Parents of children who hate reading

[Ineedaholidayyyy]

My son has started Year 1 at school. We had a battle last year getting him to read regularly at home, it was very challenging. He would get frustrated when he couldn't sound out words, which lead to him not wanting to read at all. We had a breakthrough in the last term, but he was still a little behind at the end of the year. He's one of the younger ones in the year, so i wasn't bothered about this and was just pleased he was making progress finally.

Tonight, I've asked him to read 3 pages of his reading book, not a lot to expect surely?. He's gone into a massive strop and point blank refused to read anything, telling me its boring. I really don't want to go through this again for another year. My partner thinks I'm being a bit strict with it being his first week back, and that I should leave it till next week to push the reading, which is probably the right thing to do

So I'm interested in hearing from parents who have gone through this. What can we do to try and incentivise him and get him to enjoy reading more? We read a book to him before bed which he loves, he just really dislikes reading his school books. I don't want him to fall further behind this year. I know we can do things like stickers but I want to get to a point where he will read his book without a reward. I'd rather this than a punishment for not reading , eg no TV

My daughter is much older now. She now loves reading but I remember the struggle. I also found it very hard to teach reading.

we would read together. I take a page and she takes another page. We did that for a while.

I read somewhere that young children don’t read, they memorise. So making reading an experience and talking about the pictures and what they can see and what is happening.

I also never “punished” for not reading so that it was wasn’t seen as a chore or a bad thing. If she didn’t want to read then I would read to her.

we also turned going to the library into days out.

If my daughter was very stroppy (we had a sever issue with maths for example!) I realised it was because she couldn’t do something but was too upset to voice it. I needed up speaking to the teachers and demanding 121s and asking them to keep an eye and exchange tips.

I hope others have some good tips. Especially from teachers who probably see this daily.

Hi, I am an avid reader, both of my kids hated it! They didn’t mind getting read to, so i used to take turns with them - either a word each or a line or page each, and limit it - so we just have to do 1 page a time then build it up as they get older. Also think about when to do the reading, after school was always a fight but mornings before school were ok or after a bath.

Then when reading their bedtime stories I would point out words for them to try and when out and about point out signs, anything with words on - they didn’t realise they were reading half the time but both were always above age expected for reading.

good luck, I remember the struggle!

Bribery.

we didn’t make it a fight. We’d encourage, but pull away before anyone got too cross.

but we did a sticker chart with rewards, to get over that hump where the books are dull and the sounding out is hard.

Biscuits.
We read straight after getting home. I had a cuppa and a biscuit. She had milk and a biscuit. It made it more pleasant for both of us 🤣

Just get him to read anything - instruction leaflets, things that come through the door, packets, anything. My eldest was an avid reader and although you know it’s always “important” it’s not really till I saw with my own eyes how he flew through higher English and stuff that it’s really important to establish the building blocks in the early years. My youngest hates reading no matter what we tried he’d never read for pleasure. So school suggested what I mentioned above - get him reading absolutely anything. He’s ended up not bad at all at English; albeit it’s never come as naturally to him as his brother.

It probably is "boring" if it's a Biff and Chip style reading book.
Buy him a copy of The Beano or a book of 1001 Interesting Things about Dinosaurs/Cars/Butterflies/Whatever his favourite thing is.

No proper advice but my 7 year old is the same - hates reading! On the contrary, my teenage daughter was an incredibly avid reader and we called her "Matilda" half the time! She still adores reading.

For my 7 year old, we have to convince her a lot to read her books for school but she is actually quite a good reader, just hates it, so then she decides to read it at the speed of lightning to get it over with...I try and just choose books that she will find interesting. Often the school ones don't engage her and she gets bored.

Bribery with a short term reward that is appealing like a sweet and a long term reward to work towards. This is quite a defined session to be through.
he can be involved in choosing the rewards.
start with short sessions with a defined end that you don’t push.

Reading to him another time with no pressure for him to read or even look. Something he loves.

Don’t focus on him reading without a reward for now, it’ll come. What’s important is that he can read. The rest can come later!

I'm a big believer in reading to them with bells on. Make them think you are doing all the work and they are getting away with very little. You read with a pointy finger, and give them one tiny job like saying the word "a" every time it comes up, or doing the pointy finger, or doing the finger on the bottom while you do it on the top. Anything that makes them have to follow the text to know where "their bit" comes in. First sentence of the page is not so good because they can do that and switch off for the rest - you want a way for them to have to look at each word as you say it. They see it and hear it passively so no risk of them getting it wrong, but they are still learning it.

We may be a bit unusual, DS is anxious and ASD and got very distressed by reading out loud. But he learned to read quite easily and quickly by us taking the performance pressure off him this way. He does have a great brain for picking up patterns so we were lucky in that sense. But it's mind-blowing how much they can pick up just from actively watching you do it.

I recommend reading to them and have them follow along watching and looking at the pages- it was about 6/7 I started reading captain underpants to my boys - absolutely ridiculous stuff with toilet humour but mine went from not reading to reading well - we live abroad so no other English reading but my oldest 10 is a good reader through reading to him. I wouldn't Force too much as it becomes a negative and they'll push against more

Thanks some good tips already. Part of the problem is he finds it hard , so he gets very upset when he reads something wrong and then that escalates into a strop. He loves numbers though, so atleast the maths isn't a battle!

