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my boys don't read for pleasure
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I need advice. My two sons are 8y2m and 8y6m. They both may have dyslexia, at least the older one. They were late readers until we started AAR and Pathway Readers (such a great combo for us!). The older one is in vol 3 now, and reads at grade level when he was tested two months ago. He seems to read well but almost never picks up a book to read unless it is for a lesson. He had read probably six early readers on his own, ever. My younger one is in vol. 2 of AAR, in general is not interested in learning to read and is about a year behind according to our testing. He can do it but doesn’t like it, yawns through most of it and interrupts hiimself to ask totally unrelated questions. It is very slow going.
I’m not sure how to get from where we are now to the boys reading on their own for pleasure or learning. I’m mostly concerned with reading for pleasure right now. I don’t require them to read to themselves for two reasons: I don’t know about my youngest’s comprehension and I want them to read for their own benefit, not because I’m making them do it.
My oldest read three early reader books in one day and I made little construction paper fish (6″, fish = his favorite) and put the titles of the books on them, then taped them to the wall. I imagined he would get excited to see the fish school growing in number and have a visual of his accomplishment. But pretty much that was it. He didn’t do it again.
Do you have any suggestions for how to encourage more reading around here? I just don’t see the path from here to there. Should I require it? If so, how long each day? If I were to give advice to someone else with this issue I’d question how much screen time the children have. Mine have a lot, at least according to my standards – between 40 min and 2 hours a day. My gut says this has to be severely decreased but I also crave the time to myself as much as they crave to watch something. (Both children were adopted and the youngest is very intense with his difficulties pertaining to emotional control and attachment.) I do have two older children, one a voracious reader (17yo boy) and the other not so much (14yo girl) but she does read some to herself and always has.
Thank you.
One thing that has helped my slower to read son was required reading, simply because it was a short, daily practice. Start with something almost too easy (5 minutes). Then slowly increase time every week or two by even 2 minutes. We read for time, not to finish a book, because it’s easier. Over the course of the last year we’ve seen a big improvement for this child(and the others, but his is most noticeable). During the summer we generally require 30 minutes or reading per day, during the school year it is 20 per day (outside of history/science/lessons).
One way to address the media issue in combination with required reading time is to require they do the reading before they get any media time.
Also, be sure the books they read in this time are not too difficult. This is not reading lesson time where they work with you on stretching their skills. This is reading what is comfortable or even a bit too easy to build reading fluency and stamina.
I’m sure others will have more ideas for you too!
Hi Tristan. Thanks! To make sure i understand, the 5 minutes you suggest is separate from a reading lesson with me. He’d do both, ideally both daily. Right? I do not mind at all if they read ‘easy’, I just want it to be something that is mostly wholesome.
Require reading. Give a choice of good books, then require a small time of ‘free reading’ each day and build from there. We are a family that loves books, but my oldest son (10) doesn’t love reading. He reads all that is required and reads at bedtime bc that’s the only option. I require 30-60m additional free reading per day. Other than that, he wants to be outside. My girls ages 7 and 13 read all the time.
We don’t do screen time except one movie night per week, teaching textbooks math and typing on the computer, maybe 15 m on the iPad twice a week.
Yes Shannon, keep doing whatever reading lessons you choose together, but start requiring a separate independent reading time they do alone with a book beginning with just 5 minutes and slowing increasing that time.
I agree with what others have said about requiring a little reading. I have one boy (10) who also does very little in his own. Mostly I wanted to say though that my kids have about the same amount of screen time as yours. They are watching Dukes of Hazzard right now 🙂
Nebby
Thanks, Nebby, for understanding our screen time use. I’m not comfortable with it. My older children almost never had screen time until they were several years older than my boys and I felt good about that. But life is different now (for instance, my older children didn’t homeschool) and I’m just trying to find solutions that fit our family as it is now. My gut says we need to cut it more but the current screen time use is pretty typical of what we’ve done all year. Occasionally it will be lower but never sustained. I’d like to get back to having no screens M-F as we’ve done in the past and it worked really well, but for some reason this habit has gotten teeth this time and it is so hard to cut back.
A while back I tried to get us in the habit of silent reading as a family first thing in the morning, after our Morning Routine was finished. Maybe it was too soon and the boys weren’t strong enough readers. I’ll try that again with us all reading for five minutes each morning and see how that goes. Thanks for the encouragement to ‘require’ a bit on this. It isn’t my tendancy, believing in the principle of ‘Inspire, Not Require’ but my inspiring just hasn’t worked and I feel it is time they see for themselves the joy of reading. Hopefully at some point I won’t have to continue to require and they will become readers on their own.
Best,
Shannon
Shannon – My post was just eaten by cyberspace and I’m being quick now, bc I want to go out to play (we’re on vacation).
1- we have silent free reading time after school and lunch during our natural quiet time. This has helped my son to see it more as a life habit to build than another school thing to check off. This may not apply to your situation, but it’s been a huge help to ds10 to know that we have a period of the day where we choose to sit and read for pleasure.
