How does anxiety reduce a child’s ability to read?
When children are anxious, their attention and mental energy are partially diverted to dealing with fearful feelings of inadequacy. The anxiety tends to block those skills that the child does, in fact, possess. In addition, they come to associate reading and learning, which should be inherently positive growth experiences, with unpleasant feelings. Therefore they often want to avoid the anxiety by avoiding reading, which dampens the very mastery and automaticity they need for feelings of success and self-confidence.
