7 Instructional Strategies for Your Reluctant Readers, 6th-12th Grade

Ever tried to get a teenager to read? If you’ve tried with multiple teenagers then I’m sure you’ve come across the ones that treat reading like it’s a disease.

“Ew, is that a book? Get it away from me!”

We are all too familiar with the reluctant readers in middle and high school that have no desire to dive into literature. They soon learn that without reading they can’t be successful in their classes, and it’s later that they realize without reading they won’t be successful in life either.

Reading is a fundamental skill that is essential for academic and personal success. However, many students in grades 6 through 12 struggle with reading comprehension and often tend to avoid reading and lack motivation, which can result in poor academic performance and limited future opportunities. They all have their different reasons for not wanting to read. They find the content boring, they are embarrassed to admit their challenges with reading the level text you’ve presented to them or they are easily distracted with things in the room and even things going on outside the classroom.

We can address this issues blocking them from experiencing different pieces of literature with the following reading strategies that have been proven to work by numerous studies:

Choose Books that Compel

Reluctant readers are more likely to engage with literature that is relevant and interesting to them. Try to find books that align with their interests and hobbies. For example, if a student is interested in sports, consider recommending a biography or memoir about a professional athlete or a non-fiction book about the history of a sport.

Give Them the Power of Choice

Letting students choose their reading material empowers them and can help develop their motivation to read. Offer a selection of books with varying themes, genres, and difficulties and encourage them to select what they want to read. Even consider stepping away from books from time to time and give students literature through different forms that could be perceived as less intimidating. These other forms include magazines, newspapers, ebooks and slides.

Give Them a Goal

Having a goal to work towards can help motivate reluctant readers, because it gves them a purpose. Set small, achievable goals, such as reading one chapter a day, or a set number of pages per week. Goals can also be specific information that the students are looking for, for example character traits, or a theme, or a main conflict. Celebrate their achievements and progress towards the goals to motivate them to continue reading.

Encourage or Require Annotations

Encourage or require students to annotate their reading to take an active role in their comprehension of the text. We’d advise you to let them develop their own symbols so they’ll be easier to remember and recall. Make it easy by providing sticky notes or highlighters to help students track their thoughts, questions, and connections.

Provide Comprehension Support

Reluctant readers may benefit from additional support to help with comprehension. Provide graphic organizers or note-taking tools to help them organize information and make connections within the text while they read the text.

Offer Audiobooks

In order to improve one’s reading abilities, they must actually read the story word for word, but it is helpful to hear someone else reading it to them as they soar through the sentences and paragraphs. Listening to audiobooks can help reluctant readers build their vocabulary and comprehension skills while enjoying the experience of the story. This can also be a helpful accommodation to support students with reading difficulties such dyslexia.

Model It

Teach the importance of reading by modeling the behavior. Read aloud to students, set aside time each day for independent reading, and discuss books with enthusiasm. If you seem uninterested in the text than they will likely mirror that attitude.

In conclusion, developing the reading skills of reluctant readers in grades 6-12 requires a lot of patience and effort. However, with proper guidance and effective strategies, these students can become avid readers and improve their academic performance. By choosing a book that interests them, setting goals, providing support, and encouraging active engagement, students can learn to love reading, and set themselves up for future success.

Try some of these strategies out and let us know in the comments how it worked or didn’t work. We respond back here at Mack Edu! Also, if you are looking for FREE graphic organizers to help your reluctant readers follow along when analyzing characters in a work of fiction, visit our store at https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mack-Edu-Learning-Resources.