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 didn't think you read for 45 minutes. My own son used to scream, fidget, cry, ask to eat, anything but do his homework.

Now being wiser, I would just give up if we hadn't got on task quickly. Not TV, but something else more productive. I also have a friend who does drama therapy with children who have real phobias of books, due to undiagnosed reading problems etc.

I would still watch the eyesight, as not all problems are easy to detect on a normal eyesight test.

But if she likes reading to her baby brother, why not get her to read to him (maybe while you cook?), you can eavesdrop to see how she is doing. You might even get her to read her reading books to him.

Ds didn't "get" reading until he was over 6.5, (leanrt books off by heart but couldn't blend), nearly at the end of P2, so in that respect your dd is ahead of him :)

School was great about it - said that someone kids are just not developmentally ready. They said not to push him, but to try to engage him with things that he did enjoy.

In his case, it was Captain Underpants and Super Diaper baby books and the sports pages so he could find otu how his team had done. He also liked the Doctor Who mamgazines - even if he just skimmed them

In your dd's case it might be magazines - why not go to a shop and see if there are any she likes. Don't make abig deal aobut it - maybe take her with you when you go to the spermarket and just happen to go down the magazine aisle.

We would also go to Waterstone's "looking for books for dh and me" and then spend some time in the kids section to see if there was anything he liked.

I have done the reading to the baby brother thing.
We get magazines.

Sorry to sound negative. You see I am at the end of my tether because I feel like I have tried all the pleasant, encouraging stuff already! (Except the audio cds, which I had not thought of.)

I have wasted so much energy and effort on this!

Don't stress it then. If you have done all those things, then just keep on doing them in a low key way - and as someone else said, make sure that your dd sees you reading for pleasure.

Don't make it a chore for her.

thanks so much everyone for this great advice.

Good luck!

thank you.

It's funny, I was astonished when MIL suggested I stop. It literally hadn't occurred to me not to do the reading.

I think you are a lovely mum and doing a great job with your dd. At least you are trying to get her to practice reading. She is bound to do her best in the end with your support.

IME give up for a bit!

Dd(7), late July birthday, only read through choice quite a long way into Year 2 and is now devouring books faster than we can get them in the house She was a solid level 3 in literacy so a late start doesn't seem to have done her any harm at all! We did have lots of story CDs in the car, read to her whenever and wherever she wanted, then one day it just seemed to click. Now we have the arguments about 'just one more chapter please' instead

Ds (7 yo) was like this. He is much better reading for 5/10 mins in the morning than in the evening so what he does now is sit on the bottom stair whilst I put my make up on and he reads aloud to me. No arguments or whinging. He actually reads with pace and expression and we are all happier I can tell you . Little and often suits him.

after the battles with ds about his reading ast night he got up at 4;30am to do it. he is just shattered coming out of school at the moment. He oversleeps in the morning so no time to do then. It might just be shock of transition from mostly play to mostly more intensive work.

Hope it sorts itself out for you. btw i dont advocate getting up at 4am to read but he has a sleep disorder so it is part of the course around here to be up for a few hours in the middle of the night and then go back to sleep.

Sethstarkaddersmum, I can see from all the things you've said that you have tried really, really hard.

I think even in a household where an adult is seen by the child to be reading for pleasure, it can just be the case that the child is a little bit too young to enjoy reading, even if (as yours) DC is on target for its age.

But this can go on even when older and the child can read to a technically very high level with great comprehension - would still rather not do it.

I do think the quality of the content is really important. My DS has come home with some atrociously dull stories in his book bag that just go on and one - pointless, banal dialogue, single-issue, unremarkable story poorly told. I think it's vitally important to find what brings your child's imagination to life and just stick to that.

I think children of this age (and for a good while upwards) often enjoy anarchic, extraverted stories that engage all the senses, are chaotic, have larger-than-life characters and are imbued with humour.

It's sad but true - there's remarkably little of this about!

...on and on! sorry, my 4th paragraph there

As long as you read TO her every night you can definitely ease off on the school books. Follow the words with your finger as you read, it's amazing how much they absorb from this and you can get her to do the odd easy word.

...on and on! sorry, my 4th paragraph there.

And definitely not sanctions. That would mean that reading is somehow associated with the potential for punishment ... not sure if that would work in the long term.

I think it just has to be a completely positive experience for both of you together, fun, lighthearted, and free from any anxiety whatever. Stop as soon as she yawns, or when you see her fidgeting about. Congratulate her loads on holding her attention for however many lines. Take turns.
Do funny voices, low voices, high voices, squeaky voices. Whatever it takes to have fun together. She's only little!

