What is a reluctant reader?

It’s time to leave these labels behind, say experts

Literacy levels are down and reading for pleasure is at an all-time low. We sat down with two experts from the school library and educational publishing sphere to get their perspectives.

Gabriella Mace is an award-winning literacy expert, educational consultant, and global keynote speaker with 15+ years of experience working in and with school libraries across Australia.

Guy Gonzalez is Chief Content Officer at LibraryPass with a 30+ year career in publishing, including leading content roles at Writer’s Digest, School Library Journal and Library Journal.

Formats, mediums, and ‘real’ reading?

Physical reading versus digital is often presented as an ongoing competition. Young people will have reading experiences physically, digitally, and even via audio. Different formats and mediums are not usually encountered in a vacuum.

In a similar way, young people are often told that popular literature mediums such as manga, comics and graphic novels do not count as ‘real’ reading, regardless of the complexity of their language and the development of multiliteracies, including visual literacy.

I do think students are reading, but I think there is a judgement attached to what it is they are reading.

Gabrielle Mace

I think one of our problems as a society is that we've created this hierarchy of who is and isn't a 'real' reader.

Guy Gonzalez

Guy continues: “Boys don’t read. Women who read romance aren’t reading real books. Comics, graphic novels, those aren’t reading. We create this world where 5% of readers are readers, because it’s the small niche who read the prestige literary fiction and the big nonfiction books.”

Being a ‘reluctant reader’ is not about reluctance, it’s about access

The label ‘reluctant reader’ is often given to learners who, for a variety of reasons, seem disengaged from reading. However, the term itself could be contributing to the problem. The limitations that some place on what counts as reading feeds directly into the issue with ‘reluctant reader’ terminology. Guy notes that it focuses more on the educator or parent doing the defining, and not the learners themselves.

I hate the term 'reluctant reader', mostly because it can ignore other factors like neurodivergence, or worse, gatekeepers deciding what is and isn't real reading.

Guy Gonzalez

“From an educational context, this is my main issue with ‘reluctant reader’. It centres what the person defining that reader wants them to read, as opposed to the individual reader’s preferences and needs. And when you shift that lens, then it’s not about their reluctance. It’s about their access.”

Guy believes most of those who seem reluctant actually fall into a variety of different categories, including:

• Students with potential reading disabilities (such as dyslexia) who face structural barriers to accessing texts.
• Students who can read but choose not to, often due to negative past experiences with assigned texts that they cannot relate to.
• Divergent readers, who are actively engaged in reading but in non-traditional formats that may not be recognised or valued in formal assessments.

The damaging impact of labels

Gabrielle breaks down the potential consequences of the ‘reluctant reader’ label: “It’s incredibly damaging to the self-perception of the reader, particularly with our young people. It implies a resistance to reading itself, which is a label that can be so misleading and have long-term damaging implications.”

There is a great deal of research that suggests that labelling student can create negative associations with reading and in education in general.

Gabrielle Mace

Instead, she prefers to refer to learners as being in a ‘reading slump’ or ‘book slump’, with the key to solving it being understanding and acknowledging that students have diverse reading preferences. “This can really shift the focus from reluctance to engagement.”

Into the spotlight: reading engagement

More than 20 years ago, the OECD evidenced that engagement is the key to success in literacy outcomes, more so than any factors related to student socio-economic background.

For Guy, the decreasing interest that the current generation is showing in traditional reading materials also comes down to an ongoing lack of perceived relevance that has been growing over time, “When I was in school in the 80s, I absolutely hated 90% of the required texts because they had no relevance to me.”

And it’s not just teenagers. These expectations of what a true reader is affected Guy’s relationship with himself as a reader into his adult years, despite a long career in publishing. He would try to power through books that did not engage him, then reward himself with comics only after.

“In 2023, I finally thought ‘I’m doing that to myself’. I’m going to just start reading more. I’m not going to treat comics as the gift I give to myself when I finish a ‘real book’. I can read whatever comics I want. And then occasionally, when I’m in the mood I’ll go read a ‘real book’ and move on.

It broke the dam. I’m reading all the comics I want. But I’m also reading a lot more books, and I’m still reading different articles online, too.”.

When focusing on getting students engaged in reading for pleasure, both Guy and Gabrielle echo the same sentiment: removing or devaluing reader choice works against reader engagement.

[Those in a reading slump] just haven't found something that is going to light them on fire right now, and it's our job to find that. Whatever the subject matter, topic. Fiction, nonfiction, manga, graphic novels - I don't care.

Gabrielle Mace

Defend your divergent library collection with literature reviews

School librarians can sometimes be in challenging positions, where they must defend divergent reading materials in their libraries to senior leaders, parents, and other teachers. Meeting the diverse reading needs and tastes of the young people in schools to encourage engagement with reading often needs proof, especially with divergent materials such as visual literature and expanding non-fiction collections.

Gabrielle: “When I’ve enacted big changes in schools, I always start with a literature review. You have to be able to back up what you’re saying. As librarians, we’re good researchers, and when you want to enact change, the person who you go to is the principal.”

And if you go to the principal and say, ‘this is my whole collection development policy’, the first thing they’re going to ask is ‘What are the findings on this?’. And so, if you do a literature review, you can defend that to a board, to a group of parents, to the pastoral care team.

“You’ve got to also look at your school environment and ask ‘What is the thing I want to change here? What is my most pressing thing. Don’t dilute yourself off to 10 things. What change do you want to make in your school? Have a literature review to back it up and take a 3 to 4 year approach.”

So, how do you increase reading engagement?

Getting creative and testing what works for your school community is one of the best ways to start encouraging reading engagement. For fellow librarians, Gabrielle offers the following ideas:

• Graphic novel festivals
• Author visits, either in-person or via video calls
• Get parents and teachers involved
• Prioritise student voice and choice
• Dedicated times for free reading
• 'Theme days' or ongoing non-static displays
• Genre-exploration weeks
• Show students that their favourite teachers read
• Champion reading for the sheer joy of it, not for specific outcomes

In addition:

1. Make sure that you have a varied reading provision covering a range of formats, genres and mediums. We recommend PressReader for newspapers and magazines on both mobile and desktop devices.
2. Learn to defend your collection by understanding how to perform literature reviews. If you need guidance, Gabrielle provides workshops, consultancy and support.
3. Leave that ‘reluctant reader’ label in the past if you want to look towards improving students’ futures, and help others understand why they need to do the same.