When kids are poor readers and don't show any interest at all in reading, it obviously reflects on their academic achievement and raises red flags for teachers. But as a school psychologist, once you've ruled out a learning disability as the cause, anxiety and peer influence may be the culprits affecting how the student feels about reading and how he reacts when asked to read.

Reading anxiety is a specific phobia, situational type, toward the act of reading. It has been defined as an unpleasant emotional reaction toward reading that results when the student's intellectual drives of curiosity, aggression and independence become associated either singularly or in combination with significant other disapproval and the reading process. Significant other is defined as a person or persons who have a significant emotional influence over the student's behavior or belief system.

Diagnosis

A student who suffers from reading anxiety can exhibit a variety of symptoms that result from the inhibition of their intellectual curiosity, aggression or independence. Students who exhibit an inhibition of their intellectual curiosity typically manifest a nonintrospective / nonreflective intellectual demeanor. These students often reside in social emotional environments that view learning and curiosity as something threatening.

Typically, the student experiencing this type of reading anxiety exhibits attitudes that may be expressed by the following statements: “I can't do it.” “I don't know.” “I don't get it.” By exhibiting an attitude of pseudo-stupidity, they alleviate the anxiety that accompanies the expression of curiosity in the reading process.

Students who exhibit an inhibition of their intellectual aggression/assertiveness have typically acquired the skills to read, but refuse to use them. Characteristically, they manifest an attitude of "I can read, but you can't make me." These students are significantly influenced by their peer group. This group usually demeans intellectual success, which inhibits the expression of the reading process.

Students who exhibit an inhibition of intellectual independence typically manifest an attitude described as an “I cannot read by myself” disposition. These students reside in environments where some person or persons are either doing all or nothing for this student in terms of the student's adaptive intellectual/educational skills.

As a result, these students require continual assistance to sustain their reading efforts. You can recognize these students because they require constant reinforcement and guidance to maintain their reading efforts.

Students with reading anxiety often lack self-confidence in their own reading ability and thus require continual praise or "emotional supplies."

The treatment and remediation of reading anxiety begins with an adequate assessment. An assessment starts with an intake interview as well as a screening of the student's reading abilities and his level of reading anxiety.

The Woodcock-Johnson III is recommended to help rule out the possible existence of a concurrent reading disability, as well as tapping into three components of the student's reading abilities: phonological processing, reading comprehension and fluency.

Remediation

Having diagnosed a student with anxiety, you can begin remediation. The treatment goals aim to stimulate the student's intellectual curiosity, make reading socially acceptable and foster intellectual independence.

To stimulate a student's reading curiosity, the goal is to reinforce reading efforts. Continually praising the student's reading efforts and using reading to solve a problem is helpful when attempting to stimulate a student's curiosity. It is important for these students to understand the practical relation of reading to empower their lives in everyday situations.

 To make reading socially acceptable, encourage reading as a pleasurable activity. Assign them to read topics of personal interest that can be evaluated independently, without negative criticism.

A second method is to assign a reading friend where a high profile student or person in the community reads along with them to help overcome the negative impact of the student's peer group.

Finally, students' reading independence may be improved by increasing their ability to tolerate frustration with reading assignments. This can be done by shortening initial assignments, but gradually increasing schoolwork. Another method is to pair the identified students with peers, as well as involving the students with the selection and design of their own reading assignments.

John Zbornik is a school psychologist with the Lakewood City Schools in Lakewood, Ohio. He can be reached at (216) 227-5130. This article appeared in Today's School Psychologist, December 2001.
©2001 LRP Publications. Reproduced with permission.