What We're Really Teaching When We Teach Reading

Not every child loves reading.

This is worth saying plainly, since a lot of conversations about reading begin from the assumption that they should - and that if they don't, something has gone wrong.

Something has not necessarily gone wrong.

But something is worth understanding.

Reading is one of the most important skills a child develops. Not because it is a school subject. Almost everything else depends on it.

A child who reads fluently is not just learning English. They are unlocking Science, History, Mathematics, Health, Technology and the wider world around them. They are accessing information independently, thinking critically, solving problems and engaging with ideas that exist far beyond their immediate experience.

In practical classroom terms, reading is not viewed as a standalone subject. It is the foundation upon which nearly all future learning is built.

But here is what I think gets lost in that conversation.

Reading doesn't just develop literacy.

It develops something harder to measure and equally important.

When a child reads, they are not simply receiving information.

They are imagining. Interpreting. Questioning. Predicting. Making meaning.

They create the characters, the settings and the emotions in their own mind. They practise empathy by seeing the world through someone else's eyes. They encounter new ideas, new vocabulary and new perspectives - all while exercising sustained attention and concentration.

A book asks a child to bring something of themselves to the experience. The images are not provided. The emotions are not curated. The connections are made entirely within the reader's own mind.

Reading also builds something less visible but equally important.

The ability to be alone with your own thoughts.

A book asks a child to slow down. To sit with uncertainty. To wonder what happens next and stay engaged without constant stimulation or reward. In a world that increasingly delivers everything instantly, reading teaches patience, depth and reflection.

Perhaps most importantly, reading helps children discover themselves.

Through stories, they learn what they value, what interests them, what makes them laugh, what moves them and what they believe. Every book becomes both a window into someone else's world and a mirror reflecting something back about their own.

Reading is not just a way of learning about the world.

It is one of the ways children build an inner life within it.

And yet.

Not every child loves reading. Not every child will choose a book over other forms of entertainment. Not every child experiences reading as relaxing, enjoyable or effortless.

And that is okay.

As an educator, I have always thought there is an important difference between two very different situations:

My child doesn't enjoy reading.

and,

My child cannot access reading successfully.

These are not the same thing. They do not call for the same response.

A child who reads well but prefers building, sport, creating, making, drawing, exploring or socialising is not broken. They may simply find fulfilment elsewhere - and that is entirely their right.

A child who struggles to read fluently, finds reading exhausting, experiences repeated failure or associates books with frustration - that child may need something different altogether. Often what appears to be a dislike of reading is actually a dislike of what reading has become for them.

There is a significant difference between a child who hasn't yet found their book, and a child for whom reading itself has become a source of pain.

I also think we sometimes unintentionally oversell reading as the only pathway to learning, imagination or an inner life.

Reading is a wonderful pathway.

But it is not the only one.

Some children discover themselves through building. Art. Music. Movement. Nature. Making. Collecting. Designing. Creating. Conversation.

The child who spends hours drawing may be developing concentration. The child building elaborate worlds may be developing imagination. The child obsessed with insects may be developing curiosity and deep knowledge.

These are not lesser versions of reading. They are different expressions of the same fundamental human need - to engage deeply with something, to think, to wonder, to know.

What I would be more concerned about is not whether a child loves reading.

I would be concerned if a child struggles to engage deeply with anything. If they move constantly from one thing to the next. If nothing holds their attention. If they rarely experience absorption, curiosity or sustained focus.

Those qualities matter - regardless of whether they appear through books, sport, art, music, coding, gardening or something else entirely.

A good teacher introduces every text with the intention of teaching a child to read.

A better teacher finds a way to show even the most reluctant reader that there is something worth finding inside a book.

And the best - the ones I have watched work quietly and persistently with the toughest of students - they do something remarkable.

They win them over.

Not always to books in general. Sometimes just to one book. One story. One character. One author whose name the child now says with the kind of familiarity usually reserved for friends.

That child may never trot to the bookstore. They may not download the sequel from Amazon.

But they will talk about their class novel with a gusto that lights up the room. They will name the author. They will consider what happens next. They will want to watch the film.

And in that moment - that small, unglamorous, entirely unremarkable moment - something has shifted.

A child who once said I don't read has found something worth reading for.

The goal is not to raise children who all become passionate readers.

The goal is to raise children who can access reading as a meaningful tool - and who have been given enough space, enough time and enough encouragement to discover what genuinely captures their attention.

For some that will be books.

For others it will be drawing, building, creating, exploring, making, collecting or discovering.

What matters is not that every child loves reading.

What matters is that every child has the opportunity to develop curiosity, attention and an inner life.

Reading is one of the most powerful ways we know of to build those things.

But it was never meant to be the only way.