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Secondary education

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Anyone have a successful DC who never picks up a book?

56 replies

gardenfeature · 07/06/2014 06:09

DS has only ever read a handful of books. Is it possible to do well at GCSEs and beyond without picking up a book? He has moderate dyslexia which I guess does not help making reading pleasurable. His reading ability is good but probably not up to the level of book that he might really enjoy - he used to listen to audio books. (I will get him back into that again).

He's good at History and English and is taking them for GCSE but how detrimental will not reading be? Any "non avid reader" success stories?

OP posts:
TheWordFactory · 18/06/2014 10:22

One thing we do to share books is to regularly listen to audio books together (especially in the car, where DC and I are often all together).

Someone will often press pause to ask a question, or make a comment.

Obviously, it's easier for us as my DC are the same age, so don't have wildly different reading abilities/tastes.

Saganoren · 18/06/2014 10:25

My dh rarely reads for pleasure, though when he does he enjoys it. He got the top first in his year in English from a very good university. He's successful in a creative field.

Bonsoir · 18/06/2014 10:32

Car audio books sounds good - our life does not include long car journeys together so the opportunity isn't there!

Bonsoir · 18/06/2014 10:34

Anyway, I suppose that I think that the conversation/analysis with others is very important for cognitive development - hence reading alone not being the sole route to higher thinking.

Not to diss reading alone, of course, which has many benefits and I encourage DD (who really likes reading) to read widely.

insanityscatching · 18/06/2014 10:45

Ds who is currently part way through his Masters will happily tell anyone who asks that the last book he read was "The Twits" It doesn't seem to have hampered him at all in so far as he has plenty of qualifications and even GCSE English Lit which he passed by reading analysis of the texts online and watching the films instead.
My only thought would be that he would have a far richer vocabulary had he read and so I read his dissertations and suggest alternative phrasing and vocab as otherwise I think he sounds a little bit repetitive.

TheWordFactory · 18/06/2014 11:29

Far too much of my life is spent in the car, what with all the sports fixtures and wotnot.

I think I'd resent it were it not for audio books!

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