Parents of children who hate reading

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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

Bizarrely DS got two sevens in his English GCSEs despite never having voluntarily read a book in his life. I took him to the library when young, read to him, tried magazines/books about football when he was younger. Absolutely zero interest. You can try but some kids just aren't interested.

Can I just say that in my experience it worked out, and in hindsight it was not important in the great scheme of things. My DC are in their 20s now.

I have 2 sons. DS1 could read pretty fluently after one term in reception.
DS2 was exactly like yours, he resisted every inch of the way, we had upset and tears, I worried about his academic future. He loved me reading to him but just stuck his heels in and hated learning to read. In the end I decided that the daily reading battle was harming our home life and making him and me miserable. So I stopped making him do homework and took a lighter touch. I did find the key in the end was non-fiction, books about nature and how things work but it took time, he didn't read fluently until much later.
By age 11 there was no difference in the performance of my two DC at school, both excelled. They both achieved top grades in school exams and degrees. Interestingly DS1 who had devoured Harry Potter age 5 completely lost interest in reading by age 8 and hasn't read anything for pleasure since then. DS2 believe it or not still enjoys reading fiction when time permits.

For his age, I'd recommend the 'i need a new bum' series by Dawn McMillan.

It's still a picture book but it has some words. I think there's 8 in the series now.

Neither of mine have been big readers. DS1 is autistic and could read from a very young age but liked to read the same book over and over for months. Still does. I have books around and occasionally he’ll swap to a new one. DS2 also not keen. For him we’ve had audiobooks and we got him a subscription to The Phoenix. It’s brightly coloured, silly and funny and a lot of the strips have books that go with them. It comes weekly and they fight over it. Also the Beano, which is cheaper but just as silly.

Every interest they have, I go to World of Books and get something that looks like it might be interesting to them. It’s not stories, but it’s reading. Most recently we’ve had books about unsolved mysteries and gemstones.

DS2 has recently discovered my Kindle, and it’s been a revelation. Something about one page at a time holds his attention and he’s now powering through Beast Quest. He’s 9.

My DD went through a period of not enjoying reading but I think that was because she genuinely struggled and lacked some confidence. However, she's in year 3 now and reads without me prompting and is proud of herself and has massively improved!

I was genuinely concerned all around about her learning and thought she may have some learning difficulties but now she's doing great. I've learned to not over stress and give them time to develop in their own way.

You could maybe try making reading a little fun if that helps

There is a difference between “reading” and “learning to read”. I imagine very kids love the latter but once they can do that it’s more likely they’ll then love the former. You can’t mix the two up, very few people of an age love doing something they can barely do. Once they can read it’s a lot finding what they like, my DD took a lot longer than DD to find that.

I'm a teacher and Literacy leader/specialist.

Your child does enjoy reading because you say he enjoys sharing books with you, that you read. That's the most important thing.

The scheme books that are sent home ARE boring, because they're instructional. Your child doesn't need to enjoy those, and from year 1 they should be able to understand the difference between learning to read, and reading for pleasure. Of course eventually one book will serve both, but for now the scheme book is simply needs must for learning to actually read. Bribery is fine, scaffolding a bit (you read a bit, they read a bit), is fine.

In the meantime, comics, picture books, non fiction books about things your child is interested in, graphic novels. Reading isn't just words, it's visual comprehension. You can follow and understand a story through pictures.
It doesn't matter what type of book they're reading or what level. If they're turning the pages and enjoying it, whether with you or by themselves, they are enjoying reading. And that is the most important thing. Crucially.
Even more crucial, continue reading to him. It's probably the most important thing. He is listening to you read, you are modelling reading aloud; correct expression, intonation, punctuation pauses/signals. You are exposing him to new vocabulary. There is heaps of research on the benefits of this.
If he enjoys listening to you, then he enjoys reading, and you're doing a tremendous job at setting him up for the future.
Keep going with the boring books, bribe away, he'll get there eventually, then his whole world will open up as he'll not only be able to read, he'll want to as well.

Sorry it's long, it's something I'm very passionate about!

