Anyone turned a reluctant reader around?

[longestlurkerever]

Dd1 is in reception. She's an August birthday. Her teachers say she's very capable and intelligent but she's so reluctant to practise anything and my patience is frayed.

We're supposed to do 15 mins reading practice a day but also wait till they want to. Well, she never wants to and when I make/encourage /force it's such a battle that neither of us enjoy. For example, tonight, we were reading a book that she has read before (by sounding out/blending) but she was just refusing to engage - getting the letters wrong etc (she's known her letters since 2yo). Her teacher suggested a reward chart but we've got so many of those on the go now it's getting ridiculous and anyway shouldn't reading be a pleasure rather than a task to be rewarded for?

I was a bookworm as a child and a people pleaser to boot - every teacher's dream. How did I produce such a reluctant student and is there any hope that she'll grow to love reading?

Do you really all remember what you were like when you were 4, when the books you could deal with were trivial and dull, books become interesting when they expand your opportunity not narrow it surely?

DD is 4, in reception, reads well, gets books home but has no interest in them, because they are dull - they're easy, but they're not exciting - and books that would be exciting would also be too complicated for her to read. She likes story, a jay buying some jewels is not interesting, and I would not be fair to suggest that she doesn't like books because she's not excited about reading these stories.

Just reading back. Some of these responses are a bit aggressive. What's with the capita letters and the interrogation? Im only trying to follow the teacher's advice. I've been teaching her letters since she was small, yes, in a casual sort of way. She liked it. She loves being read to at bedtime but will often choose quite babyish books as longer ones often have a bit of peril in them that she's not keen on. I've been given a few ideas for ones she might like on another thread though.

I do remember what I was like in reception, yes - I was sent off to the library to choose my own books because i could already read, but I was nearly a full year older than dd was when she started reception. Her teachers do say she's intelligent and articulate - as did her nursery teachers. I think she is too, she has a vivid imagination and a staggering memory, but she's no scholar.

Hi op, I've shared up thread about ds1, but you do have my sympathies, when school specify a set amount of reading practice, I know how stressful it feels when your child won't do it. You don't want to put them off by forcing it, but don't want to disencourage either.

I'd say carry on what you're doing and follow any useful tips here. As long as the teacher is aware, you can take it at a relaxed pace so you both enjoy the books more.

Thank you daisy. I'm definitely going to check out the reading monster app and keep reading to her. She adores you choose and we have the other similar ones.

Ooh I'll check out that app, don't know it! Thanks

I had a reluctant reader, she's now in year 2. I insisted on reading 5 times a week as this is what the school asked from us. Sometimes it would only be a few pages (I set a minimum of 5). She's progressed well on this and she's started to show some interest in independent reading this year although it's quite infrequent. Any time she read more than the minimum or read independently we really praised her. I honestly don't know if this is the best strategy but it's worked in terms of her reading level improving consistently.

So you remember what you were like when you were a year older than DD and a fluent reader - yet you expect her to have similar wants despite not being a fluent reader and being younger, give her the chance you had before you write her off as "not a scholar".

DS is now 6 and loves reading he's in stage 13 of the ORT

Last year he absolutely hated reading and would run away screaming and crying when I even suggested we try some reading.

I forced him to read every day - often by promising a reward after like a cartoon or a trip out somewhere. Often this was a thing I had planned anyway but I linked it to the reading.

Eventually as he got better at reading I was able to pick books that really interested him - like about robots. He says now reading is his favourite thing to do - a big change from last year.

Aw, thank you Pages. That's good to hear.

Oh believe me, I haven't written her off! I'm very glad she is nothing like me in many ways - she's confident and sociable and interested in the world. I'm finding reading practice frustrating is all, and was after a bit of reassurance that it might get easier. I've wrestled with the question of whether she's too young for school and I don't want everything to be a battle, or to let her down by giving up on trying to do as the teacher asked. I've been given lots of hope, and some really helpful ideas, si thanks everyone.

I haven't read all the posts but I used reward, sweets, biscuits, extra to time with me two boys to encourage reading and they are now reading for pleasure in year 4 and 5.

There is nothing wrong in my parenting principles (not sure what others think and frankly I don't care) because I use bribery, well places and limited. It is, after all, simply a positive consequence for good behaviour. My kids are not exactly reading war and peace, but ds1 read about 1200 pages of fiction last summer and is now reading his third Maze Runner book. Ds2 is steadily reading the Diary of a wimpy kid, David Walliams books and Michael Morpugo. Bribery is the way to go! I now take them to the cinema as a reward, or we go to a special day out.

