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 dependent upon the scholar. It is dependent upon illiteracy vs aliteracy. It is dependent upon the way you outline studying (does studying long-winded character dialogues in Sq. Enix video games depend?) So beneath, I’ve gathered a number of the most typical causes college students don’t learn and supplied some methods you’ll be able to start to deal with that difficulty.
12 Frequent Causes College students Don’t Learn & What You Can Do About It
1. They haven’t discovered the suitable guide or sort of guide.
How do you’re feeling when your principal drops a guide in your lap–one thing well-intentioned however not even somewhat naturally fascinating to you? Do you hate to learn since you don’t wish to learn it?
Potential 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? 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 set of books for college students 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 common studying methods they’ll flip to on occasion.
Potential options: See right here.
Potential 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 fervour that advertising and marketing companies efficiently market billion-dollar firms.
3. They want particular studying methods they’ll self-select from primarily based on context.
Potential options: Determine their strengths and areas for progress as a reader, assist them self-assess in the identical method, then work along with them and their dad and mom to create a set of 4-6 studying methods from the checklist 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 check? Am I at grade stage? Above? Beneath? What if I’ve to learn out loud?
Potential options: Don’t make them learn out loud until 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 stage’ (Really feel like studying Shakespeare after an extended day, or would you moderately 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 wish to learn in. I can’t learn if it’s not utterly quiet–anybody speaking and I’m carried out.
Potential 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 motive to learn.
And also you assigning it isn’t sufficient.
Potential options: Make studying social. The method, the reflections, and the outcomes. Assist them see the worth of each the method of studying (vital pondering), 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 onerous to learn you probably have 1,000,000 issues to do. Who desires to “take pleasure in a very good guide” once you’ve bought 20 pages of homework to do?
Potential 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 wish to learn.
Potential options: They want an at-home library of ‘stuff’ they wish to learn. Or the Epic reading 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.
Potential options: Apps can’t remedy each literacy downside, 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 gradual studying velocity, which reduces comprehension and makes studying not enjoyable.
Potential 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 healthier 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 in school, moderately than a chance to make which means, be entertained, be uncovered to new concepts, make mates, and so on. Somebody that engineers is named an engineer. Somebody that writes is a author. Somebody that reads? That’s referred to as a pupil.
12. They should know all the unimaginable issues about studying–subjects, data, genres, authors, and so on.
Potential Options: So present them.
12 Frequent Causes College students Don’t Learn & What You Can Do About It; picture attribution flickr consumer eugenekim
