Dr. Donald Demoulin recently reported on some research that found the main reason for children to lose focus on their reading material was linked to their active level of personal engagement in the material. Demoulin noted that "as children become actively engaged in the story line, they display a heightened interest and an increased desire to improve their literacy skills." But this engagement is often lacking because personalization, "when a story reflects things that are familiar in a child's personal life," is missing from the reading material. Your child's mind may wander when reading because he is not motivated to read because of the lack of personalization in the story or book.
Almost all children from an early age seem to love the sounds of words and rhyming. This love of wordplay and rhyming is one thing that keeps children focused and interested in reading. Children will usually sustain an interest in reading if they are enjoying the language, and rhyme is part of that enjoyment. Also, "rhyming patterns make recall easier" and children become "actively involved with rhyming patterns." Again, the key to keeping a child's mind from wandering while reading is the level of engagement that the child can feel with the text.
An extenuating factor that can make a difference on how well a child focuses on reading material is the attitude toward reading in the child's home. In research reported by the Gender and Education journal, Davies and Brember found that "regardless of family socio-economic status, age and gender, reading activity at home had significant positive influences on measures of children's reading achievements and attitudes towards reading." A positive attitude toward reading and learning, in general, relates to a greater focus on reading and other activities associated with educational skills.
A child's natural curiosity yearns for satisfaction --- even in reading material. When children read too much of a similar type of reading material, they are bound to get bored and disengage from the process. Davies and Brember point out that the world today is in "a golden age of children's literature with choices to be made from thousands of quality books in paperback as well as hardback." Introducing children to a wide variety of different types of books, magazines, and other reading materials will increase the chances of children staying engaged in reading. Even, according to education writer Elisabeth Tarica, occasionally choosing stories "beyond the children's reading level allows them to focus on the magic of the story rather than having to struggle to understand every word."