Which book persuaded your reluctant reader to read to themselves?

[Cattenberg]

DD (7) is an able reader, but you wouldn't know it from the fuss she makes about reading to an adult, or reading silently to herself. At her age, I loved reading and I wish DD enjoyed it for her own sake.

I can't really predict which books she might like. I've introduced her to books I loved as a child and newer titles that her friends really enjoy. She liked some of these too, but didn't want to finish the majority, even if I read them to her. The Horrid Henry series was a favourite for a while, and an abridged version of Heidi turned out to be a big hit.

However, I wonder if we might have turned a corner, as after reading her a chapter of Stig of the Dump by Clive King, she pronounced it her favourite book and read much of the rest by herself (although she still wanted me to read a few parts, perhaps when she was more tired than usual).

She has since read to herself some more, albeit not consistently. I'd be interested in knowing other children's favourites.

About that age DD got into reading the Enid Blyton Secret Seven books and worked through them all.

She is now an avid reader but it took a couple of false starts so don’t give up.

My DS wouldn't read books for pleasure, just hobby magazines. We bought him a set of the first 3 Harry Potter books as a Christmas stocking filler and never heard a squeak out of him for the whole Christmas holidays - he was absolutely gripped. He was 10 and dyslexic, but I think the first book is recommended for 8 upwards.

The Guinness book of records. The annual version.

The Harry Potter books. The school librarian had to order in 5 or 6 copies because demand was so great. There were loads of nonreaders who couldn't put HP down!
War Horse was popular too.
And Leon Garfield books.

It was the Harry Potter books for all three of mine too

They were into non fiction before but these were definitely their first fiction books
I was obsessed too 😊

we’ve got an awful lot to thank
JK Rowling for !

My faves around that age were

The Faraway Tree
Harry potter
Mrs Pepperpot
Anything by Jacqueline Wilson

Dog man books. They are in comic style and they persuaded my reluctant reader to read. I have since persuaded him to read a few more comics.

Also Dog Man. Although it's barely reading tbh. But it is choosing to pick up a book, laughing, enjoying it and wanting to share his favourite bits so I'll take it.

We've also had success with the abridged versions of Enid Blyton books. They do Famous Five, Secret Seven and Faraway Tree with much less text and more pictures. They're a good halfway house for a reluctant reader.

Diary of a wimpy kid for my eldest, who is still a bookworm now, but took to it late (DOAWK is very easy to access, more like a cartoon strip iirc and amusing apparently, even though I hate it with a passion).

My other two - nothing, nada - both hate reading but smashed their SATS and are doing well in English. One had reading age of 17 at school, at 11. Yet neither read fiction (both on the spectrum).

What those two did do was:
Free rice vocab game
Wordle/wordiply
Subtitles/captions on everything we watch(ed) as a family

and for one of them, Non-fiction was the breakthrough/along with their own research/rabbit holes into wiki etc online

None of them like(d) creative writing and one still gets writer's block now - they have been encouraged to do the descriptive writing (of a photo) than the narrative.

You are correct on identifying that reading for pleasure makes a big difference to reading ages and outcomes, but I have living proof that it isn't the be-all and end-all.

Oh and the eldest, the reader, did read all of Roald Dahl's, David Walliam's <shudder> and Judy Blume's work. She also liked Holes (Louis Sachar) and Flour babies (Anne Fine), the Hunger games books and Twilight series.
Good luck x

I read to them all:
Arabel's raven
My naughty little sister stories
Mrs. Pepperpot stories
Flat Stanley
The owl who was afraid of the dark
A necklace of raindrops short stories
Peter Rabbit short stories
And the different coloured fairies, crimson etc

The OED was mine at that age.

Two volumes plus a 3rd one with footnotes and extras - eg old words no longer used that had been removed, history of new words added and when.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid here too, independent reading took off from there.

Pippi longstocking
flower fairies
Anything by Joan aitkin
the worst witch
how to train your dragon series
beast quest series - wa happy when this obsession ended but it got her reading

Interesting - my DS had a similar reading route, although also loved HP.

We also always have subtitles on TV because my hearing isn’t great but I’ve heard it helps with children’s reading.

Don't fret!

I felt the same about my DD; although she has always been an incredibly able reader, she was so reluctant to read and it took until the end of year 3 for her to finally enjoy independent reading.

It felt like I'd tried everything, but what did it for her was the Daisy and the trouble with... series (Kes Gray).

The thing that worked was I started reading it to her and she got so hooked that she wanted to carry on reading it after I'd stopped.

Early books she also enjoyed were the Secret Seven and Naughtiest girl series by Enid Byron, some of the shorter Jacqueline Wilsons and some of the suitable-for-younger children Judy Blumes (eg Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing).

She's now a massive reader, however is autistic and likely ADHD, so is still quite fussy with what she reads and can reject a book if it doesn't grab her attention straight away. If it's a book that I think she will enjoy, I will often go with the method of reading the first couple of chapters to her to entice her into it.

Dinosaur Cove - it's a very long series.
How to train your dragon.

She's now a massive reader, however is autistic and likely ADHD, so is still quite fussy with what she reads and can reject a book if it doesn't grab her attention straight away. If it's a book that I think she will enjoy, I will often go with the method of reading the first couple of chapters to her to entice her into it.

That's interesting. My DD has suspected ADHD and is waiting for an assessment.

Football books written by Rob Childs. At that time, there weren’t many football themed books. I think Theo Walcott was one of the first footballs who subsequently wrote football books for kids.

Also, my dc liked non-fiction books. The Guinness Book Of Records I always think is good, because they can dip in and out, and lots of short passages. No pressure to read a huge chunk.

My son discovered Dirty Bertie this summer and is hooked. He absolutely loves the stories, is often found giggling away to himself having snuck away to read quietly and is genuinely excited to read now, whereas previously he read because he had to.

Lone Pine Series by Malcolm Saville.

Ds wasn't bothered about reading for himself unless it was a fact book about WWII. He'd enjoyed the books I'd chosen, but it was when we started Mystery at Witchend, he started reading them himself to speed up the reading.

I don't know why you are trying get your kid to read when they are just not that into it.
So long as she CAN read well, that's fine.
You wouldn't do that with any other hobby or pastime.

I think that was related for my DD. Until we found a book that grabbed her attention and she realised that reading was not just a boring chore, it was difficult for her to focus. (When she used to read aloud to me, it would be incredibly difficult to get her to read more than a sentence or two before she got distracted!).

She has now gone the other way and hyper-focuses on reading to the extent that it's difficult to get her to stop (and eg go to bed 🙄).

Weirdly, it's still difficult to get her to read at any other time than at bedtime (even if she's bored). But then she'll read for 1-2 hours.

Ds when he was 9 started reading Tom gates books on his own accord and diary of a wimpy kid series too…
dd was age 7 when she picked up any book about a cat that she would read then went onto the unicornia series

OP says she hopes a corner has been turned and is asking for book recommendations, your take is a bit off. If your DC had started playing football at lunchtimes you might offer to take them to a Saturday club to see if they like that.

Reading fiction or non-fiction is the foundation for learning all other subjects. You are not doing your DC any favours if you are dismissive of it as an important skill.