Reluctant reader - sanctions, bribery or just bloody give up?

[sethstarkaddersmum]

DD (Y1) does not like doing her reading.
I am fed up to the back teeth of trying to make her.

Please do not post helpful suggestions for making it more interesting, I have tried plenty of these and she's not having it.

I have tried the 'no tv/playing/snacks until you've done your reading' approach. This works but means 45 minutes of hell.

I have never tried bribery but I daresay it would work - 'If you do your reading you can have a sweet.' But I am reluctant to do this for obvious reasons.

Was discussing with MIL and she said 'Well, why don't you just let her not do it? She'll learn to read eventually.'
This seems very radical but has a certain appeal.

I just don't know any more. What do you do in these situations?

FWIW we have a house full of books, she loves having stories read to her, she loves making up and telling stories (doesn't mind writing them either) she just will not read for herself.

I posted the other day because she decided she wanted to read Pippi Longstocking (which is obviously too hard for her) and was given some great suggestions for other things to read, but she isn't interested in anything else.

I used bribery with my ds. We made a chart and when he had read to me 20 or so times he got a wheres wally book. It worked a treat and after a couple of wheres wally books he was so used to reading every day he never questioned it again.

give up - having struggled through it with my DS1 I have come to the conclusion that they will read when they are ready - and you can't do much to force it to happen sooner.

I would continue to read to her as much as possible, and encourage her understanding of the value of reading. When she is ready maybe she can read a word here and there, or a sentence, paragraph etc. Take it at her pace.

She will get enough hassle to read at school - let home be a refuge where she can learn to enjoy it.

that's very interesting BeautifulBabies.
rofl, you know, she would probably do it for money, or Hama beads, but I could make it appropriate by letting her have a book of her choice.
I was expecting people would be v disapproving at the thought of bribery.

Have you tried joint reading. getting her to read a few lines of the pippi longstocking and you read some. Her readin will still come on even though she is not reading so much. It is a good transitional way of approaching it.

I have just posted something similar in chat but have the reverse problem that he just wont read his school books or read aloud. everything else is read, and his reading is good even if his concentration to read is still small. IMO it donest matter what they read as long as they read. Enjoying reading is also important imo.

right now, as i type i has ds sat next to me refusing to read. he has another 5 mins and then the book goes away. I will be speaking to his teacher tomo about the situation. I have had enough. Either he does it or he doesnt. It wont be through me not trying but i feel presurising him to read something he doesnt want to read is more likely to piut him off reading for pleasure. which to me is far more important then fighting the battle.

I would try the joint reading thing just to get her reading. Imho.

I had this with one of mine--in the end we said that whatever happened we would do 10 minutes and just 10 minutes every day.(unless of course they wanted to do more)
Once this was established things were much better.
It was a problem because they found it difficult wheras siblings found it easy so we also had to find a place away from them to do it.

Good luck

by the way - if she wants to read Pippi then let her. My DS2 "read" a lot of famous five books - he was totally incapable of actually reading them but he was happy - and a few months later he was actually reading them for real.

If it is something she is interested in then don't discourage her by saying it is too hard.

To be truthful if dd didn't want to read then she didn't read because I wanted her to find reading a pleasure and not a chore.
Now at seven she is a little bookworm and devours books so it didn't do her any harm.
She is probably tired after school and reading scheme books aren't exactly great stories.
Dd was so much more enthusiastic when she was able to choose her own books and would never choose ORT.
Dd is my fifth child though so I am probably far more lax than most

tried joint reading thanks Ouch!

Sounds like my DS1. I spoke to his teacher who said just stop doing it for a bit.

He is listened to every day at school and his reading progressed so much quicker once our after school traumatic reading sessions stopped

Why doesn't she like to read?

I would be looking at her phonic knowledge and her ability to decode and blend. Children who don't like to read very frequently don't like it because they find it difficult as they don't have the necessary skills secure.

What are the books like that she is bringing home to read? Are they ORT?

