How to get 5 year old to practice reading and writing

[Chick981]

I’m in despair over how to get my 5yo to do any reading practice (or writing).

We’ve just had a huge argument because I’ve tried to get him, he’s refused and I’ve not known how to handle it and admittedly handled it badly. I told him he can’t have any TV until he’s tried it, including tomorrow. He’s then ran off and started throwing things, I’ve then said he has to go to time out and it’s all just snowballed (his behaviour and listening at the moment is a whole other thread!)

I don’t know where I’m going wrong but we’re almost a whole year into reception now and I can count on one hand the number of times he’s attempted his book.

He won’t do writing either but I try to do other things to help him build his fine motor skills so hoping that will help.

I really didn’t ever want to force him to do the book as I don’t want to stop him having a love of reading, but I really need to start getting him ready for year one and from the last parents evening he is quite behind on phonics and writing.

I’ve tried some alpha blocks stuff but again very limited interest. He’s happy being read to at bedtime but won’t have me read to him in the day.

Not sure what to do to be honest, just feel like I’m failing him early on and hate that this is already a battle.

Separately but linked I just feel like all round a terrible parent because I just don’t know how to parent him when he refuses to do something. I try making things fun, being playful, having relatable consequences but nothing works.

Forget punishments, because your feelings are right - that will just make it negative in his mind.

Have a huge reset. and then -

1, Make it rewarding
2, then make it fun.

In that order.

I say that because, reading isn't fun at first. Until you reach a certain level, its just difficult. The early parts of phonics, learning the sounds, practicing blending, just are not fun. So during this phase, don't feel guilty about a bit of bribery. What ever he likes, toy cars? Chocolate? Bit of extra play time? A trip somewhere? The more progress he does, the more nice things he gets.. but the gaps between the nice things slow down the further you go.

Once you get to a point where he can actually read and understand words/sentences, then you can start to make it fun, and that can be the reward.

Very simple word puzzles. Treasure hunts where he has to read where the net clue is, New shinny colorful pens just for writing, reading things about his hobbies/shows he likes, reading to you and seeing your amazing over-the-top reaction to be read to, etc. anything to make it fun.

You can't expect him to have a sense of responsibility and desire to learn at that age. and if (like many boys) he isn't naturally obedient, it has to be rewarding and fun, otherwise it will never work. Same with every skill or type of learning, the whole lot need to be associated with fun/rewarding.

You can't push it too much though, they have their own innate personalities and abilities.

DD1 was an advanced reader and DD2 struggled with it. I read to/with both of them from being babies.

Nether of them read for pleasure now, school reading records throughout primary school (which I was never OTT about) killed all the enjoyment I'd tried to encourage.

Yes, completely agree.

It is a shame about the reading for fun part, but to be fair - most adults don't read for fun any more, what with phones, tv, internet, games etc. So I do find it hard to expect our kids to.

That's true.

Though the UK publishes a hell of a lot of books and there are still a lot of keen readers out there.

Just read to him and bedtime for now, the most important thing you can do for him is make him love books and see them as a positive feature in his life. At some point he will feel ready to start reading words to you, but he isn't yet. I used to read 3 story books to dd, and her school book, but for that one I would do a page and sound put the words....sometimes making deliberate mistakes so she could correct me.

I think that is quite unusual for dyslexics. Usually decoding through phonics is one of the keys for them. Certainly has been for the 5 dyslexic children in my family (not all mine! Nephews and nieces too). The older literacy teaching of reading (look, cover, write, check) was catastrophic for my dyslexic sister. She was completely illiterate until the age of 9 when an older teacher introduced her to phonics (against the policy of the school at the time) at which point she made fairly swift progress.

