Reading and 9 year old boys…HELP

Hi all you beautiful people.

We have our first week for this year under our belts.  It was not great.  But not horrible.  We’re trying to find our rhythm.  However, I am becoming increasingly concerned about my 9 year old son.

He is actually a very good reader.  When reading aloud to me, he does a very good job…Im not really sure what would be grade level appropriate, but he seems able to read well.  However. He seems almost unable to stay attentive enough to read anything on his own, or actually finish anything, or to absorb what he has read to himself.  He claims that he HATES to read, that it’s boring and gives him a headache and he can’t remember anything.  So first, yes, I will find a way for him to go get his eyes checked, re: the headaches.  However, he is super dramatic and pretty complain-y about everything, so….

When I ask him to narrate, he literally nearly freaks out.  Even when I break it into really small chunks.  He can do it well, some times.  When I tell you that he literally has a meltdown almost every time he’s asked to read, I am not exaggerating.  As an important side note, I highly highly suspect he’s struggling with ADHD.  My husband struggles with ADHD-inattentive type and my oldest son (14) has an ADHD dx as well and is medicated and it changed his life (smh…the mom who won’t vaccinate, and tried all the diet stuff, etc,  had to resort to meds.  Sigh.  But it was truly a night and day change for him.)  Any way, my 9 year old son is going for a neuro development evaluation, and then back to the pediatrician.  If he get the dx of ADHD, then I will consider meds for this one bc I don’t know that any of us can take much more of his explosive energy, meltdowns, shouting, and drama.  His constant state of distraction becomes a distraction to all of the rest of his siblings.

Currently, we are doing short lessons, between 10-30 minutes for this 9 year old.  The longer times are when we do together things like history reading or family read alouds, or maybe a bit of fine arts, or Bible.  I give them several breaks to jump on the trampoline to get energies out.  We are working on the habit of attentiveness.  I will often let him have a bit of tea or coffee bc the caffeine stimulant seems to help him.  I try to keep things light hearted and fun, but it’s very hard when he is so very reactive and distracting to others.  We have the rule in this house during school time that if you cannot be appropriate and kind and attentive, then you go away to your room until you can.  That helps some, esp when he needs to cool off.

But I don’t know what to do about his reading.  I cannot read EVERYONE’s reading out loud. So, we do family read alouds.  Then everyone has something at his/her level.  My oldest two (14 and almost 12) are fine, and will read no prob.  The 7.5 year old is still an emerging reader, so there’s not a lot of literature or history on his level yet (e.g.: this summer he read Henry and Mudge and Little Bear.  He reads some Christian Liberty Nature Reader with me a few times a week, and we use Kathy Jo DeVore’s RLTL book. But I don’t have much in the way of Ancient History on his level, and he can only read a little bit before becoming fatigued and annoyed.)  So, I read something to my 7 year old almost every day.  BUt what do I do with a 9 year old who is capable, but cries and hates it and near about loses it when asked to narrate anything he’s read on his own?  Give him easier books?  Make him read out loud to me for 10 minutes?  Expect less?  Just let him listen when I read something to the 7 year old? I am at such a loss.  Truly, my heart is deepy grieved to hear that any child of mine hates reading. We are using BiblioPlan year 1 and there are such great book suggestions for all ages.  I just can’t believe that he’s so bent out of shape about this.

Thanks for any thoughts you might have.  Sorry so long and rambling. Im tired and sad.