Don’t push it. Read with him, if he struggles you read. I was never strict on school books, if my DDs wanted to read their own book I was happy and school could get over it.

i still have one who hates reading but has her own tastes and interests so will try and find her books related to that so she’s reading something. She likes graphic novels and comics, as far as I’m concerned it’s all reading.

Bedtime reading is good. If your DS dosnt want to do the reading you do it, make it fun and he will start to want to do his own eventually.

Read to them in an animated fun way. My kids used to scramble out of bed and act out the story. That sort of thing. Just make it fun. He can choose his books, if you offer a selection. Those are my few suggestions , anyway.

My boy who hates reading would absolutely refuse the school books. I bought books for home that were the correct level on things he likes a tiny bit more. Also at home I accept reading of books that would be too easy on school levels but half the battle is building confidence not moving them up a level every time they get the hang of it- imagine how they feels never finding the books easy just getting moved up when you don't struggle obviously anymore. Mainly I was horrible strict, reading is optional I won't get into nagging and arguing but there is no screens till reading is done. Usually he will ask for his iPad i say not without reading and he does it with a face on him like I've asked him to clean the toilet with his toothbrush. I do accept any reading however so if he independently reads a few words from a toy box I give credit for that. He's just not very good at it so like your boy is put off trying, what has helped is he sees me read when he asks me questions I point out when he can read he could get the answers himself, point out all the games he can't play until he can read/more phrasing like look at all the cool stuff you can do when you can read a bit better rather than look what you can't do you idiot. I've also promised to get him a mobile phone when he can text me independently and that's good motivation.

But yeah ultimately you need to come at it in a way your kid can access it and school books tend not to be as interesting.

Are the books the Ruth Miskin - "Read, write inc." books? If so they should have the phonic sounds on the first couple of pages, the tricky/red words which used to be called sight words i.e. they don't follow the phonics rules so you just have to know them by sight etc. When I do phonics in school I always go through this page with the child, sound out words together etc. In my daughters reading record they had rhymes they used to help the children remember certain sounds for example may I play, ay. So if a child was stuck on this sound I would say the rhyme to help them without just telling them so they remembered the sound rather than telling them what it is. This was also in the back of the reading records when my daughter was younger. Also when you read, purposefully getting things wrong and correcting yourself in a lighthearted way is great to model how to react to getting things wrong and correcting yourself.
When I was home schooling I found my daughter would get frustrated because how I was teaching her was different to how they did it at school, things have changed so much since I did primary school curriculum and before I worked at a school I didn't know how to teach it the way she was used to which frustrated both of us. Watching the youtube phonics videos the school sent when homeschooling really helped as I could then do it in the same way which reduced my little ones confusion at this "new way" in turn reducing the frustration on both of our parts. It might be worth just making sure you're doing it the same way as the school in case this is part of the difficulties.
But most of all, all children learn at different rates, not everyone is an avid reader and the school will be doing the phonics work and getting him to read to them too, you reading to him regularly and finding books he enjoys is way more important than massive power struggles over getting him to read.

Persistence over many years.

If you think there are issue with phonics/blending - look at https://www.soundfoundations.co.uk/where-to-start/

Or if he wants some fun https://www.teachyourmonster.org/teachyourmonstertoread

There are private libraries like https://www.readingchest.co.uk/how-it-works where you can pick from other scheme - chart worked on my girls.

https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/library-page?view=image&type=book&series=Oxford+Reading+Tree maybe find some here as well.

I also spent a small fortune at the book people sadly now gone - but filled the house with many different books and did regular local library visits.

Comics - were huge for DS - but graphics novels at her level helped DD1 as well.

Audio books also help keep interest and expand vocabulary - kindles can also read books to them and I did bedtime stories still at that age.

They all now read for pleasure - but I think it took all finding a series that really appealed to them all at different ages.

The all loved books from early ages but eldest two especially really struggled with actual decoding - and then all later struggled with spelling - getting past that was dramatic for DS and more gradual process for DD1 - who had great memory and masked her issues more less so one to one but that was infrequent at her school. Comprehension was much less an issue for them - so it was more getting them past the mechanics keeping them interested as we built their skills up.