Sure I'm not saying reading is unimportant.
I'm just remembering how very easy it is as parent to get neurotically caught up in the, oh dear so-and-so is already reading Harry Potter independently and the only thing my kid reads is bus destinations! & does that mean he's destined to be a slow learner forever? What can we do???!!
At 5, bus destinations/football scores are fine, or nothing much at all tbh! And scroll on several years, the Harry Potter at 6 readers are absolutely not necessarily the standout/standalone high flyers they were in Reception.
Many others by then will be just as academically able.
I do think many kids are pressurised into reading/writing too young, which risks putting them off books altogether.

I have an almost 5 yo who loves reading and writing but we only manage to read her books 2-3 times a week, for a while it was 1-2 times a week! The school after Christmas holidays did a two week reading challenge to see if they could do some reading every week day and that helped embed it in her routine

For us we have found that tacking it on to our bed time routine the best time to get her to read. I think finding a regular time to do it even if it's only a few times a week.

If she wasn't interested in her reading book we would get her to read other things, the front page of the book at bedtime or get her to pick out all the "the" on a page things like that.
We have other books of a similar level that are more story based and these go down better

The real thing we have tried to avoid doing is making it feel like a chore as who wants to do a chore 5 times a week when they could be playing?!

As I said my loves reading but it still can be a challenge to get her to do the books sent home from school. I love reading but have never joined a book club as I don't like being told what to read so I do get it. There have definitely been some books that she really has no interest in reading so then it's hard to keep her motivated and those books hang around for longer as she's not as comfortable reading them.

I'd get creative and focus on reading and writing practice rather than the school books. We find phonics practice better when out and about getting her to say what she sees and then what sounds do they have in them and what other words have those sounds in.

For writing practice would he do a shopping list? Or draw pictures and then add a label/sentence/his name to post to grandma?

Activity books and magazines from home bargains, Tesco, etc.

paw patrol or whatever he’s into

Get ones that are aimed at early first years and have basic reading /writing activities. Go buy them without him so you’re not pressured into buying the wrong thing - you want to make sure there are some educational activities in there. frame it as a treat. “I’ve got you a present”

Most importantly, sit and do them together. Do all the non phonics activities too. Bring a snack to the table so you’re both sat together still, eating and doing them.

star chart for “attempting” book after school. But make it easy to achieve. One star = a sweet, 5 stars = a chocolate bar. Etc . Don’t get in a fight about it. i find this makes my 5 yo double down!

apps - all the CBeebies apps have phonics and maths. I let my daughter play whatever she wants on them.

We used to give them hot chocolate or a biscuit/treat and make it a fun thing, or some nuts in a pot etc. Yes it was before sugar was considered as badly as now. Worked, though!

Drop the books. Make some games up with him instead. My favourite was to get the words from his school book, write them out and put them on the floor in a line. We would roll the dice and jump how ever many it said on there onto one of the words. He would have to try and say it before rolling again. Another good one was getting a sock puppet to eat the paper with the words on. Always guaranteed a giggle when the puppet gags on the paper or is sick. Get him to read the word before feeing it to the sock. Honestly five minutes is all he needs and just jot in his school book that he refused the book but you played a game and which words you used. Check out five minute mum she has some great games for reluctant readers.

DD is also 5 and we do now make her read her school book even if she's reluctant. This is mostly because she is a good reader and usually enjoys it when she gets into it, and only resists if the book is a bit harder than the last one. I feel that if we let her avoid doing it because it's hard, she'll never learn to push through. She then gets to feel proud of herself when she manages to overcome the challenge.

However, if your DS NEVER wants to read or write and is pushing against it all the time, maybe he's just not ready. 5 is really young and a lot of countries don't bother until kids are 7ish. He might not really understand the point of reading yet.

I'd try and make sure he has lots of toys with letters and words on them, foam letters for the bath, that sort of thing. He might start asking organically, "What does this say?"

There are some good ideas here, like getting him to read signs, items on shopping lists, and so on. I think it can be a problem turning it into a chore. But I loved reading signs when out and about.

