Strategies to Support Reading Stamina

By Rachel Marcus, Director of Curriculum and Instruction

Does your child fatigue easily when reading? Do they get a few pages in and lose interest/attention?

If so, your child is part of a larger trend. According to a recent survey, 83% of educators report that their students’ reading stamina has declined either a little or a lot since 2019. These findings underscore the results of a meta-analysis, which concluded that many American students present with waning stamina when asked to sustain their attention during independent reading and “interact with texts in a meaningful manner.”

The reasons for this shift are complex and likely correlated with the dropoff in attention span over the past few decades, as well as the rise in ADHD diagnoses and a pervasive screen-based culture.

Considering all the factors working against reading stamina, what can we do to support our child moving in the right direction when it comes to sustained attention while reading?

Environmental Factors

A good first step might be to examine the reading space and identify distractors. Can we help our child brainstorm what it might look like to be “ready to read” in a focused space? Even simple things like removing/silencing the phone, having water and a snack (so we’re not hangry), reading in a chair instead of the bed (so we don’t doze off) and finding a spot with adequate lighting can make a difference. Work with your child to facilitate this conversation. If it feels supportive, collaborate on a checklist you can hang somewhere as a visual reminder of how to get started when reading.

Understand the Baseline

Determine a baseline for how long your child is able to attend when reading and share that data with your child to help them develop self-awareness. Be sure to broach this conversation without judgement or shame. You might say something like “I’m noticing that right now 10 minutes seems like a sweet spot for your reading stamina. That is a great place to start!” From there, you can set a goal to work towards. That might sound like, “Let’s see if we can work together to reach the teacher’s goal of independent reading for 20 minutes a night. I’m confident that over time we can build up your reading muscles to get there!”

Chunking can Help

If your child’s goal is 20 minutes of reading a night and right now they can only read 10 minutes of concentrated time a night, help them chunk their reading into 2 discrete blocks of 10 minutes apiece punctuated by a break. Use a timer to help them measure elapsed time and gain awareness of where they are in the process of meeting their nightly goal. The timer can also signal when it’s time for that brain break.

And speaking of brain breaks, be explicit in discussing with your child what effective brain break options look and sound like (aka. Motor breaks, stretching, etc.) vs. non-effective breaks (aka. Checking the phone and starting down a YouTube rabbit hole). If it’s helpful, have a check-in conversation with your child after each reading session and ask them reflective questions like: How did it feel? What was challenging? Where did you find your focus trail off, and how did you get back on track at that point? What other variables might we shift here? etc.

You Can Be the Model

In addition to chunking, parents, tutors and other trusted adults can support student success by serving as a body double and reading their own book near/next to the child. In this way, the adult is modeling how to focus while reading. The adult can also model how to get reengaged if and when a distraction occurs. One piece to note here is that as much as possible, the adult model should be the exemplar. So, if a student is reading a physical book, the adult should also read a physical book and not just be skimming articles/social media on his/her phone, or getting through work emails (as much as it is tempting to do so!). If we can model the desired behavior, this can serve as a powerful example as our children work towards solidifying new and more effective habits.

Active Reading Strategies

Even if you are not a reading specialist, there are simple things you can do to support your child’s reading comprehension, which in turn makes it easier to sustain attention while reading. If we understand what we are reading, it is easier to keep reading. Conversely, if the text feels confusing, hard or overwhelming, your child is more likely to throw in the towel. Here are a few simple reading comprehension questions:

Before reading: What do you already know about this topic? Can we read the bookjacket together to see what this is about and/or review your notes from last time to refresh our minds before diving in? What is the assignment at hand? (just read vs. read and answer questions vs. read and complete a written response, etc.)
During reading: What can we do to problem-solve if we don’t understand something we’re reading? What can we do if our mind wanders/we lose focus?
After reading: What were the main ideas of that reading? Do we need to write that down anywhere so you don’t have to reread this part later? What did you think of what you read? (do you have any questions, connections you can make, etc.)

To sum it up

Paying attention to written text in today’s society is a significant challenge. But we can support student success by applying active reading strategies, serving as a body double and chunking text/reading tasks into smaller parts. We can also help students get set up for success by optimizing their reading environment, understanding their baseline and setting clear targets with regards to reading stamina. Over time, students can make incremental progress and support their ability to focus on all kinds of text – fiction, non-fiction, preferred, non-preferred – over time.