Anyone faced the same? 7yo not reading by himself

[Bikeproject]

Hi, my 7yo can read well however he does not read books by himself. He says he does and that he prefers reading when we're not watching but that's not true. I have bought books he chose in the hope he would read them. Nothing.
I've now bought a kindle for myself and I'm hoping it might attract him. But I'm not kidding myself, it probably won't happen.
We carry on the reading aloud from school throughout the holidays to try and make up the deficit but 3 pages a night is not the same as reading a book by yourself. I also read every night to him before bed time. I have offered/suggested he read on his own in bed but that has been turned down too.

Anyone who's been through the same please? What happened next? What didn't happen next? Did you do anything specific? It doesn't feel like a stick situation but all the carrots I've used have not worked.

I hated reading as a child. Found it incredibly dull. Would never pick up a book out of enjoyment.

I got into reading when I went to secondary school and my english teacher asked me why I didn't enjoy reading. I remember saying it was boring. I vividly remember her saying, "well if you find a book boring why don't you stop and find another one?" It was a revelation, I didn't have to like all books, I could find them boring, stop and pick up something else..

She told me to read the first 5 - 10 pages, if I didn't like it then I should put it away and get a new book.

I went through a lot of books in the first year, but I found books I enjoyed and now I really enjoy reading. I still employ the same technique. Doesn't matter if it was a best seller - if I don't enjoy it I put it down.

Another one here whose DC never read, struggled to read despite being read to every night, always doing the reading at home. They resisted/hated it, could not see the point until about 13 and now at nearly 15 they devour books at a huge rate and they want to teach English . I think it's a slog if they aren't interested. But you need to keep going, whilst engaging them. To echo others you need to find the gateway book that's not necessarily words. For mine it was Studio Ghibli and manga books (age appropriate!) They've just finished a series of Alice Oseman which was nearly all pictures, but the book before that was a Matt Haugh.

This is a long winded way of saying keep plodding on, make sure they've not got dyslexia , find their gateway book. if they are reading anything thats great, cricket scores, football cards, comics, top trumps etc etc

Think it's a bit like weaning, you need to offer up different things, in small doses, frequently.

Thank you for all the messages! Very helpful to see the range of experiences. I shall not worry and plod on!

My DS2 was like this ... I suspect the more you make it clear you want to see him read, the less likely he will be to do it, because.it has become an issue. We found the best way forward was to read aloud to him from an exciting chapter book (short chapters with cliff hangers), then hope that the cliffhanger will encourage him to pick up the book himself to read ellicitly under the covers after lights out. Harry Potter did the trick for us, and we've had varying degrees of success with other books. If it doesn't work, you will at least have some relaxed quality time together and get him into the habit of associating bedtime with a book. My DS is 14 now and we still have booktime at bedtime, but now he reads aloud to me for as long as he wants (usually just a paragraph) then silently to himself for as long as he wants too (usually a page or two). It takes him forever to get through a whole book, but at least he does read, and he still enjoys the mum time.

7 is still very young. One of my DC never read. Didn’t enjoy it. The only books they read cover to cover were the ones they had to for GCSE English. We come from a bookish household. Books are everywhere. We went to the library all the time. Now an adult, they got a first at a top university and read all the time. Don’t stress about it (I did).

It might just be his age. I was worried mine weren't going to be readers. They were both good readers but weren't reading much independently at seven and I remember reading a lot much younger. Now my daughter takes two books on every car journey (apparently in case she finishes the first of which she has 100 plus pages left ) and I have to check my son isn't reading under the covers after lights out. For both getting into a series they liked really helped but they have very different tastes. Son likes Tom Gates and David Walliams, daughter is more fantasy. Also both like reading on an app called Epic that has loads of different books (you can probably get something similar through local library). Plus as said above time without screens note to self; get off phone and pick up book.