Anyone got a teen who reads?

[FreakStar]

My DD is 14 and used to be an avid and able reader. However, since starting secondary it's become increasingly difficult to get her to read until now she never reads at all. Not magazines, not online news, not books, nothing! I've bought her books for Christmas, I've taken her to the library and the bookshop where she's picked out some books, she's ordered books from Amazon but they all sit on the shelf untouched. We've tried backing off, we've tried scheduling it in, we take her devices away before bed in the hope she'll read in bed before she turns her light off etc. Her English teacher has recommended books and said she can borrow her copy, still no reading. So this morning I've told her I'd like her to spend time reading in the holiday which resulted in her crying and saying she'll fail her GCSEs if she has to read books and she doesn't enjoy reading and it's boring. DH and I both read, I don't understand how it can be boring if you are engrossed in a book. reading to me if knowledge and insight, and in my mind anyone who says reading is boring is usually uneducated. I don't want her to be one of those people who never reads. What can I do?

I would try a few of these things:
Audiobooks/Audible

Adult fiction - easy reads. Try Jenny Colgan-Cupcake Cafe, Sophie Kinsella-Shopaholic series or Undomestic Godess

Graphic Novels - you can get adult ones too such as Handmaiden’s Tale (too advanced/inappropriate for 14 but that sort of thing). Would suggest the library maybe for Graphic novels in case she doesn’t like them.

My advice is stop worrying about what she is reading, as you've already said, and refocus on what you are reading. Enthuse about books you are currently reading, read books that bring up challenging ideas such as Freakonomics and talk about them at the dinner table, ask her to recommend books to you and take those suggestions & her opinions seriously. You should be able to find some authors you both like at this age.

I think my husband's enthusiasm for reading has gone a long way in keeping our children reading for pleasure past primary age.

Thanks for the advice @Murmurur. I love the idea of us both sharing books by the same author. Can you (or anyone else) recommend an author that we both might like? I've just finished reading The Binding by Bridget Collins and I know this is her first adult novel as she previously wrote young adult fiction- maybe we'll try more of her books.

I'm not really up with recent authors but my 13 year old has enjoyed Stephen Fry's Mythos, James Herriott, Hitchhiker's, Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, Alexander McCall Smith recently. We are both reading Robert Galbraith (JKRowling) at the moment.

I'm an avid reader and an English teacher and even I have recently had a two-year dry spell where I wasn't reading. Audiobooks were the way back in for me. Sometimes there's just too much going on to have the headspace for it.

At her age, I switched abruptly from Little Women/ Ballet Shoes/ Agatha Christie to things like The Silence of the Lambs and so on. Maybe she's just bored of YA books - it might be worth turning a blind eye to more extreme/gripping stuff. Reading is reading.

A lot of teens are getting into non-fiction now eg Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, Natives (Akala), The Five (Hallie Rubenhold, about the victims of Jack the Ripper) - that might be another way in if she's just not feeling it with novels. Alternatively, a lot of screenplays are worth reading.

My children's secondary band on and on about reading being the key to success. They quote statistics on the people who get the best grades being the biggest readers etc. They have to carry a reading book every day, they have flash reading sessions during the day. It's a big thing.

They get set a book over the summer to read and do an assignment on.

I have one who reads a lot, will happily read. Another who like to read but is slower and has to be nagged into it but really gets into each book.

We have always had reason g before bed though, right from babies. No electronics after a certain time and then reading only.
Youngest is happier with her kindle than books, oldest prefers books.