November 14, 2025 | Up to date November 13, 2025
12 Widespread 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 residence? An excessive amount of testing? Kim Kardashian? It relies on the scholar. It relies on illiteracy vs aliteracy. It relies on the way you outline studying (does studying long-winded character dialogues in Sq. Enix video games rely?) So under, I’ve gathered among the commonest causes college students don’t learn and supplied some methods you possibly can start to handle that situation.
12 Widespread Causes College students Don’t Learn & What You Can Do About It
1. They haven’t discovered the suitable guide or kind of guide.
How do you’re feeling when your principal drops a guide in your lap–one thing well-intentioned however not even slightly naturally attention-grabbing to you? Do you hate to learn since you don’t need to learn it?
Attainable options: I inform my college students that once I stroll right into a bookstore of 10,000 books, 9200 of them don’t enchantment to me. The upside? Meaning 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 bought a group of books for college kids who assume they don’t like studying, too.
See additionally What I Inform College students Who Suppose They Don’t Like To Learn
2. They want basic studying methods they will flip to on occasion.
Attainable options: See right here.
Attainable options: ‘Market’ studying to them. Take footage 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 keenness that advertising and marketing companies efficiently market billion-dollar firms.
3. They want particular studying methods they will self-select from primarily based on context.
Attainable options: Determine their strengths and areas for progress as a reader, assist them self-assess in the identical approach, then work along with them and their dad and mom to create a set of 4-6 studying methods from the listing above (or different) for them to make use of flexibly relying on what they’re studying.
4. Studying may be intimidating.
Studying is enjoyable–till it isn’t. Do I perceive it? What will likely be on the take a look at? Am I at grade degree? Above? Beneath? What if I’ve to learn out loud?
Attainable options: Don’t make them learn out loud except what you’re desirous to assess is oral fluency! Don’t put them on the spot. Don’t ask comprehension questions out loud. Don’t at all times insist that they ‘learn on grade degree’ (Really feel like studying Shakespeare after a protracted day, or would you quite go residence 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 wish 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 baggage–even for highschool college students!
6. They want a purpose 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 need to have.
7. They’ve an excessive amount of else to do.
It’s laborious to learn in case you have one million issues to do. Who desires to “get pleasure from an excellent guide” once you’ve bought 20 pages of homework to do?
Attainable options: Assist them create a customized studying schedule that works for them primarily based on their life.
8. It’s not a behavior.
Studying is a muscle. The extra they learn, the extra they’ll need to learn.
Attainable options: They want an at-home library of ‘stuff’ they need 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 clear up each literacy downside, however they’re nice for apply. 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 anything, 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, quite than a chance to make which means, be entertained, be uncovered to new concepts, make associates, and so on. Somebody that engineers is named an engineer. Somebody that writes is a author. Somebody that reads? That’s known as a scholar.
12. They should know all the unimaginable issues about studying–matters, data, genres, authors, and so on.
Attainable Options: So present them.
12 Widespread Causes College students Don’t Learn & What You Can Do About It; picture attribution flickr person eugenekim
