How on earth can I inspire reluctant DD to read?

[averywoomummy]

Hello

I just wanted to ask some advice about DD who is 4.8 and in reception at the moment. She is a bright girl and in terms of verbal ability and comprehension the teachers say she is working at a year 1 level. However in terms of her reading she is slightly behind many others (still on ORT 1+ level).

The trouble is she just has no interest in reading! She loves being read to and we have plenty of books but when I try and sit and read with her she just has no concentration and doesn't seem to want to learn (if that makes sense). She often won't read or even look at the words and if I try to read some of her favourite books with her she refuses to read and says "I just want you to read it for me".

She knows all her phonics sounds and understands blending and I'm sure that if she just had the enthusiasm she could come on really quickly but it's as though for some reason she is resisting learning.

We have lots of books and go to the library regularly to make sure she has books to read that interest her but again she just wants me to read them rather than trying to do a bit for herself.

I feel like I am doing something wrong and maybe I should be really making her sit and read everyday (we do read to her everyday but don't make her read to us every day) but she seems to dislike it so much I don't want to force her. I can't decide if I should be more pushy or totally step back from it!

Any words of wisdome gratefully recieved!

IME you can't force it. Just stick with reading to her, make it fun. And try and get her to realise that if she does it herself she can have the fun without having to wait for you.

But also remember she is really young still - no need to rush it.

Step back - it will click when it clicks. Just continue to make books seem interesting, by reading to her, and letting her see that you enjoy reading yourself. If you make it a chore, she'll be more likely to dig her heels in and resist showing an interest.

If she gets to 6 or 7 and still doesn't show an interest, then pushing it makes some sense. At 4.8 it doesn't.

Take the pressure way off. There is no rush. Enjoy literacy in the widest sense - without making reading a chore & a battle ground.

Reading together is fantastic. She'll be learning loads about story structures etc.

If you want to give her discrete support with decoding - why not try apps/Cbeebies online? We've really enjoyed:
-bob's reading book app

• I write words app
• Cbeebies online games & alpha blocks magazine

I also sometimes slant craft towards literacy - e.g. Cut out big letters or letter groups from magazines & get Ds to do graphic art with nonsense words or names of friends - depending on his mood!

She's very young! my ds hadn't started school at that point!

Step back. Keep modelling enjoyment of books. When she's ready she'll go for it.

I used to have trouble getting my dd to do her reading for school. She claimed it was too hard. Eventually I just stopped making her. Then I started reading her Pippi Longstocking, which was way too difficult for her, but she wanted to read it herself, so she suddenly found loads of enthusiasm from somewhere.

DH and I both learnt to read at three so it was quite hard to let go of the idea that dd should be reading competently by 5, but they're all different and there's plenty of time to catch up.

She sounds a bit like my DD, who is a summer baby. In reception, while she knew all her sounds and could blend, found reading a chore. She stayed on pink level (I don't know how that equates to ORT) for the whole year. I think she found it quite tiring.

She also always loved being read to, and much preferred it, I guess because the stories were much more interesting and I do funny voices etc which she couldn't really do when it took so much effort to read the words themselves.

We didn't force anything but did try to do the reading book every day, unless she was too tired.

Anyway after a couple of weeks in year 1 she got bitten by the reading bug and zoomed through the next few levels, I think she was more ready for it then.

Keep reading to her. Make it as exciting as you can. Maybe if she seems in the mood try and get her to read the odd word or short sentence and lavish praise on any vague attempt. Or just read and take the pressure off for a while.

We've enjoyed the Dorling Kindersley early readers - do a search on amazon, there are tons of them on all sorts of topics and come in different levels of difficulty. They are a bit more interesting than your average school reading book - my boys esp liked the Star Wars ones.

Another thought would be is she too tired by bedtime (assuming that's when you're reading, apologies if not!) - would morning or another time work better?

Or how about making a game out of it? You could write a word (or even sequence of letters) that occurs a few times in the book you're reading and your dd has to see how many times she can spot it as you read? Maybe a prize for spotting it x times?

If all else fails my friend swears by Jelly Bean Reading (her patented approach) - her kids get a jelly bean in their pot for every page they read.

ORT 1+ is normal at this age, ime. Fine as progress goes.
Agree with the tactic of lots of gentle coaxing.
Often I ask DS to just try to read 5 words, and then he wants to read more anyway.

Thanks everyone. I think my instinct is definitely not to push it but then you hear all the school mums saying how much reading they are doing with their kids and what advanced level they are on and I start to think that I am not doing enough for her!

liking the Jelly Bean Reading method - I'm pretty sure that would appeal to DD!

