What age did your child independently pick up a book and sit to read?

[gogettum]

My dd is just turned 7...she won't read unless it's bedtime and I'm with her. All (well not all but most) of her friends and cousins etc will all sit and read for entertainment and it's freaking me out that she won't do it. We gave books around the house, there's a great selection (although there could be more I suppose!) PLEASE tell me she's not the only one!? Or is this some normal step/milestone that she is just not "doing"?!!

Not all children are natural readers or enjoy reading for pleasure.
My first child hated reading anything, and as an adult will not read if he doesn't need to. He went on to do a masters with distinction, so it hasn't held him back.
Second child from a baby loved books, was reading fluently by 3 years old independently -- as an adult loves reading still and reads all the time.
Third and fourth both aren't natural readers. Third one now reads far more as an adult than he ever did as a child. Fourth one has no interest at all.
They all grew up with books around, I am a voracious reader and can read 2/3 books a week. I read to all mine from being babies. But as I say each child is different and some will never have an interest outside of school to read.

Like a pp, my one year old is happy to flick through books on her own for about 5 minutes at a time, looking at the pictures. She is obsessed with being read to as well. But yes, who knows if it will continue as she gets older and screens start to compete :(. For the OP’s kids - weekly library trips so they get to pick their own books? The books in the house might be great but if they’ve read them they won’t keep going back necessarily. It also might be fun to make a trip of it, let them pick whatever they want, let them use their own library cards etc. Beyond that, I guess limiting screens so they don’t have the option to choose these over books at certain times. As I say I have not yet had an opportunity to practice what I preach though!

Read a book to dd every bedtime, she has a frozen magazine as well at the moment.
She has loads of books and they are downstairs in the front room where she can grab them.
She picks books up looks at the pictures and tells me the story her way and she is almost 3.

DD2 is 6 and has just started (accelerated by lockdown I think, a bit of boredom has helped!)
DD1 was around 6ish, towards the end of year 1/start of year 2.
I have no idea if that’s late or whatever but they all get there in the end!

I think if I was to stipulate a family reading time it would go down like a lead balloon to be honest.

Someone asked if she can read...well yes she can but she wouldn't be AMAZING (but I think that it's more of a self confidence thing-she seems to doubt herself a lot)

In terms of when she was younger- she very rarely picked up an book after the age of 2 to be honest.

I read but I do it at night- I don't read in the day as I get too caught up in the book and I wouldn't get anything else done. So no she wouldn't SEE me read but will see the book at my bedside. Dh does not read books unless it's a dictionary or fact book.

I'm a teacher so it does "kind of" worry me- but we are not in the UK and in terms of progression here, academically she is doing great.

From toddlerhood (although they obviously couldn't read then). Got an adorable photo of DD1 (2yo) 'reading' a book to baby DD2 (a few months old). It was one of those texture books.

DD1 is most likely dyslexic and has a low reading age- still on the infant school reading scheme in Yr4. Despite this, she loves reading. She recently inherited my old kindle to enable her to get more books in lockdown. Then she has more complex books, aimed more at her age group, that we read together.

DD2, now 7, is the more able reader, but doesn't lose herself in fiction the same way. Loves her encyclopedia collection though, and I get off requests to help her with them.

From when they could crawl and pick one up. But we deliberately didn’t have a TV and they had no screens before school so books were their natural escape.

It’s really hard to enthuse them if they haven’t got the big young. Try getting loads of books by different authors, google for similar stuff to the books they like, ask your library workers for tips. Try comics/mags too, beano and week junior or national geographic mags are great sources of reading and kids love them.

I remember everyone saying ‘how come your kids are such good readers?’. We don’t watch telly, we read a lot ourselves. They just copied us. It leaves a lot of space for books and conversation very early on. I think the amount of screen time kids are exposed to fills that time void and leaves kids unable to enjoy the slow pace/effort of reading. Such a shame. If I could advise parents with small babies now i would say don’t introduce screens, enjoy books with babies from birth (we did bedtime story time from birth and read to them constantly), and let them see that you pick up a book as a default rather than phone/iPad/tv. Don’t have a TV in communal areas where you live. Have a shelf of books and join a library. They will read. They will love reading. And it really does bring them on in all manners of the formal curriculum, if that floats your boat. My kids have always been streets ahead and we do nothing at all at home homework or school wise but they read widely and always have done.

