Why Teachers Make Children Hate Reading

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Why Children Despise Reading Prior to starting public school, the idea of reading and writing is exciting to many young children. Being able to communicate grammatically as well as verbally with others is an important milestone in a young child’s life. Because of this, educators are pressed to make sure their students are not shorted in their English education. However, according to John Holt’s How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading, the present conventional methods of teaching English are hindering children from enjoying the experience of reading and writing. Today, children view school as a “place of danger”, and their main focus is to avoid danger as much as possible (Holt 360). This danger comes in the form of mistakes on tests, quizzes, and homework assignments in which the children earn grades based on what they are able to remember at that time, instead of making a long-term connection between the educational content and the children’s own distinct method of learning. Teachers, despite their best intentions, diminish the children’s will to read when they conform to these “conventional” methods of teaching. These methods have made a game, between the teachers and students, out of learning to read; a game in which the students are to guess what the teachers want to hear and to agree with the conclusions the teachers draw. This gives children the impression that reading is dangerous, because they don’t want to make mistakes and lose the game. For example, when children are given reading assignments, such as reading aloud in class, they are forced to make mistakes in front of their peers, causing children to relate reading with feelings of humiliation. Coincidently, this has a negative effect on the student’s feelings and motives to read. They no longer feel the desire to read, because they have been pressured to overanalyze the text and draw multiple

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