A lesson to learn now - it will stand you in good stead for the future. Don't listen to what other school mums are saying about their kids prowess. And if you do listen, then don't believe it.

Don't push! Try to get her to read without her realising it! If you cook together, get her to read out the recipes, ask her to tell you what labels say in the shops, ask what a shop name is, etc. all the better of you wear glasses (oh. Mummy's glasses are all dirty, what does this say!?)

The more you force it, the more she'll decide she doesn't want to do it. Maybe let her loose in a bookshop or library to see what she goes for.

Calm down! She is tiny! She much prefers you reading to her and, to be honest, you should follow her lead at this age.

Have a look at Reading Eggs they have a free trial and I was offered a discount to sign up during the trial period.

They learn to read by playing games on the computer and there are books at the end of each lesson to read with them. You can also purchase the books separately too (I haven't yet).

My 3.8 year old started doing this in December and is now reading words like ant, can, ran, the, you, an, am, see, and bee to name a few. I then get her to read the words she knows from Reading Eggs in other books to build up her confidence and interest.

Maybe also have longer storybooks which are the ones you read to her to separate the ones you read from the ones you ask her to try a little from.

What helped my DD as well was getting lots of phonics readers from the library. I guess it varies by school but a lot of the pink level books had words that were not easily decodable to DD at that point. I work in a library so I flicked through loads of the beginner read books to see which books I knew she would be able to decode all of.

A range called "Reading Corner Phonics" is particularly good; it really increased her confidence as the first few are basically all CVC words. "Bob met Ben" etc.

There is also a range called Usborne Very First Reading, where the early books have two sentences on each page - one to be read by the parent, and another easily decodable one in bigger size for the child to read. It really took the pressure off as DD wasn't reading the whole book.

As throckenholt says - don't believe the other parents! A lot will be exaggerating. Competitive parenting!

Don't compare with other kids reading (real or otherwise!). I was reading by 3 and a fat lot of good it did me.

You could make a game with words using pieces of paper and a marker pen. Words don't have to be in books.

We had it similar and found out:

DD was afraid we would stop reading to her, something she loves.

We also found - when she started finally after the Summer hols - that she needed to know most of the combination sounds in order to start properly. Also most books for her stage are just boring and some are even pointless.

What helped was "We read sentence, you read one". So she had both sides and got a bit more confidence.

Also, we let her choose. If it was Disney Princess for the x-t time it was it when she also did her school book. Our school put a lot of emphasis on reading together so they were fine with a shared approach.

Maybe have a look at www.usborne.com/veryfirstreading These books work on the premise that an adult reads the small print and the child reads the large prin so you get the best of both worlds. More interesting stories than they can read alone but proper teamwork to read together and the series has been developed to introduce sounds and words in the same order as the letters and sounds method that most schools use now. Originally there were 15 levels, one book per level, but more are coming out at each level now.
And ignore the catalogue on the website - they are available for £30 for the boxed set of 15, not £75. You just need to find an Usborne Organiser. I'm one but there are lots of us around!)

The thing that did it for DD was finding books that she really really wanted to read. In her case it was the Rainbow Magic series. The books are repetitive and formulaic with a limited vocabulary, which was perfect for her needs. When she started reading the first seven to herself, she was probably guessing one or two words in each sentence (using context cues). By the end of book 42, she was a fluent reader who enjoyed reading for pleasure.

DS was really reluctant to do reading practice until a teacher friend told me:
-read the ORT book through to them first
-when doing reading practice with them don't soend hours laboriously struggling to sound out each wod. Let them read the words they can and just prompt in the ones they can't.

As soon as I adopted this DS's reluctance to slog through readng practice evaporated and his confidence grew.

She's doing well, she's still v young, and whatever is said in the playground an on MN the age at which most children learn to read is actually 6!

Keep reading to her. I read to DS until he was about 9.

Shesounds like my brother and ds. Both hated reading until one day they realised there was knowledge in there them books. I now have to shout at ds (8) to turn the light out.

DD is 5 and dislikes reading to me or her dad. I read to her every night and she has lots if books around. She is reluctant and gets all growly! I was worried about it and asked the teacher at the parents evening. Surprisingly the teacher told me DD is actually fine with reading, and has learnt a lot of her phonics. Usually when we do her phonics homework with her she does do the sounds but is really cross and stroppy about it. She has improved since she has been picking books to bring home from the school library, I think without me breathing down her neck she is starting to enjoy reading. In time I'm sure your DD will find the key.