2- I’m learning to be ok that ds10 is simply wired differently than the rest of us. He reads and enjoys books when it’s the only option, but if he can be outdoors moving, building, playing, fishing… then he will always choose that.
Blessings,
Christie
My advice is that yes, they should be required to read on their own a certain time per day. But if you really want to develop a love for reading and books with kids who have trouble reading, you need to read aloud to them. A lot. It is enjoyable then. They don’t have to work hard to enjoy a book read to them. And there is something more to it as far as bonding and attachment. I’ve never been able to find an expert to confirm this, but for my kids, if I could read aloud to them it calmed the savage beast. Everyone was smiles again and relaxed.
Of course they should work on their reading to themselves, but read a loud a really lot too.
And limit screen time. My kids are teenagers and we were much more stringent on screen time when they were younger. I can see a huge difference in concentration for reading a book with more screen time. Especially for my bi-polar, Aspergers boy (lacking in emotional control – all 3 of my kids were also adopted).
Hang in there!
I agree with what has been said. Also, try to find books on topics that interest them.
If they have dyslexia, they may never read for leisure…….
Missceegee, thanks for the reminder that my youngest may never grow to love reading, or not while he is young anyway. He is an all-physical, very present (meaning only what is in front of him has his attention) kind of boy. My other, though, is not very physical, loves learning and looking at books about animals, for example. I think one day he’ll have to love reading.
SuzikiMom, as crazy as this sounds (ignorant maybe), I hadn’t really thought of dyslexia affecting them negatively years down the road. I guess I had just always assumed ‘we’d get past it’. As you can tell it is still new to me.
Dawn, I totally agree that ME reading to them is important. This is the second time in a few weeks I’ve been reminded I need to do it more. I read to them about an hour a day but we all enjoy it and I had just recently thought I should double that. I don’t ‘require’ my youngest to listen and if he says he isn’t going to (bc he is playing or mad) I say it is alright but he always comes to listen anyway.
You can’t imagine how I struggle with the screen issue. I used to be so perplexed when my friend said the same thing years and years ago when my older children were young. I couldn’t understand why she just didn’t stop it. Then it isn’t a problem. I don’t know how I’ve gotten into this situation but with all three of us craving that screen time it has become hard to stop. I don’t seem to be the kind of person who can allow it for a moderate amount of time. It just seems to get longer and longer. I use it for my own quiet time and as time to do home management kinds of things (answering emails, scheduling, planning). My gut says they’d be better at reading, more interested in learning other things, and possibly better at handling emotional things if they didn’t go on screens. We go through phases of stopping it (it has been a while though) and then we do only educational things, and then that gets fuzzy bc my youngest loves BMX racing (we’re at a BMX park right now in fact) and he wants to only watch videos of racing/tricks and I sort of agree that it is good for him bc it has been his passion for several years…and then the rules aren’t clear and they get to the situation we’re in currently. Also when I talk of stopping all screens my husband tells me it is important for all of us to learn to use them moderately. I’ve thought recently of saying they can only watch things if they do X and Y and Z in homeschooling/chores but then it seems to set it up for rushing through real life (home and learning) to get your reward and that doesn’t seem right either. We’ve never been able to do quiet time for some reason (lack of discpline I guess). If you don’t have the kids occupied with screens, when do you ever get time to do things you need to think about, like planning a trip, researching an activity, or planning a weekly menu? As you can see I’m craving input on this! 🙂
Thanks.
My son has the same issues. Would you recomend silent reading on his part or him reading aloud? We currently do me reading aloud and him reading for 15 min, books like Berenstein Bears. I have wondered though if he would do better from reading aloud so I can correct any mistakes or to just let him read by himself and figure it out. If he is reading silently how would I know he is ready well? I haven’t been requiring narrations because I didn’t want to add another stresser for him. Should I have him give narrations so I know he understands what he is reading?
Slowly increasing time for reading practice and independent silent reading made a huge difference for our son. We made a plan together for how many minutes we’d increase each of these time periods over a period of weeks. It’s a great option and using at/below grade level choices during independent practice really made all the difference in the world. Go for it!
On the screen time thing – I have found it to be a great motivator for good behavior. I used to have an elaborate points system – especially designed for my behavior challenged son – where he earned points for things like talking kindly to his family, doing his school work with a good attitude, doing his chores as assigned, etc. He also lost points for a few things, but I tried to keep it positive mostly. When he had a certain amount of points he could go on the computer for 30 min. It worked pretty well.
Right now, I’m not doing points, but my kids (high school age) get 1 1/2 hours on the computer – timed with a timer. I’m thinking of dropping it to 1 hr. this summer. My one son is such a pain about his time – he argues and goes over his time daily. I have to keep track and subtract what he went over from the next day – he is a bit of work. I do take away computer time for really nasty behavior.
Now if *I* stuck to my time limit, we would be all set. I struggle with moderation on the computer myself. It is a great thing, but addicting – more for some than others.
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