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

Take the pressure right off and read the book(s) to him.

Ask him to jump in if he knows a word, but just read to him. I gave my (very reluctant reader ) son ‘comic’ type books where the pictures told the story and the words were on the opposite page. Your local library will be able to help find books on subjects that interest your son. Also audio books are great for youngsters, where they have the book and hear the words.

Make sure your child (children) see you reading, even if it is only the shopping list and the labels on tins of food in the shop.

Show kids reading is relevant and useful.

Good luck

Try to make it an enjoyable experience, like the biscuits and milk during it or taking in turns or having a special cosy place to do it. That's preferable to a reward, because that sets reading up as a negative thing that requires a bribe. It's like rewarding vegetable eating with dessert: the first thing must be objectively bad in the child's mind to require a reward.

I like the idea of trying audiobooks. I never realised Spotify did audiobooks for kids so I'm going to give that a try! For those who use audiobooks, what do you use?

We use audible but have a look at what your library has online through borrowbox and Libby. There's some younger stuff on ours but all libraries are different...

He might prefer factual books to stories. Or joke books or comics. Reading anything is what I would go for rather than forcing school books.

We did read 3 pages and get a treat but no tv time until school work was done. Mine loved some ipad apps like squeebles

It is hard work at that age if it doesn't come easily. Because it's just using your brain to decode. The pleasurable, escapist side of reading doesn't kick in until you are much more fluent, or listening to stories.

I would say, keep reading stories together separately from phonics work. Be realistic that the phonics work is work, and use rewards if necessary.

I’m an English teacher and mum of three- all of mine hated reading and I just read to them. Then at one stage or another they took to it. I would strongly recommend not forcing or creating any kind of pressure.
Make it fun and minimal and encourage reading for pleasure.

The school reading books as others said sucked any joy. Because they were not read the teacher could not progress our DC but eventually conceded when they heard DC read that they could be a free reader. (We did fill in the reading diary to show reading was happening - Bear grills survival manual was one of the favourites - handy if escaping crocodiles) We did a lot of reading to our children and let them choose any book, graphic novel, top trump cards etc that encouraged reading.

Go back to basics with phonics. He is probably struggling with blending

What worked for us was to get her to read every night. Once it was just some thing that always happened it became less of an issue.

The best advice I ever got on reading was to abandon the school reading books if reading is a fight. Get reading anything DC has an interest in - cooking instructions, football magazines, pokemon. DS had a Minecraft book which he was very fond and which I can still recite 10 years later.

I had the same problem, but it turned out my daughter was dyslexic plus the condition that can often go with it with the words jump about the page. School continued until she was year 9 to say there wasn't a problem

As she had dyslexia all her life, she didn't realise that her vision was any different to others. Once diagnosed and with some adjustments she went on to achieve A" in English language, and Literature

Xxx

This is based on my experience of two with special needs so may or may not be relevant. My two are both quite different and their SEN are very different (one is dyslexic and autistic, the other has hearing loss and learning difficulties) but neither learnt to read by using phonics. The curriculum in this country is completely focused on phonics and for the small but significant number of children that don’t get it, they have real difficulties learning to read. I only realised this when my younger child’s teacher for the deaf explained to me and asked his school to consider teaching him by sight recognition.

Both children had a delayed start reading and both learnt by sight in the end. They both started to enjoy it once they had a decent bank of words that they recognised. My DC largely gained this bank of words by themselves but you can help by reading to them. If you read their books to them and they follow they will slowly recognise the words. Similarly read signs to them or newspaper headlines. Both mine got there eventually and both enjoy reading now.

So a few people have said abandon the school books because they are boring, and my child says they are so this could be part of the problem. So what do you record in the school logs , do you just write about which books you've read together?

My son is exactly the same age - his 'reading' books were so utterly boring (and often non-sensical) that we often didn't do them more than once, if that. Like another poster mentions, instead we read alternate pages of a book at bedtime. A proper book with an interesting story!

If he’s younger in the year, he’s just turned 5. Humans came late to the printed word and the part of the brain that reads develops rapidly nearer to 6. So he’s still some way off. Read to him and let him pick books out. Don’t sweat the school stuff yet. My quickest to read probably has dyslexia. My too slow to read who made a big deal are my most academic now they are grown up.

DS2 was/is a pro at reading avoidance. He hates the school books - he’s autistic and thinks they’re boring and pointless so why bother! He would literally launch the book at my head if I so much as tried to get him reading. Rewards and bribery never worked, but me reading to him and getting him to read every 4th word was a good start. We got him some non-fiction books on whatever his big interest at the time was, and I would get him to read signs and labels for me. Figured any sort of reading was better than none! His reading diary was interesting for a while…lots of “read the back of the cereal box” type of entries, but at least his teachers knew we were trying! A big breakthrough came when he got into Minecraft because there was no way I was sitting there reading the names of all the objects and books out for him!

He still isn’t a fan of reading, and probably never will be, but he can read to a reasonable standard. Given the serious effort he put into avoiding it I honestly never thought he’d manage it.

My son was like that at first. All through reception he hated reading. We tried at home and he would just get really stroppy and refuse to do it. Then I realised that his brain just didn't seem to be ready for it, for example he couldn't recognise that two words were the same, even though they only had 3 letters in. So we then just asked him to do one page a day, which only had a tiny amount of words on, and he tried as it wasn't so overwhelming I guess. When he started Year 1, part way through, something just clicked and he suddenly became one of the best readers in the class and loved reading for years, read every day until he was about 14. He had a reading age about 3 years above his own. So I wouldn't worry too much, or pressurise at all.

We switched to non fiction books as he found them more interesting, that was at the end of reception class. He's now 17 and doing alevels, never without a fantasy fiction book in his hand! Would you want to sit and read something you find boring? I wouldn't! I had to argue it with school but said surely reading was better than not!

Neither of my dc liked reading as kids. They liked me reading to them but never read independently unless they had to. Teachers used to say it doesn't matter what they read - so don't worry about getting them to read fiction.

DS was into animals, dinosaurs and outer space, so we bought books about those things. Can't remember what we bought dd to read. Anyway the upshot was they both grew up to do well at school and get first class degrees.

So don't worry too much and don't make it a battle ground.

Yes write what you’ve read. The only thing with the school books is that they will be focussed on particular phonics phases or diagraphs. You’ll possibly need to do additional work to make sure these are secure. With flash cards etc

We had this with our son for ages .Just wouldn't read ! Many a night we entered something like "Read 2lines" or "refused to read" very frustrating .We read to him and tried not to push it .Then I discovered he loved the Goosebumps books -and off we went ! Bought all I could find ! and he read to me loving every minute .He went on to do very well . Try to chill a bit if you can .I can remember how frustrating it was.

We do the same. Straight in the door, snack and reading. Snack gets him to sit at the table for more than 3 seconds (mine is autistic with adhd) and doing it straight away means he's not had chance to get distracted by something he would much rather be doing and is then impossible to get him to do reading. Every day mon-fri after school, non negotiable, just part of his standard routine.

I also encourage a lot of real world reading - shopping lists, signs, instructions for board games etc.

My youngest hated reading (and still does mostly). She also hates learning anything from me or her dad so, honestly, it has been hard work. She would much rather I read to her.

What she specifically hates is big pages of writing. So we got her to pick books she likes which are more cartoon-like e.g. Dogman, Jamie Smart books, and currently some Dragon Fury graphic novels. I also signed her up to Phoenix magazine which she loves but goes through phases with (sometimes reads it all, sometimes wants to read it with her, sometimes barely looks at it)