I would tend to agree with your MIL. There is no point in setting up a great block of unhappiness around reading. You'll only put her off.

If she is determined to read Pippi Longstocking you could 'buddy read' it with her. She reads the words she can manage for herself; you supply the really complex ones and help her with ones which she may be able to work out.

Maizie - her decoding and blending are both fine, but she says she finds it hard nonetheless.
When she finally puts her mind to it I am often surprised at how well she does with words I thought she would have found hard, but she will often make a random guess rather than bother to decode.
I was quite impressed with the teaching at her school - it seemed very systematic and she loved doing the Jolly Phonics actions etc. I think they have laid a good groundwork.

Yes, ORT mostly, with a few random other ones.

I think you are probably right I should just stop; I'm sure the stress must be counterproductive.

You read her books and when she wants to do it she will, DS1 finally 'got' reading in yr3.

Read other things....what about a comic?

y she gets magazines sometimes (mainly cos she likes the free gifts and the stickers I think!)

My boys are reading Asterix, they are learning without knowing!!

I think it shows excellent taste not to want to read those ORT books. A discerning reader, rather than a reluctant one?

Turn subtitles on on the TV. Then she'll be surrounded by words and how to pronounce them.

Asterix rocks. Ds also like the garfiel cartoon books.

he has given up for the night. flat refusal. but i know he will go to bed with a stack of books to read. its the school books. we dont have ort scheme, but still they are pretty bad.

I suspect that ORT is the villain of the piece. It is completely incompatible with systematic phonics instruction as it contains words from the start which are beyond the level of children's phonic knowledge at the time when they get them to read. At the start of Y1 your dd won't have sufficient knowledge of the 'advanced' alphabetic code to be able to cope with all that ORT will be throwing at her!

It is such a shame that schools can teach good phonics then frighten children with ORT, which is particularly undecodable in the early levels

DS1 also has some Marvel classics, but I'm not sure I like how women are represented.

My DD has always been a reluctant reader. She LOVES stories and spends hours 'imaginary reading' (i.e looking at the pictures and making her own words up) and we read to her every day. BUT it has been a battle trying to get her to learn to read. I think she finds those dull school books too much like 'work'

Now I just let her read Rainbow Magic fairy books. She loves them and it's the only thing she actually wants to read. She reads the short pages and I read the long pages (as it's slightly too hard for her and she doesn't have the concentration span to read them alone yet). At least she is keen and slowly improving even if not the best quality books.

Also I've started giving her 20p pocket money a day after she's done her reading. This is money to spend on books (more bloody Rainbow Magic arhh).

I'd back right off, just as your MIL suggests.

But make sure she sees you/other family reading and enjoying it.

Stop all efforts, OP! Although some children are very happy little readers in yr 1, others aren't, even by year 2. Some friends of ours unwittingly aggravated a situation so badly that DC simply folded up its arms and turned over the book whenever they asked it to read.

Children detect parental anxiety easily and it is infective and counterproductive.

You can ask the school if there is a programme for children who are not making the expected progress. When the time is right, your child will show more interest and may catch up remarkably quickly.

Please don't despair.

the subtitles are usually on Indigo.

it's funny when the MN response you get surprises you - I was expecting a lot of 'well she just has to do it; what message are you giving her by giving up?; you're the parent, if you make her do it she will do it'-type votes for forcing her.

she is making the expected progress AegeanSky - at least, she's on ORT3/4 which I think is ok (it's the kind of school where they won't tell you how well your child is doing because you mustn't compare them with each other etc etc). But that is the result of much pain and aggro last academic year and frankly I don't think I can face it again.

you know, in another life there would have been a 4th approach, which is, if we knew where everyone else was she would be easy to motivate by using her inbuilt competitiveness - I have a hunch that if I had been in a position to be a super-pushy mum and say 'Come on, you don't want little William to be ahead of you!' she would have buckled down quite happily. But I have not got the foggiest idea how anyone else in the class is doing and I think everyone would be very if I were to try to find out!