The Dropping of Student Interest in Reading

Many students of Silver Creek High struggle with English studies around reading assignments, whether it’s the lost interest, the book having overflowing words dragging on and on, or being unable to track their progress. This can be impactful to a student’s reading and learning experience, causing them to have a negative outlook on English assignments.

Kristin Holtz, a SCHS librarian, discusses the students of Silver Creek High and their daily student engagement with English literature. She says that while not all students have a high opinion on English, there are some who will still enjoy reading what was assigned during their class period.

She then says that; “Those students who tend to enjoy reading find themselves in the library [and those students tend to be frequent visitors] in the library…”

She then was asked about the students of Silver Creek and if they enjoyed reading their assigned books during their English classes, or would prefer the other aspects of reading English.

Kristin Holtz adds, “That is hard to say…people who tend to enjoy reading prefer Language Arts classes, but I’ve found that there is no direct correlation because Language Arts is more than reading, it’s writing, reading, grammar, spelling checks and public speaking, but those students who like to read may not enjoy those other aspects.”

This shows that in Holtz’s years of being a librarian and English teacher for Silver Creek, her experience with the Silver Creek community and their interactions as the students move through their most important years, proves important towards uncovering the student engagement with reading-learning assignments.

This proposes the question of how the English teachers of Silver Creek high can help the students of Silver Creek stay engaged in language arts.

Robert Nixon, another English teacher explained, “… there are authors who will foreshadow and go through the story to its end [a close] and some don’t want to take the time to go through that process.” This brings the question for the reading journey of the students at Silver Creek High. Is their interest in English-assigned reading being obtained?

T. Lyndon, a student of Silver Creek High School, comments on student interest in reading English,, “My friends personally do but, it’s a more selective group i would say…” This broadens some angles on the subject of English assignment reading and student engagement as a whole.

Reading said assigned topics and having that clear engagement isn’t easy for the Students of Silver Creek High, due to the struggle with English studies being a result of (to an extent) a few contributing factors.

This is relayed by the lack of time for students to read (which can be alternated by adjusting the English lesson plans), and most of all the students’ understandability of the books, and little interest in the assigned books.