@MarginalGain Ramona books would be too much i think. (Targeted at age 9-12 anyway) We are not in the uk so the reading level expectations here are different

My daughter is dyslexic. She has always enjoyed books but struggled to get into them by herself when she was 5 to about 7. I was concerned as looking back to my experiences as a kid, reading lots of books was how I helped to mitigate my dyslexia as a child. I am still considered the family book worm and always have a few books on the go.

A few things helped and she now reads all the time, albeit she could now do with a bit more challenge in the level of writing.

A children's encyclopedia was fantastic for her. Really good illustrations and easy to dip in to. I think this was quite important as it was an instant reward of interesting content without having to read for a while first to gain from a 'story'. It gave her lots of things to talk to us about too. We could discuss what she had read about and ask questions that encouraged her to go and find out more about if she or we as a group couldn't answer them.

The second was funny books. They seem to be predominantly marketed as 'boy' books (sigh) but the 13 storey tree house series in particular caught her attention. Diary of a wimpy kid. There are loads of series of this type. Ponies, animals, fairies, although she does like these things they cannot hold her attention reading and she had been given quite a few of these as gifts.

Comics: We get the Phoenix, which is a very good weekly comic. We have also bought the Corpse Talk books that are associated with it - think horrible histories style interviews with famous corpses! They are very very good and again give her something to talk to us about that adds to the benefit of her reading.

My daughter is full of obscure facts now and loves science! There will definitely be something that interest her enough to motivate her to read and it then becomes a positive reinforcement cycle. The library is a great suggestion. Non-fiction on a subject she likes might also help.

Dd1 never put a book down from the age of 5.
Dd2 never picked a book up. Found out as an adult that she cannot picture the story of a book. So, if she reads "He went into the dining room" she does not imagine a dining room. She now sometimes reads or listens to an audio book but only when she has already seen the film.

I can't remember... DD was never a keen reader, but loved being read to and I enjoyed reading my favourite 'classics' at bedtime, eventually getting to Discworld in her teens. She liked the Beano, and some non-fiction.
I found this odd as I'd been a bookworm, but she turned out fine. When I visited her at uni, her bookshelf was almost all engineering or maths (not textbooks).

To the posters commenting about their 1 and 2 year olds - I think you’re right and you’ll just have to see. My daughter loves books, would ‘read’ the books to herself from 1 and a half but now at 6 there are other things competing for her attention like going on her bike, playing with toys etc.

I've always read to my DD so was worried when age 7 she wasnt interested in reading for pleasure - only school work. But shes now 8 and reads constantly! Suddenly its taken off and she always has a book on the go and reads in bed till lights off. Her choosing the books as opposed to re-reading children's book I have read to her helps and school use this accelerated reader online thing for quizzing books - shes competitive so this motivates her to see how many words shes read.

Two of my children read a lot independently from a young age. One didn’t. Never finished a book. Would barely read a chapter before abandoning. Now a student at university, she has never read a fiction book all the way through, except GCSE set books, in her life. Still got A* in English Lit and Lang. It used to sadden me, as I loved reading and we have hundreds of books, but I’ve had to accept it’s not for her. She finds fiction pointless and a waste of time. Will read extensive non-fiction, though, now.

Ok I'm not going to just get rid of the tv etc... that seems a tad extreme. I admit we don't go to the library much, I just never really found the time (and the one time I did go my DS drove me nuts in there)

In terms of screen time they have an hour a day, they play out A LOT and do arts, crafts etc so they are busy.

DC1 (15) - would have picked up books to “read” any time from about a year old. Was properly reading short novels by 3.5 and hasn’t stopped since. Gets through more books than we can keep up with - wpm count is much higher than average. Has definitely read less in more recent years due to having a phone to scroll through, but still reads far more than most 15 year old boys and gets really excited about new novels.

