Child Psychology: If children know how to read, why don't they?

Perhaps the better question here is:  why do Adults not read?!  As has been shared parents significantly influence their children's desire to read.  It is not the schools that will create a reader- schools give the tools to appreciate and delve into whatever is read, but the desire (or lack thereof) comes from that which occurs prior to school starts- read to your infant, show how books are exciting and your child will appreciate books.  As we become more and more technologically dependent, we lose the skills we once had- think about it, handwriting, for example, is being considered (perhaps already has) a non-essential task and not taught.  What then happens when the power is out for extended periods?    Reading, outside of that which is required (i.e. work, school, etc) has become a non-activity.   Consider the airport, for example.  Travelers do not read the signage nor even listen to the messages broadcast via video or announcer.  Rather, they expect the staff in the airport to direct them to where ever they want to go.  How many of you ask "where is baggage?" rather than looking at the large signs above/ in front of you?  Or asked security why there were no signs telling you to take your laptop out of the bag and leave it separate? Those signs are in every airport and blasted on video in most.  This is laziness.  We are a lazy society which expects to be catered to.  Our children see this and emulate it.  After all, if mom and dad are doing lazy, it must be the right way. Children have no reason to want to exert effort, not the desire, as their role models demonstrate little interest themselves.  Of course, when the parent needs cooperation from the child, and that cooperation is not there (modeling?). The parent gets upset- thinking-"where did my child learn to be so insolent?".  Never is the mirror gazed upon to find the answer. So, to you parents who have and do read to your child, play games requiring use of imagination, put away the video games and other mindless activity- I applaud you!  You will have the creators of the next generation, the thinkers and doers, and, on-point to this question, the readers!

It could be that people simply don't enjoy reading, particularly without a reason.I don't.It's not because I wasn't encouraged to read; I was encouraged in numerous ways. But I personally need a goal behind everything I do. You won't see me at an art museum getting "lost" in a painting, but you will see me taking notes on shading or stroke direction or composition because my next project warrants it, so I want to get the techniques right from the source. You won't see me reading random science articles, but you will find me delving into papers in even fields that seem unrelated because there's a particular technique I want to use to enhance my project, or an area that I need to understand better communicate part of my dissertation. Even as a little kid, I used stuffed animals to observe how they were put together so I could try to make my own, or as place holders in a story I wanted to tell - a 3D brainstorm flowchart, if you will.I read only if I have a specific purpose.I had two majors as an undergrad - physiology and creative writing. The second was because I wanted to learn to communicate well through writing, but I wanted a certain empathy to be present in my words that I knew would not come accross in technical writing. So I read with the specific intent of finding what I wanted to take from each piece and use for my own writing.I read to take literary techniques and mold them for my own use.If the kids have no intent of wanting to be writers, I see no reason they should be pushed to read more if they find it "unfun". To me, this is no different that pushing a kid to ice-skate or play a video game or learn karate or to paint if they don't find any of these enjoyable.If they are into film, let them watch movies, but make sure they are absorbing techniques in lighting and character development and flow of action so one day they can be a profound film maker. If they are into art, let them pour over books with pictures with poses and shading and human skeletons let them absorb what works and what doesn't.Just make sure kids are taking and absorbing and reforming concepts in whatever they're interested in, and they'll grow to have the skills they need to do what they want. I couldn't care less if they never read "for fun," as long as they're capable of doing their mandatory work in school.

By not damaging a desire to read with instruction that's too early and divorced from the reason people read. Kids need a positive and pleasurable atmosphere around reading just as they did around learning to speak. (Which is a much harder task that kids learn effortlessly!) Get rid of any instruction that doesn't further children's enjoyment of stories and reading. Delay reading instruction. The oft-cited Finns delay reading instruction until 7 and have the highest literacy rates in the world The biggest boost would come from seeing how unschooled kids learn to read. Unschooled kids are read to and their questions answered. There is no formal instruction. Unschooling parents maintain a positive experience with the printed word whether it be books, comic books, video game text and walkthroughs, maps, directions, labels, lists, texts. Anything the child wants or needs read. And spoken words too, swirling the home with all sorts of story telling (or fact based if that's what floats a child's boat): audio books, TV, movies, theater. And the written word: recording or writing down the child's stories, making lists, labeling things, notes. Anything the child is interested in writing down (whether hand written or on a device.) In that atmosphere, unschooled kids without fail learn to read. They learn to read in the same age ranges as schooled kids, usually in the 6-8 range, some earlier, some later. The biggest advantage the unschooled kids have is they are under zero pressure to read or learn to read. Because they aren't pressured, the avoid the damage of the (hopefully unspoken) message that there's something wrong with them that needs fixed. They learn when they're developmentally ready to read just as kids learn to walk and talk when they're developmentally ready. They read what interests them and what they find useful. Because schools don't allow reading to unfold naturally, educators are becoming less and less aware that learning to read is natural and effortless when kids have natural and positive experiences with the printed word. Instruction before a child is developmentally ready is as useless as walk lessons before a child is developmentally ready. And after a child is ready, the instruction is unnecessary.

Because their school has beaten any desire to read out of them by reducing their recesses, giving them 20 minute lunches, and obsessively teaching standardized tests such that kids are so sufficiently bored and squirmy at the end of the day that they just want to play outside or play video games.

I have two kids who can read. One reads and one doesn't. This is the sum of my experience or knowledge on the topic. I really think the answer is the speed of life. Everyone today is in a hurry to do this, gotta drop off that, always online, always connected. We over commit and kill ourselves to get it all done. I dont know about you but i can't really enjoy reading in the middle of this insanity. I can't expect my kids to either. My child who can temporarily shut out the pace of our life, reads. The one who can't, doesn't.

Not encouraging them. Many children have a contrary streak and when reading, which they may have loved or not, is compulsory, the pleasure is diminished. Not all: some prefer reading to sports. By reading to children and engaging their curiosity, they want more. many parents think that time investigating a subject on the computer isn't reading: it is. The hyperlinks when one works an interest, perhaps astronomy, are rich and what matters most, in my opinion, is their curiosity. Reading as pleasure instils a lifelong habit that nagging fails.

My children (now adults) all read.  I read to them from the time they were probably 6 months old and we have always had zillions of books in our home.  Every night after they went to bed I laid on the floor in the hall outside their rooms and read chapter after chapter from wonderful children's books.  I got most of ours from yard sales. They still remember the names...Amelia Bedelia, The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles, A Cricket in Times Square, The Borrowers, The Trumpet of the Swan, Adam of the Road, and on and on and on.  Love books yourself, read to your children as long as they will listen.  I saved all these books and now that they have children, I let them choose which ones to take into their own homes to read to them.  I kept many of them and read to my grandchildren.  Remember the old saying "children learn what they live".

have the parent model reading and read with the child. Reading is a passive activity. Children are active creatures. Make the reading exciting. Changing voices, acting things out. Get them to read science experiments that you can do just like a cooking or baking lesson. Make it fun and practical for them. In other words be creative but mix reading and it's importance with what is important to them = Activity, time with you.

for children a love for reading can be germinated by introduction to some series of books or series of stories by the same author. i believe it is the habitual rereading of the same story over and over that motivates preschool readers, then for teens it is the following of the same characters through several story lines that is motivational.