Reading loss isn’t just a summer memory
Between in-class festivities and school vacation, the time spent out of class at the end of the year still only comes in at about half the length of the long summer break.
But during that extended vacation period, we know that learners often lose 20% of the previous school year’s reading gains. If we take an average, that means some 10% of a student’s previous twelve months of reading gains might be at risk as they tuck into their turkey – and that’s bad news.
Many students head back into class in January for tests and exams, and even for those who don’t, learning really ramps up in the second half of the school year, putting any reading slide that has emerged is under pressure from the very beginning of the year. The trick is to keep kids reading as much as possible over the holidays, but this is easier said than done, when their reading motivation might be in a bit of a slump.
What can we do to give it a boost?
First, we need to understand where low reading motivation comes from.
Cause 1: Preference
Again: it’s Christmas! There’s a whole world of alternative things to do that might feel a lot more fun and interactive than reading, from TV and movies to simply hanging out with friends. And in the case of video games and social media, they may even be designed to have an addictive element or time-sink mechanic to them, meaning they’re difficult to put down even if kids want to. Reading might even simply be conceived of as boring – a history of books that they didn’t feel interested in can foster those feelings easily.
Cause 2: Skills and needs
Some students find it difficult to read independently. They may not have quite garnered the skill set or even the confidence yet: we see this frequently in young learners who have dyslexia or similar reading differences, as well as English Language Learners (ELLs) who may not be able to read and comprehend and independently in English.
Cause 3: Negative emotions
Other learners experience low reading motivation across the winter holidays due to how reading makes them feel. It goes deeper than preference in leisure activities: this avoidance is an emotionally-based aversion rooted in previous experiences of reading, because it makes them stressed, anxious, or embarrassed.
This three-cause system is imperfect: these three causes rarely happen in isolation, and it’s normal for readers who experience reading negatively or struggle to read will often want to do other things in their leisure time. But they do give us a handy framework in which to structure our efforts in giving reading motivation a boost!
Solution 1: Help children and young people choose reading.
📚 Low reading motivation might just mean they’re a selective reader! Perhaps the books they have are too hard or too easy, or they’re simply on topics that don’t interest them. When was the last time their bookshelves had an update? Allowing learners to let their own interests steer their course means reading feels less like work, and more like fun.
📚 If learners are older and are struggling to balance reading for pleasure with things like revision, encourage them to take breaks. If they’re reading a lot as part of exam prep, then there’s no real reason for reading skills to slide, but reading for pleasure has a lot of mental health benefits that might be positive for anyone dealing with exam stress.
📚 Screen time and digital addiction can cut into reading time in a big way. Where possible, encourage learners to cut down on their recreational screen time. You could try a family digital detox for a few hours a night – and if younger learners are accustomed to receiving screen time as a reward for good behavior, offer the opportunity to read together instead.
📚 If school-age readers seem to be struggling with the distractions of the holiday period, try setting aside a period of reading time every day or every other day, to read as a pair or as a family unit. You could even create a tracker chart and rewards system!
📚 And especially for younger readers, one of the major draws of the festive period is that friends and family may be around more. Lean into it – reading together is a great way to make things feel more fun.
Solution 2: Get to the bottom of support needs, and fill them!
📚 Is an unsupported neurodiversity, skill gap, or Special Educational Need the root of low reading motivation? A simple conversation beginning “Hey, you don’t read so much anymore. Why is that?” is a powerful thing. Be on the lookout for complaints that line up with the International Dyslexia Association dyslexia assessment resources, as well as skill gaps you may want to chat to teachers about in January.
📚 Or your learner might already have an identified language or literacy need that’s not being supported over vacation. Have they lost access to in-class supports, like a reading pen?
You can step in to support temporarily so that you can read together at Christmas, but re-establishing reading independence is vital: look for assistive technology loan services through schools or libraries, or give the gift of reading this year with their very own reading pen!
📚 Another thing to consider is learned helplessness. If children or young people have been reading with a human reading support last semester, and that support suddenly disappears, they may develop the idea that they simply can’t read any more. Again, establishing independence is key: look for reading supports like reading pens that put learners in the driving seat again and help rekindle their confidence in their skills.
Cause 3: Understand reading-related stress, and tackle the sources.
📚 Something that often goes hand in hand with skill gaps and low reading confidence is reading anxiety. Reading is a major gauge of learning progress, and when it’s compromised, learners can become embarrassed, frustrated, and start to pull away. Adding in a reading support like a reading pen, whether they’ve got dyslexia, they’re still learning English, or even if they just need a little extra support, can help them realize that they’re capable of reading independently and with confidence.
📚 But a reading motivation slump doesn’t have to be wholly reading-based. It might be a result of generalized school stress. That stress may be linked to work issues, sensory experiences, or something else entirely – but it’s especially prevalent in neurodivergent learners. Learn how to spot the signs at Understood.org, and talk with students and teachers in January to better understand the causes, working with healthcare professionals if you need to.
📚 And school burnout is late-stage, unsupported stress. Again, it disproportionately impacts neurodivergent learners, but it can affect anyone. It’s a state of exhaustion that comes from consistent stress that can hugely impact the motivation to do many things, and it’s often tricky to spot.
Again, talk with teachers and healthcare professionals on this one: burnout might have some reading-related causes, but its consequences can be far more wide-reaching, and it’s important to tackle it sensitively.
Reading pens:
Because reading motivation matters.
We know that when learners lose the desire to read for pleasure over long periods of educational inactivity, reading progress gets lost. This makes it harder to hit the ground running in January.
But the real problem arises when those start-of-year slumps deepen, learners struggle to recoup progress, and week-on-week skill gaps widen – and we know that since the pandemic, we’ve had to teach faster than ever before, so it’s easier than ever to fall behind.
That’s why parents and educators are turning to individual reading supports like reading pens to ensure that every learner can access every text with absolute confidence. Reading pens are text-to-speech reading tools that speak the words on the page back to learners, helping them decode with in-built language and dictionary functions, and supporting them as they develop the confidence to read alone. And the best part? Reading pens by C-Pen are rechargeable, durable and perfectly pocket-sized, meaning that it’s perfect for travelling between home and school, making it the ideal companion for curling up with a book this festive season.
When reading feels possible, enjoyable and stress is kept out of the equation, reading motivation gets a huge boost – which means holiday reading does.
Find out which reading pen is right for you at our super-speedy Pen Guide Quiz!
From all of us at Scanning Pens, we’d like to take this opportunity to wish you a wonderful festive season, as well as good luck to any student who’s headed back into the classroom to take exams this January.
You’ve got this! 💙
