I have a Nikon D40 camera and bought it to take pictures of my granddaughter playing volleyball. I am a novice in taking pictures, so I use the sports mode on the selection dial and 95% of my pictures are blurred because of the fast action. What am I doing wrong and what should I do? Thanks.

In that case, sports with a D40, you need to switch to shutter priority and select a shutter speed that is fast enough for the action. This may mean you also have to shoot at high ISO's and/or with faster glass to keep from underexposing. Sometimes you can use panning techniques to get acceptable results at slightly slower shutter speeds. Another technique is to catch the action at points when the subject isn't moving as much. Like a pitcher getting ready to pitch vs actually throwing. Good Luck

Can you post some pictures so we can see what you did wrong?  If possible, make sure you post them with full EXIF info.As a guess.....shooting indoor sports is rather difficult for quite a few reasons.  The sensor in your camera isn't the best for low light/high ISO imaging.  Indoor gym lighting is horrible light to shoot in.  Letting your camera in a scene mode took away your control to address the problems, and I'd bet that you've got a lot of motion blur from low shutter speeds and slow lenses, which brings about another question....what lens were you using?Pictures and a little info will help us give you better answers.

Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 55-200mm 1:4-5.6GED lens. Sometimes I use a Nikon DX AF-S Nikkor 55-300mm 1.4-5.6 GED VR lens and the pictures are a little better.

You are not doing anything wrong. In sports mode your camera automatically prioritizes shutter speed over a large depth of field. If you are getting blur, I am afraid the diagnosis is more costly than self-improvement. You need better equipment, a camera that can shoot well at high iso's and/or a lens with a fast aperture (1,8 for primes, 2.8 for zooms). Underexposing with lots of noise and decent software to clean it up is maybe your least expensive option now. -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/brev00