November 14, 2025 | Up to date November 13, 2025
12 Frequent Causes College students Don’t Learn & What You Can Do About It
by Terry Heick
Why don’t college students learn extra?
Digital distractions? No books at house? An excessive amount of testing? Kim Kardashian? It is determined by the scholar. It is determined by illiteracy vs aliteracy. It is determined by the way you outline studying (does studying long-winded character dialogues in Sq. Enix video games depend?) So beneath, I’ve gathered a few of the commonest causes college students don’t learn and offered some methods you possibly can start to handle that subject.
12 Frequent Causes College students Don’t Learn & What You Can Do About It
1. They haven’t discovered the appropriate ebook or sort of ebook.
How do you are feeling when your principal drops a ebook in your lap–one thing well-intentioned however not even a bit naturally fascinating to you? Do you hate to learn since you don’t wish to learn it?
Attainable options: I inform my college students that after I stroll right into a bookstore of 10,000 books, 9200 of them don’t enchantment to me. The upside? Which means there are 800 books I’m dying to learn. Nobody hates to learn. A few of us are simply pickier readers than others. We’ve obtained a group of books for college kids who suppose they don’t like studying, too.
See additionally What I Inform College students Who Suppose They Don’t Like To Learn
2. They want normal studying methods they will flip to every now and then.
Attainable options: See right here.
Attainable options: ‘Market’ studying to them. Take photos of them studying. Begin a ‘Caught Studying’ class instagram feed or #caughtreading hashtag (ship it to me and I’ll tweet it). Deal with it with the identical creativity and fervour that advertising businesses efficiently market billion-dollar corporations.
3. They want particular studying methods they will self-select from based mostly on context.
Attainable options: Establish their strengths and areas for development as a reader, assist them self-assess in the identical means, then work along with them and their mother and father to create a set of 4-6 studying methods from the record above (or different) for them to make use of flexibly relying on what they’re studying.
4. Studying could be intimidating.
Studying is enjoyable–till it isn’t. Do I perceive it? What can be on the take a look at? Am I at grade stage? Above? Under? What if I’ve to learn out loud?
Attainable options: Don’t make them learn out loud until what you’re eager to assess is oral fluency! Don’t put them on the spot. Don’t ask comprehension questions out loud. Don’t all the time insist that they ‘learn on grade stage’ (Really feel like studying Shakespeare after an extended day, or would you somewhat go house and plop on the sofa and watch ‘Bar Rescue’?)
5. The studying area or ‘vibe’ isn’t proper.
Too noisy. Too quiet. Too many distractions. Too heat, too chilly–all of us have circumstances we prefer to learn in. I can’t learn if it’s not utterly quiet–anybody speaking and I’m completed.
Attainable options: Permit college students to make use of white noise apps. Put white noise on within the classroom (they’ll get used to it). Create studying areas in your classroom. Ask your librarian/media specialist if they’ve any concepts. Flip the lights down. Purchase bean luggage–even for highschool college students!
6. They want a cause to learn.
And also you assigning it isn’t sufficient.
Attainable options: Make studying social. The method, the reflections, and the outcomes. Assist them see the worth of each the method of studying (important considering), and the outcomes of studying (data). Assist them see studying as a part of the connection between the life they’ve and the life they wish to have.
7. They’ve an excessive amount of else to do.
It’s laborious to learn if in case you have 1,000,000 issues to do. Who needs to “take pleasure in a very good ebook” whenever you’ve obtained 20 pages of homework to do?
Attainable options: Assist them create a personalised studying schedule that works for them based mostly on their life.
8. It’s not a behavior.
Studying is a muscle. The extra they learn, the extra they’ll wish to learn.
Attainable options: They want an at-home library of ‘stuff’ they wish to learn. Or the Epic studying app.
9. They’ve issues with phonemic consciousness.
In the event that they battle with phonemic consciousness, studying goes to be like climbing a mountain.
Attainable options: Apps can’t resolve each literacy drawback, however they’re nice for observe. Listed below are some elementary studying apps that may assist. And a few apps for struggling readers.
10. They’ve a restricted sight phrase vocabulary.
Restricted sight phrase vocabulary means sluggish studying pace, which reduces comprehension and makes studying not enjoyable.
Attainable options: Use Knowji. Have enjoyable with Frayer Fashions. Play Vocab video games. However greater than the rest, assist them construct a way of momentum as readers. Encountering phrases in context is best than on an index card for long-term retention.
11. They battle with their very own identification as a ‘reader.’
These college students see studying as one thing that you just do at college, somewhat than a possibility to make which means, be entertained, be uncovered to new concepts, make associates, and so forth. Somebody that engineers is named an engineer. Somebody that writes is a author. Somebody that reads? That’s referred to as a scholar.
12. They should know the entire unbelievable issues about studying–matters, data, genres, authors, and so forth.
Attainable Options: So present them.
12 Frequent Causes College students Don’t Learn & What You Can Do About It; picture attribution flickr person eugenekim