When DS1 was 6 (and undiagnosed dyslexic & autistic) I bought some Star Wars easy readers and things clicked for him then.
He has little love of fiction but does take his Warhammer novels to school to read. We've hit an awkward zone where he's out-grown the depth of information in visually attractive, bite-size information books, but hasn't grown into meaty tomes of text.

DS2 is an even bigger challenge. His dyslexia affects him differently. DS1 is more of a flipper/ reverser, DS2 has text squirming everywhere (only calmed somewhat by tints) and rapidly gets exhausted and headachy from concentrating on text which kills all pleasure. The Covid years ripping out great chunks of y2 & y3 did not help, he lost standard education before he managed the basics and got dyslexic friendly interventions years later than DS1.
He has made progress with tutoring that we started in y6 and if you get the right story, likes audio books. About the only book on paper he likes are very visual like Dogman. He has a kindle so he can change novels into a large, accessible font. I do wonder if he has ADHD focus issues in the mix.

As a bibliophile who self-learned reading at a young age and devoured books rapidly and enthusiastically, it's been a shock to me to have children who find reading so hard and draining. I've done what I can to keep it fun though and to avoid it being a tick-box slog which school cultures can often create.

Yesr 1 is exhausting for kids. They suddenly lose so much playtime. Don't make a big deal of it or you risk turning him off reading

Some excellent advice here

but also - pls keep an open mind to dyslexia. Lots of kids manage school for years before it is identified.

Thanks again for the comments, I have read them all and there is a lot of useful advice that has been given.

Someone has pointed out that he actually doesn't hate reading, since he enjoys me to reading to him. I hadn't thought of it that way, he does like books, just has no interest in trying to sound out the school phonics ones, which are the Ruth Miskin read write inc ones. Tells me it's boring .

We have a non fiction Usborne flap book which is all about trains, and he loves it. He's very interested in science and nature like volcanoes , planets etc and I've just looked and Usborne have a good selection of non fiction flap books around these topics. He won't be able to read much from them, but he would enjoy me reading them to him and looking at the pictures.

The last thing I want to do is put too much pressure on and turn reading into a negative experience.

I think this thread actually highlights to me the insane pressure our education system puts on young children

In most European countries formal 'reading and writing' starts at 7. That would be year 2 in the UK.

That doesn't mean children are not learning through play or enjoying discovering words/ writing/ reading before that. It means they are not being 'pushed' to 'read' boring school books with some sort of crazy pressure that they are 'failing' if they aren't at exactly the same stage as other children

Until 7 - these other countries presume children need to climb/ jump/ run/ undersdtand how to make friends - real life skills. they need to develop gross and fine motor skills through play not through clutching pens and scrawling letters.

Where is the rush with our children?

Maybe your son is exhausted after sitting down for long periods all day and is beginning to learn that 'following words' is something to 'succeed or fail' at.

As a child I loved reading but nobody ever told me to read! There was so much less pressure.

I came on here thinking that children who 'hate' reading must mean teenagers - how on earth can anyone make a judgement about a 6 or 7 year old and how they feel about books?

Let them play in the afternoon after school and remove all pressure.

I'd change that actually.

I'd say it highlights the insane pressure our education system puts on parents. The kids who have parents who don't care, aren't affected in the same way.

The parents feel pressure from the teachers and their peers about why little Johnny isn't reading. There's this feeling of 'what am i doing wrong'.

Thats not coming from the child. Thats about the parents.

If you understand what the range of 'normal' is for children is age and how some kids don't respond to these methods and its ok to take a different approach, I think a lot of that pressure disappears.

@RedToothBrush I actually disagree (though respectfully!! I appreciate your comment). I spend a lot of time with children - volunteer with them - various things and part of my job involves understanding child mental health/workign with schools.

Schools are actually for some children incredibly stressful places. I think we as a society may not realise - unless we are in schools - how rigid the cirriculum is from about Year 1 onwards. Some schools are even becoming very rigid and formal in reception. My daughter was just turned 4 when she went to school - she used to fall asleep on the carpet she was so worn out by it - she was still of an age where she needed a rest after lunch.

