www.reluctant-reader.net

Strategies to motivate reluctant readers

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.
— Kate DiCamillo

With support and the right conditions, you can open up the wonders of reading to reluctant readers.

There's no one template to copy. You'll need to develop, trial and review strategies that work for your readers. This will build a reading culture that all students embrace.

Set expectations

Start with an expectation that every student will be a reader.
Focus on encouraging reading as a positive and enjoyable experience, rather than just a way to develop skills.
Reading encouragement can come from all teachers, at any level and of any subject across the curriculum.
Share reading expectations and student interests with other teachers, library staff and whānau.
Offer reading resources and support that align with reading expectations to students and whānau.

A school-wide reading culture

Help students find books they'll enjoy

Some students may not be reluctant to read, but reluctant to read what we want them to.

Research has shown that children are more likely to read when they are able to choose their own reading material (Fisher and Frey). The impact of choice and finding the right books at the right time, again and again, can be the catalyst for successful reading experiences.

Raise reading volume through access, choice, discussion, and book talks — Fisher and Frey, 2018.

Know your students, offer a diverse range of books

Know your students’ passions and interests. Keep up to date with books currently trending online.
Have a diverse range of appealing reading resources in different formats and genres, fiction and non-fiction.
Ensure students regularly see new books through library visits, booktalking and other book promotion activities.
Invite students to recommend books for your class or library collection.
Increase borrowing limits in the school library to encourage students to borrow a wider range of titles.
Supplement school collections with reading engagement requests from the National Library.

Libraries supporting readers

National Library's school lending service

Tips to help make their choice easier

Ensure making a choice isn't too overwhelming. For example, have a ‘good books box’ with 10 great books for the month.
Increase the amount of face-out display — the cover is a big selling point.
Try arranging the fiction collection by genre to help students find their next ‘read-alike’ book.

Helping students choose books to read for pleasure

Arranging library fiction by genre

Provide reading role models

Positive reading role models are vital for inspiring readers and showing that reading matters.

Be a reading role model and share your passion and reading experiences with your students.
Invite authors and illustrators to your school and allow students time to interact with them through workshops.
Take students to reader and writer festivals.
Encourage parents or other significant adults to establish a reading routine with their children.

School staff as readers

Teachers as readers in New Zealand primary and secondary intermediate schools — NZCER researcher Sue McDowall explored the experiences of how teachers and leaders who are passionate readers inspire readers.

Plan reading times and places

Schedule a regular time to read with no tasks attached.
Encourage students to design a welcoming and comfortable reading area in your class or library.

Read aloud regularly

Reading aloud is an important way to engage students of all ages with the magic of story and reading. For some students, school is the only place they have this experience.

Read aloud as much as possible from chapter books as well as picture books. Engage older students with the illustrations and more complex themes of sophisticated chapter books.
Read from a wide variety of genres, fiction and non-fiction, and vary it week by week. Get the students to vote on a genre, theme or topic for the next week.
Read aloud for pleasure, with no work attached.
Don’t make reluctant readers read aloud.

Reading aloud — discusses the importance of reading aloud and how to read aloud.

Making it easier to find great read-alouds — a blog about how to find great read-aloud books in our Schools Lending Collection.

Sophisticated picture books

Book chat

Reading can often be a social activity. Provide opportunities for discussion, interaction and reading in a group. For example, get students to chat about whether they empathise with characters. Can they see connections between what happens in the book and their lives?

Create opportunities for quieter students to express themselves. Research shows girls can sometimes dominate book groups. Some schools have developed boys-only groups where boys feel more confident to express themselves.

The Book and Beyond guide and exemplars — use our educator and student guides and exemplars as prompts for talking about books.

Book clubs

Use technology to encourage reading

Use online resources to hook students in. Encourage them to sign up for book sites like Goodreads to compare and critique books, write reviews or make movie trailers for their favourite books.

Goodreads

Set up web-based reading fan clubs on the school website, with students choosing and creating their own clubs.

Set up a library blog for reviews and links to online information about authors, titles, series, discussion or book trailers.

Reading promotion

Use interactive sites like:

BBC School Radio — hear students interview authors about the inspiration for their books and tips for writing.
Wonderopolis — explains a wonder-of-the-day using text and a video, then tests your knowledge.

Boys as readers

The 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study shows that girls perform better than boys in reading. This finding is evident in New Zealand and worldwide.

Girls’ and boys’ performance in PISA — chapter 7 from ‘PISA 2018 results (volume II): Where all students can succeed’.

In a 2022 article for the Education Hub, Australian researcher Margaret Merga states:

Research suggests that from the early years, we socialise boys and girls differently when it comes to reading. Parents spend more time supporting and encouraging girls to read, starting as young as nine months.
— Turning boys of all ages into life-long readers

In this article, Margaret Merga attributes boys’ lower literacy rates to poorer foundational literacy skills. Boys also don't read as much for fun — even after they become confident and independent readers.

Research shows boys prefer reading fiction to non-fiction

Merga’s article draws on research that suggests boys actually prefer reading fiction to non-fiction, contrary to stereotypes suggesting the opposite. This is important as reading fiction brings considerable benefits, as Merga argues:

… when we encourage boys to exclusively read non-fiction based on a false stereotype, we are actually steering them away from reading the text type that can offer the greatest literacy benefit.

As well as increasing literacy, reading fiction can develop empathy and an understanding of different perspectives — crucial social skills.

Reading for hauora | wellbeing

Does reading fiction make us better people? — this BBC article explores the research around whether reading fiction increases people’s empathy and compassion.

Supporting boys to read

It's important to support boys' reading in the early years, throughout their schooling and beyond. Do this by:

creating a positive atmosphere around reading
avoiding deficit thinking and falling back on false stereotypes about boys and reading
using the other suggested strategies on this page.

Ultimately, if we want boys to see themselves as readers, they need to be given support and encouragement in a community that values and celebrates reading.