Has anyone found anything their reluctant reader actually enjoys reading?

[Dramatic]

DD is 9. She has hated reading since she started learning in reception, she found it difficult and still does so any suggestion of reading anything is met with moans and groans and refusals. She won't even read things that would be beneficial to her (instructions for a game or craft activity).

She has ADHD which complicates things a bit and I suspect some form of dyslexia too.

Does anyone have any suggestions of things their reluctant readers have enjoyed?

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.

They did read write inc, in fact she's still bringing home the read write inc books. So very heavily phonics based learning. She seems to have forgotten most of the sounds though, so if she comes across an unfamiliar word she can't remember how to sound it out. She also has a lot of trouble with writing and spelling.

She's only had the basic NHS testing, I didn't know anything else was an option, thank you.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My 9 year old DD is similar, but she enjoys graphic novels. Her favourites are The Babysitters Club series.

Depending on the reason why your DD hates reading, books that are age appropriate might help. Most books aimed at children who can't read have stories that are not complex enough to interest a 9 year old. My DD struggled to read anything until she succeeded with Harry Potter books when she was in Year 4. She describes the experience as being like a duck to water - suddenly she was ready for reading. In Year 3 she cried when she couldn't get past the first page while her friends were competing with how many times they had read Harry Potter by then.

She always loved audio books, which in hindsight was a big clue that the narrative mattered. It's hard to create an interesting story using monosyllabic words.

Reading a couple of years later than her contemporaries hasn't held her back.

Oh, and phuck phonics if it isn't working for your child.

RWI was the source of my child’s hatred of reading too. Thankfully DC2 is at a different school using twinkl, and he loves reading. I was so sad for a long time that DC1 hated reading

@Dramatic@Dramatic for many dc phonics is a

Barrier to reading not a help. One of my dc really got it so I never questioned it until dc 2 failed the phonics test. It was presented as this huge issue but I was never given any help by the school.

It was only covid and mn when I asked, what can I do that posters said maybe phonics is the barrier and go back to plain site reading, flash cards and so on which we did during covid.
Phonics was massively over complicating it for her. She just needed site reading.

Mr gum is hilarious

Jacqueline Wilson and the Lemony Snicket books were the only things my DD with ADHD would read at that age.

Mine loved Garfield and the Tom gates books which look more like cartoons/children’s doodles. More to look than just the words and rather funny

Dogman, Wings of Fury graphic novels (NOT the books!), The Phoenix magazine and associated books - eg Bunny vs Monkey. Basically cartoon/comic style. She dislikes big blocks of writing. She finds it difficult to follow where she is. I suspect she could by dyslexic. I've mentioned it to school but not sure if they've not checked or not found anything.

Dc1 was a reluctant reader, diagnosed recently with severe dyslexia & processing disorder. He loved Asterix to read together & Commando comics as he loves history. He moved independently to Dogman & read those. I will add I read with him throughout over the years, stories & books on topics or interests of his. Turns out he wasn’t keen initially on reading but loved to listen. Appreciate not necessarily easy with ADHD.

Try Raina Telgemeier (I've probably misspelt that) - Invisible Emmy, Positively Izzy etc. Also Rollergirl by Terri Jamieson. They are a mix of graphic novel and ordinary prose.

My dyslexic and ADHD son never really did get into reading - whilst he did eventually learn to master reading on a functional level, it was always (and still is) too effortful to be enjoyable. My solution was just to read to him all the books he’d otherwise have read to himself until he was about 13. After that he moved onto audiobooks- including all his GCSE texts. My proudest moment was his learning support teacher praising his vocabulary which she said was as good as a prolific reader - because of all the reading we’d done together. He got 6 on his GCSE English, and is now at Uni. Do not despair @Dramatic be positive, keep the pressure off (read to her as much as you can) and all can be well.

And in terms of working on his reading, we did ten mins of “Dancing Bears” every night - it’s a synthetic phonics programme that we found easy to do at home and pretty successful. I taught my subsequent children to read using it, even though they weren’t dyslexic.

Lemony Snicket A Series of Unfortunate Events is the only fiction my DS (10) has ever enjoyed.

He’s usually happier to read non fiction if anything

These are such good ideas and such a wonderful success story - thank you for sharing this!

My sons 9 and autistic he loves -

Billy and the mini monsters
Roald Dahl
Wrigglesbottom primary
Horrid Henry

He also likes non fiction about subjects of interest- planets, dinosaurs, Mario

The Mr Penguin books are brilliant, funny and lots of illustrations.

The only books my reluctant reader ever really enjoyed were Horrid Henry and The Hunger Games.
9 is probably too old for the first, and too young for the latter.

He's now 20 and is working his way through A Series of Unfortunate events (he reads about 2 books per year) and Heartstopper.

A series of unfortunate events might be ok at 9. I've never read them so couldn't say for sure.

So many good suggestions, thank you all so much. I'm making a list and will get her a few to try over the next few weeks and see if anything grabs her attention.

This is brilliant, well done to you and your son, just shows what can happen when you persevere and think outside the box.

One of my older daughters in now in year 10, she was considered SEN in primary and didn't learn to read until year 2, but she then seemed to catch up fairly quickly, I assumed this might happen with my younger DD too but it doesn't seem to be happening. I suppose theres always time though