Just to add to what everyone else has said, I do agree that a short break might help, but also I see no harm whatsoever in a spot of bribery, as long as it is used short term

My DS (aged 2 or 3 or whenever it was we did those things) got a chocolate button for sitting on the potty and it worked brilliantly for wees, then after a week of poo pants, I bought a pakka makka and put it on the shelf for when he did his first poo in potty. Amazingly he managed it that same day .... Amazing what they can do when the mind is focused ...

Oh and FWIW. My DS, started Y1 10 days ago, is on the blue dot ORT books -labeled level 3 I think- and his teacher said today that he is spot on, if not very slightly ahead, of the curve for his year group (only very very slightly ahead, not a genius or anything LOL) so your level 3-4 sounds spot on. HTH and good luck!

I am not ashamed to admit that i used both bribery and praise to get my ds to read. After a while ,i reduced the amount of bribery and concentrated on praising him. He is now reading really well, because he associates reading with praise and BISCUITS.

Give her a week off (explain and tell her after that week, you are introducing a new way of reading)

Buy a timer.

Get/make a sticker chart and stickers.

Decide on a time when your dd is most receptive ( lots of children read better at the start of the day when they are less tired)

Tell dd you will be doing 10 minutes reading at time x every day. Sset the timer (while she is doing something she likes) so she can see what 10 minutes feels like. Explain it is something she will do every day (like teeth brushing etc)

If she does the reading without a fuss she gets a sticker. Set the timer so she reads for exactly 10 mins. Negotiate with her about something she would really like. Decide between you how many stickers it is worth. When she gets that many, she gets the desired object.

Be firm about not giving a sticker if she kicks up a fuss or keeps procrastinating when you ask her to read.

Expect some resistance for the first few days.

Hopefully after this she will start to accept reading practice as a regular everyday event!!

You haven't wasted time and effort!

Just read to her- she will join in when she wants to.

This is Peter Dixon on learning to read in a meaningful context:

I love the sounds of words

I love the feel of books

I love the sight of books

I love the pictures

I love the words

I love the stories

I love the stories repeated

I love them being told

I love parts of them being read

I love lots of them being read

I love the way they are read

I love to join in

I love to say the words

I can't stop wanting books

I can't stop joining in

I want to know what that word says

I want to know what another word says

I am in love with books

I want books more and more

I am a real reader

This for me kinf of sums up how a child ought to learn to read

DS1 found reading difficult (still does to some extent) and is a summer birthday. I didn't push it too much in yr1 as he just wasn't ready. However, in yr2 the school recognised any reading he did as reading homework so he might not have read his ORT but if he read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to DS2 then he had done reading homework.
We found doing the reading in the morning better, he was fresher and it was more clearly time limited.
It might be worth seeing if the school will acknowledge any reading done as reading homework so you can bin the ORT for now

kinf= kind obv.

Also, Dorothy Butler's "Babies need Books" and "Five to Eight", though old, are both BRILLIANT at explaining what is going through your child's head, and have extensive book lists in them.

Good luck!

thank you for those lovely comments BeautifulBabies

Breadandroses - that Peter Dixon thing is really interesting.
I would say we are stuck between 'I can't stop joining in' and 'I want to know what that word says', when it comes to GOOD books; after Pippi Longstocking last night they demanded Goodnight Moon so I read it and there was definite joining in, but dd has no desire to actually decode the words for herself.

But when it comes to BAD books (eg most though not all of the ORT ones) we're not even that far along because she has no pleasure in the tactile quality of the books, the pictures, the sound of the stories if I read them.

Of course it might all be my fault because I am far too fussy about good and bad books which may have communicated itself to her so she knows I think reading books are rubbish .

Now I'm trying to decide what to write in dd's reading record. The teacher has written 'DD had already read this book at home' - am resisting temptation to put 'No she bloody hadn't!'

By the way - for information ORT level 3/4 is a reading age of 5 years to 5 years 6 months, so exactly fits with your dd's chronological age. When I am teaching reading, I like children (if at all possible) to be a year of so above their chronological age in reading, but she is young so lots of time to get there!

why do you like them to be a year ahead Sarah?

well I am feeling thoroughly told off by school now after they picked up on the fact that she hadn't done it and wrote in her reading record that she needs more practice, so I have written an essay in return about why she's not going to do it!

cynically it looks really good on the teacher if the kids are a year ahead of where they should be. But then again i am only being cynical.