Many children struggle with reading and would benefit from added literacy support at home. There can be many reasons that a child has difficulties with reading and academic support is essential to making progress. In addition to this, children can often experience a number of negative feelings associated with the reading, particularly because it is a challenging activity for them. At times, they may experience anxiety or fear when asked to read because they feel that they cannot do it or that they are ‘bad’ at it.  This can manifest itself as resistance or refusal to read and write, and exhibiting new behaviours in the classroom and/or at home. It is important for teachers and parents to promote a growth mindset within children, so that they begin to see a challenging activity as something to be mastered, rather than something that they are inherently incapable of. Helping children to work through their feelings about reading is one part of this process.

There are ways that parents can help their children work through their feelings about reading, in an attempt to make it a more enjoyable and motivating experience. Teaching children to identify and become aware of their feelings is a great first step in beginning to sort through their experience. Beyond this, it is helpful to talk about those feelings and begin to understand their triggers. Below is one activity entitled, “My Worry Bucket” that is designed to help children identify and work through their feelings about a particular situation (e.g. reading). This activity can be applied to other subject areas as well!

Activity: My Worry Bucket

1. Use feelings pictures to talk about different emotions and what they look like.  Ask your child how he/she is feeling right now.
2. Talk to your child about the things that cause them worry or stress in relation to a particular activity (e.g. reading).
3. “When I am reading, and I come to a word that I don’t know I feel…”
4. Make a list of the things that worry/frustrate your child about reading
5. Example:
6. I get frustrated when I can’t read a word
7. I don’t like to read because it is hard and I can’t do it
8. Cut out these worries individually (from your list) and have your child place these worries in a basket/bucket to release them! This provides a sense of dramatic distance from his/her worries (e.g. a place for them to go instead of keeping them all inside).
9. This activity will help to give you a sense of the different fears and anxieties that your child might face with respect to an activity (e.g. reading). As your child begins to make progress with this activity, go back and take a look at some of his/her past worries in the bucket and talk about how things have changed over time.