DC2 (13) - would have looked at books as a toddler but definitely never as interested as DC1 - despite exactly the same book input from me. Was properly reading short novels confidently and independently by about 6 but wouldn’t have done it by choice until closer to 9. At 13 now - will read by choice and often gets enthusiastic about books, but would rarely read for more than an hour at a time and definitely is my least “keen” reader.

DC3 (10) - would have rarely looked at books as a toddler. Was independently and confidently reading short novels by about 7 but wouldn’t have done it by choice until about 8 1/2. Now at 10 will choose to read every day and according to school’s AR system has read the most of anyone in their year group. (by a significant amount)

DC4 (10) - would have looked at books as a toddler but struggled more with actually reading. Would have liked to do it more but found it harder and wouldn’t have done it by choice until about 9. Now at 10 will choose to read but not as much as twin. However, as per above, according to school‘s AR system is a close second to DC3 for amount of books/words read this school year.

I am an avid reader, but DH wouldn’t have picked up a book by choice until the last few years. We always had a huge number of books in our house. All DC raised the same way.

I definitely think DTs were less interested in books because they found reading harder, so it wasn’t such an enjoyable/relaxing experience for them. It’s also a personality thing though - DC3 is a real introvert, so now that they are confident in reading, it has become a real joy and escape. DC2 & 4 are definitely more extroverted and just don’t like to sit still so much. Even if they are still they would rather be DOING something like art or a game, than simply reading.

I should have said DD is now 10.

DD was 7 and a half when it became obvious she was reading a book to herself. I'm supposed to sign off every 20 minutes on her chart and since the lockdown I've lost count!

DS is 10 and I saw him read a biff/chip level 6 to himself yesterday. That's the first time he has definitely read a book to himself rather than flick through the pages. He can read more complicated things, but only under duress.

You say you're not in UK, does that mean she's learning in 2 languages? DD was convinced she "couldn't" read in English until about 6 months ago. I insisted she try as I'd only taken English books away with us and she read the whole thing. The look of shock on her face when she realised she could read!

Also our house is full of books which probably has some kinda influence on the kids love of reading so maybe its not just about seeing the parents reading

My DH and I love reading and the one thing we've spoiled our 8 year old DD with is books (we have thousands in the house). Yet, she HATES reading! I read to her when I was pregnant, loads when she was a baby and then as a toddler. She really enjoyed read to and would sit and babble at picture books. But, starting school knocked her confidence and she's hated reading since then. She has The Worst Witch, Narnia, Harry Potter, Roald Dahl, David Walliams collection etc, but has absolutely no interest in reading.

I’ve always made bedtime reading a thing since they were born and we own probably 200-300 books so they’re very used to reading. My DC complain if there’s ever a night when it’s just too late to read (if they’ve stayed up late doing other things for example). They probably started reading independently when they were 5/6.

I wasn’t advising you bin the TV, just musing that screens definitely play a part in kids getting their kicks elsewhere. We didn’t have TV because we don’t watch it and didn’t want to have our life together (and latterly family life) play out over a background of TV on a reel, which happens in most houses I visit these days.

FWIW I never really read as a child and was still on my old Enid blyton faves at 10. I got the highest possible marks in my English exams (I got 100 per cent in my GCSE and was approached to publish my work) and went all the way in English and writing. So there is definitely more than one way to skin a cat. My parents read and still say they have no idea where my way with words comes from. Family conversation perhaps? Who knows. You’re a teacher too so are no doubt filling in for her all the time without even realising.

My dd is 7.5 years and she really only started to read for her own pleasure 6 months ago, but that is mainly at night before going to sleep and in the morning when she wakes up early. In the day she sometimes sits and reads non-fiction or her graphic novels and comics,but prefers to be playing. She loves to be read to because she will play with something at the same time.

Independently from about four when they could read. Before then pretended to read or used memory to ‘read’ familiar books.
I always read an hour a day from their birth and that just continued. We restricted internet access and screen time (they were a bit before quite such ready access to smartphones and tablets).
They all read still.

@preponderings we are in Ireland so they learn Irish but not through Irish. The Irish system takes things a lot slower. We don't do any letters and sounds before the school setting and "reception" is a two year program.