Best tip a teacher gave me is to find books on a subject that is of interest to them.

DS hated the idea of reading until he got in to Pokemon games on his NintendoDS and needed to read the instructions - this was in reception, about this time of year, as he'd had the DS for Christmas.

I think up til that point he hadn't really seen that there was any use to reading, so he didn't consider it important, unlike stuff he liked ie numbers and Lego. Once he had a point to do it, he was willing to learn, but I didn't push the school books too much, as they were mostly old Biff & Chip, non-phonics ones. We mostly did Pokemon magazines, then moved onto game strategy guides, whilst doing the actual phonics worksheets from school.

He's in Yr7 now, and got an award for reading and reviewing the most books in his form last term :)

I think there's a huge difference between official "reading practice" - reading aloud, either reading dull material or just emphasis on reading aloud correctly rather than for fun. You say she enjoys stories? Give her a chance to reading as something other than reading aloud to you.

DS1 seemed to be a reluctant reader until he was about 7, towards the end of year 2 I think. Then he brought an interesting looking book home from school, and we read a bit of that, then he found a book in the series about the Hundred Mile an Hour Dog in the cafe in the park, and started reading it each week. So I borrowed a copy, and the rest of the series from the library, and when it lasted until the second book he read in the series. When he'd devoured all 7 books I gave him a set of Roald Dahl.

My sons don't read the way I did at their ages (and a bit younger) but there are far more other distractions now.

Thanks for more encouragement. No, definitely not averse to a bit of bribery in this house. It's just that we've got rewards for medicine taking, listening, tidying already - another reward system might bankrupt me!

Actually we've had a pretty good weeken, doing some craft, a bit of reading and some number games so fingers crossed we can keep it up.

Ds wasn't interested at that age except for the odd game of "let's find oo or ch or ing", until he realised the TV recorder described every programme. Then he could find the episode he wanted and not accidentally get Andrew Neil's Politics instead of Andy's Wild Adventures.
Then for Easter I devised a treasure hunt where he had to read clues to find chocolate. By the end of the week I'd used up a pad of post-its and he was reading short phonetic sentences enthusiastically. The ORT X-phonics books were a hit, but what got him into reading was a terrible comic called Toxic which is pure fart and slime jokes.

In reception I'd just keep reading with them - most nights we'd settle for ds does a page, I do a page, or I read it but he does the speech bubbles - slowly he'd do more.

I think what you need to do at the moment is encourage her love of books. My DD1 found reception exhausting and just couldn't cope with the work of reading every night after school. She came in, had dinner a bath and got ready for bed. But what we could do for her most nights was read her a bedtime story. She sat on our laps and we read to her. We pointed at the words we were reading and all of that, so she could follow if she wanted to. But mostly it was about enjoying the story. We did read her school book with her a few times at the weekend too, when she wasn't as tired.

I think we may have done... crossing my fingers madly that I'm not jinxing it, but...

I'm a complete 'addict' reader and have been since I can remember, so it was a bit of a shock that DD hated reading so much in reception year. She likes stories well enough, but any reading was met with a 'it's too haaaaard' and 'yoooou do it!'. We agreed on 5 minutes a day rather than 15 which worked OK. Our house is full of collapsing under the weight of books, but while she enjoyed being read to, she had no intention of actually trying to read any of it. I was doing my head in trying to find something that might help her read - comics, fact books rather than fiction, poems - nothing worked.

And then, and then.. we were given a really old-fashioned Ladybird Readers book, which she proceeded to read in full, by sight. No sounding out the letters, no 'magic finger', no nothing, just read the whole book aloud from start to finish. I was fairly surprised to say the least. She proclaimed it 'actually quite fun' with some surprise. Now in Y1 we still get the F-l-o-p-p-y Floppy r-u-n-s runs b-a-c-k back sounding out with the school books, but I could have cheered to see her just reading as she wanted to.

I suspect in our case the reading practice was tied in with all the sounding out they have to do, which she hates (and I don't really blame her TBH). Finding something else that is really easy to read but not tied to the phoneme-of-the-week scheme or whatever has (I think/hope) made a real difference. The charity shop/ school fete might yield some gems: good luck!