My mum was very big on diary writing, and this always went with days out: having to write about them when we got home. When I was older, I had to do it myself, and it became a nagging point. I remember also a childhood realisation that every school trip would be followed by having to write about it, which almost spoiled the experience.

Hi @Chick981 , no suggestions from me but just to say you aren't alone, my just-turned 5 year old DS is exactly the same. Refuses to read or write. I know he can read to some extent as he will read a few words occasionally but as soon as you make it into a 'thing' e.g. with school reading book, he clams up completely. If we offer rewards or say no screen time until he's done his reading, he would rather forego the screen time/reward than do it.

We're just reading his school phonics book to him at bedtime (alongside other less awful books) and crossing our fingers that he's picking some of it up.

Reading is my favourite thing to do! Which I think is why I’m struggling a bit that he doesn’t want to do it at all. Some great ideas here though which I’m definitely going to try and will forget the book for now and see where we are at in year one.

Yup studies show a lifelong advantage in being able to read well at a young age. Also if he goes into yr1 knowing less than other kids it will really dent his confidence and he may start to perceive himself as being incapable.

Teaching children to read is an invaluable gift imo. They just don’t know it at the time. It’s ok to make things non negotiable with your children.

OP just leave it for the weekends. After a tiring day at school, you’re mad to put yourselves through this IMO!

See if he’ll read non-school books - school books are pretty dull!

Get him to write things for a reason eg shopping list, a sign for his door, his own set of rules, note to grandma etc

Have the subtitles on the TV all the time - I swear this is why my kids are such good readers! Ditto games that involve reading - board games, Animal Crossing etc

What are his parents evenings and reports like? Don’t make an issue if there isn’t one IMO.

reading eggs app, I think you can get a month free to try it out.

Lots of good suggestions around blending reading and writing into day to day life, does he see reading modelled in the house? Our house is full of books and from an early age DS has seen both DH and I read for pleasure, when he was small he'd get one of his books and sit with us looking at the pictures, he now at 6 asks especially on a rainy weekend afternoon if we can have reading time, I'll read my book he'll read his, we sit together on the sofa in winter we might have a nice hot drink to go with it, when he was pre reading I would read to him then he'd stay to read to me. So if currently you only really read when he's in bed show him it's something you do and enjoy, it's not work.
Also maybe look into something like a yoto player to encourage a love of stories, take him to the library and comic book shop to let him choose his own material, even if he's only looking at the pictures at first with phonics at school he will start to try and work out the words.

You can also get the Ruth miskin read write inc phonics videos on YouTube, look up whatever scheme he does and see if they have the same as they model what the teachers do in school and will reinforce his phonics learning, or am the school ours used to send qr codes home to link to them.

I’m at the other end of this, my reluctant reader is now in year 6. We also had tears and lots of frustration (from both of us)
Things that worked for us
• agree with him he is going to read but agree when, for us it was both weekend days and two days when she had a club so was in a better mood to do it
• write about things that interest him - for my daughter it was writing princess party lists or letters from Barbie
• go over the top with praise
• consider there might be an underlying difficulty there, there was with my daughter, and that was why she found things so hard

Why don’t you do the book with him at bedtime when he’s receptive?

I don’t see how it’s possible to be behind at age 5. Play is more important than anything else. It will al balance out.

I highly recommend Reading Eggs, it taught both my children to read and they enjoyed it.

Teacher here
He will be very tired after school during his first year so go very easy on more work.
As he is bright he may be struggling with knowing he is finding reading difficult and doesn't want to face that every day.
Write little fun messages for him...Ben feed the dog etc. Nothing to do with school just life.
Get a blank copy and write one word sentences using very basic vocabulary relevant to his life. Stick in or draw a picture to match. I find some children who struggle with reading cannot relate to any books but can relate to stuff about themselves. Also read to him every day. Get lots of books from the library and make sure he knows he is not expected to read them so no pressure. Make reading and books fun.

Try doing it in the morning. They're tired at night and everything is harder. We used to do breakfast, read, TV.