Should I let him read what he wants?

I would let him read what he wants in his spare time.  What I do is have one assigned literature book that they are required to read for a certain amount of time a day.  That way, I am certain they are getting the practice needed to continue to grow in their reading abilities, and are reading books that they wouldn’t necessarily pull off the shelf themselves.  I try to make sure that they are books that they will enjoy.  But my 10 year old (moving into 6th grade this July – where does the time go!!??), still enjoys picking up picture books to read in his down time.  It’s not the only thing he reads, but eventually, he’ll lose interest in the picture books and move on.  I mean, most 15 year olds aren’t picking up picture books to read, unless it’s for nastalgia purposes or to read to a younger sibling.  So let him enjoy the books he wants to while he still has the interest. 

I would also let him read what he wants…of the books you have deemed alright in quality. If you feel BB is good to read to his younger sister, then keep them. I have often heard of using this logic for other books – Adventures of Captain Underpants in particular. I won’t read that to my kids and would never let them read it Even If it meant they were eager to read at a time when they aren’t interested in anything else. My 7yo just read his first book he picked out from the library…and it was B. Bears!

I assign my children’s reading for school and they choose their free reading from an approved list. However, as they grow, they gravitate to great books because that is what they are accustomed to. If they were accustomed to twaddle, well…

Here is an article by Lindafay Johnson – Hard Books and Uniterested Children – that you may find helpful.

That Captain Underpants is the one that seems to always come up in my local homeschool community as ‘we don’t usually allow books like this but it is getting my boy to read and he loves it!!!’ Sigh. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. He will eventually choose books of a different caliber. I’d love to know how he is doing in 6-12 months!

On one hand, I tend to think this is the sort of thing a kid will outgrow or snap out of some day. On the other it sounds like he can go days without doing what you assign him. Are there consequences? I would say its part of his schoolwork and it needs to get done before he can do other things. But I also might see of there are some shorter books I can get him to read. Beverly Cleary’s are not the shortest. We have used Dick King-Smith’s books and Thornton Burgess’ ones along the lines of “the story of such and such an animal.”

Nebby

http://www.lettersfromnebby.wordpress.com

We too require the assigned book to be done (we vary from daily to every other day depending on our school schedule), and if it is not done when asked, then there would be consequences.  Just like if I told them to do their math or spelling or clean their room and they refused. I usually have a set time where they need to read – I do 5 minutes per grade level.

I would let him read whatever from an acceptable selection of books for free reading. My kids still like B. Bear books and the only thing I dislike is that the dad isn’t written as a strong head of the family figure, but otherwise the books are cute. My son was not into reading much unless I was reading. He didn’t want to do the work. I found that if I read it with him, it helped. We played reading games….So I start out and I will just stop and he is expected to pick up where I left off without a pause. This gets him to not only listen to the story, but following along with the words. He has to at least read 5 words before he can randomly stop and which point I start in again etc. pretty fun. I have also done it where he reads all the four letter words or smaller etc…. and I read everything bigger. If you need another change of pace, you do a sentence then he does a sentence. This has him paying attention to punctuation. My son loves this. Well after about 4-5 chapter books and a larger book about 400 pages, he is now hooked and has started migrating to reading on his own rather than wait on me. I bought a stick up book lite to stick to the under side of his upper bunk and so that was also a motivator. LOL Anyway, I bought the 2nd grade Sonlight reader package and the curriculum has student read a chapter a night, but he is reading the whole reader.  I am letting him go at his own pace and I am sure he will burn out soon, but i am just so thrilled. Oh also another trick I do when I am reading out loud to the kids is that I stop the night’s reading about 1 to 2 paragraphs from the end of the chapter. This is usually the good part and it leaves them wanting more. Torturous, yes, but very effective!! HTH

I say pick your battles, as long as he is doing his school assignments, then free read time should not become a power struggle. Now school assignments should not be optional and consequencees should apply and usually a 3rd grader isn’t responsible enough to complete assignments without some accountability. Goodness, I know some college age kids that aren’t ready for that! LOL This age it should be fun and enjoyable and exciting so that the learning is done as a by product.  Just my 2 cents.