are a pass/fail form of entertainment, would you be more interested spending a week reading a book only to feel like you've screwed something up at the end if it doesn't blow your mind like the blurb on the back says should occur? Or would you rather dick around on your Xbox and be told you're winning every 10-15 minutes on average?

/end ramble

Depends. I think part of it is the "level" system, where it seems like kids get shamed out of reading books that are actually interesting. Worse still is the idea of finding books that are "relevant" to kids, especially boys. This, of course, means that they like to find books about kids and teenagers who are going through pretty much the same things that they are. I think I speak for most people when I say that I don't want to read books about my life, I want to read books that are awesome.

However, part of it is that some people just don't like reading. My younger brother has zero interest in written fiction. He appreciates story and characterization and all other such things in movies, TV and games, but just doesn't like books. It's not a matter of topics or lack of access or lack of encouragement: he just doesn't like them. It might be because of pacing or lack of visualization or a number of other things, but there are some people who just aren't huge fans of reading, no matter what the environment is, and now that it's a lot easier to find other entertainment people dismiss the mediums they don't care for.

SckizoBoy:

Redlin5:
It's my dream to someday write and publish a successful novel....

You and me, both, old boy!

And here I thought I was the only one on this forum with such a dream.

mrjoe94:
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.

While I love the idea of opening kids to genres that would make them read more, I don't think schools should give up classics to teach about modern books. However cheesy, the romance of Romeo and Juliet can beat Twilights any day.

mrjoe94:
I think it's because schools try to force books that kids have no interest for down their throats too often.

It's the same thing with music.

You HAVE to learn the recorder in the UK and play all their bullshit songs and it just makes everyone want to die as it's a horribly boring instrument, the only people who ever did well in music were the ones who did other instruments outside of class.

I barely passed music but I got a guitar a year ago, I can learn at my own pace without the school and I've learned more in a year than I did doing the recorder for 7 in school.

Maybe its because not all people like reading, and insisting they do something they genuinely do not like over and over and over and over is only going to push them further and further and further and further away from it.

Erana:

Honestly, I think the act of reading a physical book is put on a bit too much of a pedestal.

This too. Plus, some of the shit they have you read in school... I'm doing English Lit at A-Level, and will be doing it at Uni, but most of the stuff we will read in class would send anyone in their right mind to sleep.

(18th Century 'comedic' plays aren't fucking interesting!)

mrjoe94:

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

There's a book called skulduggery pleasant, which was a dark comedy/fantasy with a skeleton playing the title character that I read when I was about 10. I cannot believe it's not as popular as other young adult novels, it had witty characters, believable dialogue, and an interesting premise. I get annoyed when my fellow high schoolers just dismiss reading as some boring, trivial activity getting in the way of their usual activities i.e. getting high and/or retarded.