My dd6 was like that on reception, her first parent's evening they said she would fall behind if she didn't get on with it! Knowing she's bright I didn't worry as with most things she does them when she wants to eg potty! She is now in year 1, reads a school reading book every night and reads books like magic faraway tree, worst witch etc. I firmly believe that pushing can turn them off from reading and sometimes best to hang back and see. I know my dd just wanted to play

Ooh thank you. I actually have a massive stash of ladybird books thanks to hoarder mil and we've never really looked at them. Perhaps we can explore them together. Your dd sounds exactly like mine with the "you do it" and "I can't" and the being tired after school (which often manifests in hyperactive silliness when she won't really settle to anything, never mind reading). We've been having fun with mixed up nursery rhymes today. She knows what the pictures represent so there's not much reading going on but at least it's helping with enjoyment of books

Don't worry.
If you push her too hard, she will remain reluctant.
If she is doing her words and letters, just carry on reading to her every day. If you read to her and share books, she will hopefully adopt a love for it too.
If she is only four and not five until August, she doesn't even legally have to be in school until then.

Can't remember which country it is (Germany possibly) but there is a country that doesn't teach kids to read til they're about 6/7 and then they're brill at it. Don't worry.

Ds threw books across the room last year (yr1). He hated reading. This year he's a year or two above his peers in his reading (he's an August baby so still only 6yrs old). I was over on the g&t thread 1 (I think) asking how to get him moved up levels.
We found something that he was interested in and bought him a book (in our case a favourite cartoon). We read a page together a day (nothing more) and I found him looking at it on his own (this was the Easter holidays when I had almost given up). I would give him an 'extra 10 minutes' sneaky treat at bedtime with a wink and his book and leave him alone. We moved onto other books in the series (it's an American series and helpfully amazon has the books labelled kindergarten level 1, reading level 2, etc...). We bought him a couple more books to read, one at the same level and one slightly higher, and the magazine occasionally which we always read together. We kept doing this, buying new books but going over the old ones too. There was lots of time spent reading in the summer - he got through most of the baby books all the way up to higher level because he was interested in that topic/cartoon. Fast forward almost year he gets the magazine monthly and is reading books aimed for 8-12 yr olds - laughing out loud at some of them. He reads every night, once around 7 ish with myself and in his own room 8-8:30pm. It was hard work and required a lot of patience, lots of early nights and snuggling in bed with books and about an hour of my reading to him whilst pointing at the text.

Dd threw her book across the room tonight because 'cities' doesn't fit the phonics she's learning (reception). I wish they'd check these books before printing them. She knew all the other words, sounded out 'children' but 'cities' broke her rules because they've only covered the hard 'c' sound.

Hi OP,

Some good tips already! I also do the 'bribe' (DS2 is summer born, 4, in reception) in that we sit down together with a glass of milk and some rice cakes and have a relaxed atmosphere. He tends to be very tired after school so we keep it brief - it's usually less than 10 minutes I'd say.
If he doesn't want to read (sometimes he does!), I suggest he can read it in silly voices - makes it appealing for him and he enjoys reading his books with silly voices! Sometimes he will substitute words in the text with something silly (e.g. instead of 'dog' he might say 'fish' and thinks it's hilarious as it changes the story), I let him get away with that if I know he knows what the actual word is as it makes reading more interesting for him.

DS was the same, didn't really get it until year 2. What helped with him was finding non fiction stuff he really wanted to read - he's now in yr5 and I'd say 80% If what he reads is history/science related not fiction. He can tell you more than anyone I know about medieval battles and weaponry! Fiction just doesn't excite him mostly, so the normal stuff of beast quest etc that got suggested for ks1 boys didn't do anything for him. Horrible histories and usborne fact files on the other hand....!

She is 4/5 you and school are expecting to much from such little children IMO dd2wasnt that enthusiastic at that age she struggled she loved listening to audio CDs got her into stories and helped her reading when she was a bit older the David Williams books got her into reading she loved them

I have a friend who is a "clown" play therapist. One of the saddest things she has had to do is to help children who are terrified of books overcome that fear. (She plays with the books like they are toys, and uses them as hats etc. anything but read them).

Don't fight over reading.
15 minutes is too long to concentrate on anything at this age.
Read to her.
Let her find books she likes - even if she only looks at the pictures/they are too "babyish".

My DC did about 5 minutes reading at this age.

Are the books too hard? She should be reading at least 90 out of every 100 words correctly, or the text is too hard.

To read for pleasure you need 95-100% error free reading.
This is a good resource on this:
www.readinga-z.com/guided/runrecord.html

I am a total bookworm. My DC see me read a lot, know I belong to a book group, and know I write reviews. I didn't start reading for pleasure until 7+ really.

Quick update: we've been doing some games like treasure hunts with written clues and making labels to stick on objects round the house. This has been much more successful and she's wanted to write her own. Am feeling happier - we're having fun and if she's learning it's a bonus. She's also enjoying the rainbow fairy book series as her bedtime story. They're a bit samey tbh but as long as she finds them exciting I'm happy