Then into year 1 - and it's tables, chairs, formal lessons - I remember dropping my son off aged 5 into year 1 on a beautiful sunny day and seeing all the tables covered in maths equiopment and my heart just broke for the kids.

my son is at secondary now but he particualrly strugged in year 1 and 2. he just wasn't ready to spend the day 'writing and reading' - perfectly able child but would cry saying how boring it was and his hand hurt. He is a physical kid - needs a lot of movement - as many do

A teacher told me recently that boys ask to go to the toilet a lot as they find sitting still so hard. this is depressing - we should encourage movement! children are physical beings. We know sitting too much is linked to poor health in adults.

anyway - that's. long ramble from me. But I do not believe that children are okay unless parents ramp up pressure. the sedentary school day itself is harmful.

Some great tops and ideas on here.
As an ex early years/infant teacher I agree that reading books are mind numbing!
Cover the words and tell the story from the pictures, make it as silly as you like, can he do that, what will happen next etc,get back some enjoyment.
Do some spelling games, if he knows his sounds (nit blending) 'onset and rhyme' is fun ie w-in, b-in, takes away the issue of blending 3 sounds and helps give confidence. Easy word bingo/lettering (sounds not letter name) helps with recognising simple/ common words. There's loads of ideas for fun activities online.

As a teacher we would walk round the area and the kids would take photos of words we saw in the environment etc. They loved doing that .

Some kids will be readers and others won't (even when no issues relating to reading ie dyslexia) My son and niece are very close in age. Both brought up in the same way, read to all the time. My son now 35, (biomedical scientist)is still an avid reader, my niece (dietician and mental health) does not, and has never read for enjoyment, but has 2 degrees and a great job .
7 is sometimes a 'magic age' when things that have been difficult can click into place. When we would talk to one of our county advisory teachers her first three questions were
Are they a boy?
Are they a summer birthday?
Are they 7 yet?
Because they were factors (obviously individuals may not fit into those )

Just make it enjoyable and that might mean you do the reading for now, getting hom to follow (or he can be the teacher and pointvthe words for you to read sound some out of them out, pretend to need his help)

I helped out in reception with reading last year.

The kids weren't particularly bothered about reading. They either did it or didn't do it.

You can't make them. You can only encourage them.

If you are 'pressuring' you won't get a positive response anyway. Good teachers don't. The thing is the parents don't understand this any how to not apply pressure.

If they wouldn't read, you got the kids to engage with the book in other ways. Often by being silly.

The idea of forcing them to do a whole book doesn't work either. They are time limited on attention span at that age.

My DD was a good reader at home, but she also refused to read school books as they were boring.
I taught her to read myself using Dr Seuss books.

My nephew apparently hated reading, until he got the Captain Underpants bookset.

They were considered rubbish, but that's what he liked. He then got a book of jokes/bloopers and read that a million times.

Now he burns through anime.

He just didn't like what was being given to him, so didn't bother.

Offer your son a wide range of books and he may find what he likes.

The parents feel pressure from the teachers and their peers about why little Johnny isn't reading. There's this feeling of 'what am i doing wrong'.

Thats not coming from the child. Thats about the parents.

I'm diagnosed with dyslexia and my kids are summer borns - so yes I did have some guilt when they struggled with reading.

However we stepped in early with DS because a boy who loved books and stories suddenly started saying the weren't for him and he was stupid - and went right off then. 10 minutes a day best time I ever spent - as moment he realised he could read books by himself was just so empowering for him.

I think biggest regret for DD1 was waiting to step in with her - school spent most of her school years flip flopping on what if any her issues were - I do wonder if she had have it easier if I'd ignore advice to wait.

You don't want to put them off with too much pressure at same time leaving them to flounder is also not helpful as it can also put them off. There are many good books out there and fun games like teach your monster how to read these days.

You just have to remind yourself especially round some other parents it's a marathon not a sprint.

I also liked Dr Suess and Fat cat on a mat/Ted in a red bed
Usborne phonic readers - we all like the rhyming.