Has anyone found anything their reluctant reader actually enjoys reading?

My son was a similar age and fell behind in his reading.
It became a catch 22 as the school reading books were uninteresting to him because they were babyish.
We found Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey and he liked them. He started to learn.
I started reading other books doing -you read a line, I read a line so that it was more fun and not as daunting, he learned in the end and was fine, never looked back, your child can catch up.

All my DCs prefer non-fiction books on a subject they're interested in. DS10 has autism and tells me he doesn't see the point in fiction because it isn't real.

DS was similar. I had some books from The Oxford Reading Tree. All the books were short and they were different colours, denoting how advanced they were. He started reading the books that were for a much younger age than he was, but it was where his reading level was.

The book that bridged the gap between "kids" and "more grown up" was Bob The Street Cat. But some of the themes in the book are maybe for an older child/young teenager.

My son was very similar and got really into Percy Jackson. I think it just really spoke to him (PJ is also dyslexic). I read to him and got him to read a page or two to me, and then he got so interested he started reading on his own.

Another vote for these they got my very, very reluctant reader DS to start reading and now he will read anything fantasy style.

He also enjoyed the Hobbit.

Ah yes forgot about Pamela Butchart

Dd (also adhd) likes:

bunny versus monkey
the various bash street/beano books
the Pam Buchart books like ‘there’s a yeti in the playground’
the city of dragons graphic novels
wings of fire graphic novels
warrior cats
rainbow grey series
marnie moon series

DS1 was quite dyslexic, really struggled with reading in primary school, and didn't see the point. As he fell further behind chronological age, the reading scheme ("The Utterly Tedious Non-Aventures of Boff, Twitter and Chap") got even duller for him. He was diagnosed as dyslexic aged 9, then had a reading age of just over 6. Reading for school homework was blood, toil, sweat, tears and tantrums - and that was just me.
The thing that got him to see the point was Harry Potter. My Mum and sister borrowed him as child cover to excuse their visit took him to Harry Potter studios, then watched the films with him, and he wanted to read the books, so he finally saw the point in reading. He put more into the remedial literacy lessons, etc, and was really proud of himself when he could read the HP books.
Writing has always been a bit trickier, but the combination of remedial literacy tuition, yellow overlays and paper and effort on his part has made all of it easier and more interesting for him, and his reading age had shot ahead to 13 yrs 6 months by the time he was 12.

I've got one of these. I'm an English teacher of many, many years, so I have tried everything. She was never massively into stories when she little though, even though I read every night. Library to choose books every week. Her older sister was an avid reader and dd2 would choose books.
Dd2 hated learning to read, but she totally got phonics, better than dd1. Has much better spelling too, but dd1 has a better vocab and understanding. Dd2 is my maths and physical exercise kid. I've occasionally dithered between suspecting autism , for various reasons, and adhd.

Having my own dd hate reading has kind of made me re think my life choices a bit😁 How can I hope to inspire other people's kids, if I can't inspire my own?

I know it’s been mentioned but deffo Dogman, BUNNY v Monkey, Looshkin, the beano annuals or comics, the dandy, Big Nate. Captain underpants. Basically any of the graphic novels/comic style books with pictures

And ignore literary quality at first. Just focus on getting the process of accessing the text faster & easier - so poorly written/repetitive football biographies & fairy books etc are fine, as are books based on tv shows.

You will never get a child reading and enjoying more difficult literary content until you've got their reading speed up.

13 story treehouse hooked my unenthusiastic reader when he was 8. He's nearly 10 now and an avid reader - never thought I'd see the day!

The Hilda graphic novels would be worth a try. Mine loved those and was also a very reluctant reader. Someone also suggested non-fiction and perhaps the kids Guinness Book of Records. Sounds strange but you can get satisfaction out of manageable chunks. Good luck!

Most children are put off reading by being offered/pushed to read things that are too difficult:

• too long

• too many words
• too detailed/hard to understand

If their reading skills are weak everything takes too long and they never get the practise they need to speed up. Slow reading is laborious & never enjoyable.

Take it right back a notch on complexity. Find things that provide text but in short, digestible chunks. Magazines are good for this, joke books, comics and graphic novels. Put subtitles on on the tv - you want to expose them to text all the time to get them to the stage where decoding it is quick and automatic, freeing up mental capacity to understand and enjoy the content.

Horrid Henry... my Year 2 child hates reading but loved these books.

Dogman
bunny vs monkey
isadora moon
Tom gates
Many storey treehouse books
Adam kaye

I wouldn’t do stuff like how to train dragon yet till the bug is in a bit. Defo not warriors (the cats) - way too demanding.

The Phoenix comic

Another vote for 13 storey treehouse and Tom Gates.

Tom Gates books and The Guinness Book of Records.

My very reluctant reader turned out to be dyslexic.

I agree with all the storey treehouse, dogman comic-type books. He also likes surprisingly sophisticated non-fiction (DK have some lovely books with fantastic pictures and also smallish chunks of quite challenging text. Anything space or human body related is a winner in this house!)

He also listens to loads of audio books. Little Badman is a firm comedy favourite.

Another vote for the Beano. Did the trick with my grandson.

Lottie Brooks

@Dinnerplease you have just reminded me6, my super reader dd1 read lots then got into these and encouraged her good pal to get into them who wasn't a reader. Then dd 2 wasn't a reader and also got into them.

Op definitely worth a try

Ds 2 also enjoyed comic books many are now actual books

13 Storey treehouse