The school books are very boring and not very engaging I agree, whereas his own books he will laugh along with me when we read. He prefers the silly books like the dinosaur that pooped the bed etc.2

I can up the time I spent reading to him and hope he picks up more from that too.

He’s still very little and it’s not strange for him not to be ready yet. Doing it in evening after school is probably a bad idea – they are at their most tired and mentally expended then. Try another time of day.

Yes we did swicth to mornings last year in the last term and on the whole it worked better so I'll definitely try and see if that helps. I'm not expecting a lot from him, just a couple of pages a day

One of mine hated school reading books because they were boring, there was no story and they were not fun to read and all that was left was sounding out words. Which they found hard.
They had a lot of books with pages like "Tom stood up, Ben sat down" which were boring and meant nothing to them.

We used to make up better stories for the books and then point at the right word for them to read in. Like "One day a brave little boy called (Tom) was searching through his house for a lost dragon egg, he pulled a chair up to the big green cupboard and (stood) on it to reach the highest shelf. He reached (up) and felt it, it was warm. He called for his older brother (Ben) to help him etc..
It got him more interested and they still did all their sounding out. They were way more motivated to read once it got easier and they had fun books.

In all honesty, I don’t think bribery or anything works. DD is 11 now but absolutely hated practising her reading when she was younger. I tried bribing, forcing, encouraging…nothing worked and I was really very worried for a time that she would never get the hang.

I needn’t have worried, she’s way ahead of her age group now and excels in English. She’s still not that keen on reading!

I am hyperlexic. I found it incredibly frustrating that Dts had less than zero interest. Turns out they're dyslexic and have visual stress. It's been a learning curve. Reading every night has been non negotiable (they're 14 now).

Find something he likes to read. For my DD it was dragons, but reading went from battle to obsession when we found the right subject and reading became worth the stress of making mistakes.

If the book is "technically" too hard pick out the easy words and you fill in the ones that don't fit the known phonics.

Reading to "learn to read" is actually quite dull, reading stories/facts is the aim and fun.

Audio books can also help with getting into stories, we always have audio books in the car which also helps link to stories and fun.

Start out by making sure there are no physiological reasons that may be causing him problems - can he see the words clearly? Are they jumping around to him, or difficult to focus on? Is he able to sit comfortably and supportively enough that he isn’t feeling fatigued when reading. How are his energy levels, would he be better off reading in the morning before school instead? Speak to his teacher, she (really) should have given you a handout with a list of reading games to play at home to make it a more fun and engaging exercise. Learning to read can feel utterly deadly to a lot of children, so mixing it up and making it fun is definitely the way to go. If she hasn’t got that, then ask for one. Look up ‘sight word games’ on Pinterest for some great ideas as to things you can do. Remember, 30 seconds is better than nothing, keep it fun and light and the pressure off - it sounds like he’s already put himself under pressure and is panicking. You don’t want to battle and make reading ‘a thing’. Good luck!

I know we can do things like stickers but I want to get to a point where he will read his book without a reward

I promise you won’t have to give him a sticker to get him to read his homework when he’s 16. For now, bribery is fine. You can also up the sneaky reading if you want - anywhere you can read words counts so asking him about the description of an episode of Bluey on the tv guide counts!

Like others we went down the bribery route (after the whole reception year of shouting and tears)
We do 1 jelly bean per page and a stamp on his reward chart (once he gets 50 stamps he gets a £20ish toy)
I also put a few marvel 'world of reading' books in his room - the lvl 1/2 ones are really repetative but after starting with me reading most of it and asking him a few words it built over time.
End of year 1 he'd caught up and was ahead of expected. Still not really sure if it was any of the above or if something just 'clicked' and it got less frustrating for him

Don't let any teachers hear this! We took a break. I read lots of books to my son, fun books he enjoyed, and sometimes asked if he could read a couple of words for me, or just do this page so i could rest my voice (if I knew he could succeed). I also spent ages finding "real books' these were non reading scheme books but were given a bit of a match in terms of sounds being learned for me to read to him.

Then after a few weeks break, I reintroduced reading to me and we did it in the car. For some reason him reading to me whilst I drive was less pressure. I also found whilst I was making breakfast was a good time

I have also heard reading to a dog helps some people.

Also model mistakes and model trying out new words. If you see a sign say I just need to work that out.

And reading snippets of info which aren't books

My son hated the school books and we didn’t bother with them. What about books about things he likes?

I don’t think you’re expected a lot, as some kids will do it fine, but at just starting year 1, he is very young still. My son didn’t really get into reading til towards the end of year 1. Despite that, he caught up fine and is now exceeding reading ability for his class. They will get interest in these things at different times.

Even now if l am reading a book l am not enjoying, l just can't be bothered. As pp said, get him a comic or something fun to read.

Our school books are boring. I’ve given up the battle over them and just ask her to read something - I don’t care what. School were just leaching the joy out of it.