Allowing Children to Find the Pleasure in Books Without the Pressure

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Children are easily dissuaded. If there is peer or parental pressure to move onto more advanced books at a pace children are not ready for, they are more likely to walk away from books and reading altogether. Meaning that academic reading, the books sent home from school as homework, become a chore.

If a child has reached this stage, then focussed but gentle intervention is needed. School is hard enough for many children. They see their peers either advancing ahead of them or falling behind them, meaning children are far more aware of where their own academic abilities sit within their peer groups than many of us realise.

Children pick up on those who appear to effortlessly float through the school day. And if they feel they are struggling in comparison then frustration, tantrums, refusal, and low self-esteem can become a daily issue. For some children, this can result in the physical act of going to school becoming a problem or at the very least result in a child feeling miserable. And remember, they spend far more of their waking hours in school than they do at home, so these feelings become the norm.

Avoiding this, where possible, will help build a child’s confidence, self-esteem and, believe me, it also aids their abilities to build friendships as they feel on a more even keel with their peers. They do not have to feel as academically placed. They simply need to feel that they are doing well and can function within the classroom.

Nurturing, reassuring, and positive reinforcement can be more essential to the needs of some children more than others. And this alongside making reading enjoyable through reading books that are ‘reading’ age appropriate, are of interest, and keep a child’s attention span for longer will undoubtedly go a long way in building the confidences needed in happy readers.

Call to Action

This week, rather than asking your child to read to you, you read to your child. Ask them to follow with their finger and once you have either finished a page or the allotted reading, ask them if they had a favourite word and if so, can they find it. What letter does it start with? What sounds were in the word? Turn it into a game, a chat, rather than the chore of reading and build form there.