“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents.”
I hate that my son hates reading.
I grew up with a book in my hands. My parents are huge readers so reading came naturally to me. When I was younger, we would have to commute an hour and a half each way to school and work and reading was the easiest way to pass the time. A lot of people can’t read in the car, it makes them sick, but I’ve never had that problem. I love the library and book stores are like foreplay. I can waste hours in either.
My son? Not so much. He rolls his eyes when I try to take him to the library. We’ve spent too much time trolling the kids section of the book store, looking for a series he might like. He goes straight for the books with big pictures and few words. He has followed in his dad’s footsteps.
His dad used to mock me when he saw me with a book in my hands. He never “got it”, how I could sit for hours and just read. To give him some credit, he is a very smart man. He excels in science and math in ways I never could.
My son is following in his dads footsteps. Which makes me proud, don’t get me wrong. He is top of his class in math and he LOVES science. He struggles where I excel and that is really hard for me to deal with. I know he’s smart, he’s just not interested in reading, language arts, comprehension, none of it.
It’s starting to effect his grades. He rushes through the assignments just to get them over with. When he slows down, he aces his work but most of the time, he’s rushing and getting it wrong.
So we’re working on it at home and one of the biggest things I want him to take an interest in is reading.
Enter J.K. Rowling.
We are starting from the beginning. Every night before bed, we lay down and read. He reads a page and I read a page. At first he was resistant, rolling his eyes, heavy sighs. He had to see how long the book was and OMG that is waaaaaaay too long mom! I told him to suck it up and give it a try. The first night we read half the chapter. He attempted to divert attention away from the book, all the usual tactics. I was worried this would be an every night thing.
On the second night, he surprised me. The Dodger game was on and I was tempted to let the reading slide. (I KNOW, BAD MOM. But… my Dodgers were on! anyways.) I told him to start getting ready for bed and he asked if we would be reading. I asked him if he wanted to and he said yes.
I know, I was surprised too.
On the second day he read much better, fumbled over less words, and read a lot faster and with more feeling. I know the Harry Potter series is HUGE but its a jumping off point. I don’t care how long it takes to finish. My goal is to get him reading the books on his own and, if I’m lucky, loving them as much as I do.
This may be premature, but I think the reading situation might be looking up.
Quote by Emilie Buchwald.
What about comics and sci-fi, too? Is he not into them at all, or hasn’t chosen to really look into stuff, so he doesn’t know the cool science/art/villainous stuff out there?
Honestly, I haven’t touched a Rowling myself, or seen the movies, because I’m waiting for the day that I get to read them with Z. Right now, we’re on Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, after seeing Burton’s (which she freaking loved). And after that, she’s requested Coraline. I think she’s just working her way through the movies she’s watched, honestly. But it DOES make it mucho easier, too – especially when there’s some memory there of the film, so the imagination part isn’t so distracting from the reading. Not that she’s really reading, only like, 20 words, now.
(This comment should get an award for awkwardest, ever.)
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I’ll have to try the taking turns at each page thing too. Maybe it will keep Isa going. She will be all into a book. Finish it. And refuse to read anything unless threatened again. sigh. Good luck, mama!
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My Amelia who is 5 has no interest in learning to read. I know she is young still but I love reading and want to share books with her. I hope kindergarten opens her eyes to the joys of reading.
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I’m not sure how old he is, but my kids love the Captain Underpants series. Funny stuff!
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Comics may be a good way to start as ZJ said above. Maybe a Choose Your Own Adventure book as well.
Regardless, it sounds like you are planting the seed in a good way. You can only help him get started, after that he needs to make it grow. Good job mom!
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Well YAY for that! I LOVE that both my boys like to read…don’t know how I’d handle it if they didn’t!
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Another title you can try(my eight year old is the same way, getting him to do his 15 mins. a night is like death on a stick) “The Graveyard Book” by Neil Gaimon. He wouldn’t stop reading, it is perfect for 8-12 yr old boys, dead things and a scary shadow man, ancient ghost who talk funny and tell great stories!! Amazon has a couple for really cheap, last time I checked it still was only in hardback. I can lend you ours if you promise to send it back when you are done!
Alex
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Good for you both and that’s a great series to get started with. Have fun!
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My hubs and I are veracious readers, both of our kids… not so much. My daughter loved the Harry Potter books and I read the first one to my son, that was it for him. He’s much older now and read car mags… cover to cover and can talk cars, intelligently, with anyone. It’s just a matter of finding a genre they enjoy.
I would second Alexandra’s suggestion of ‘The Graveyard Book,’ awesome tale and the hero is a young boy.
The Redwall series by Brian Jacques might be a good set of books to go with too.
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Well done – getting into Harry Potter. Terry Pratchett has written some excellent stuff for ‘younger’ readers – and his Discworld graphic novels are amazing. So when he gets done with Harry – there’s more. Oh so much more.
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I was like you as a kid, always with a book in my hands. I still carry a book with me in my purse wherever I go because you never know when you will find time. I have heard a lot of people be snobby about the “fad” and popularity of JK Rowling’s books, but I have seen it get SO MANY kids to read who wouldn’t be otherwise! It’s awesome. If you get through all the Harry Potters, I would highly recommend the “Percy Jackson & The Olympians” books by Rick Riordan. They are well written, have a 12 year old main character, and teach tons about mythology which is really fun for kids and grownups alike!
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A couple of more suggestions, that my son LOVES. The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series are beloved and hilarious. Also, The Captain Underpants series are great – really creative, and not hard reads by any stretch, but again, really funny, and totally geared towards boys. Good Luck!
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I’ll second the Redwall books. They’re still some of my favorite books and I’m 22 now. It’s a pretty lengthy series, so if he likes it, it will last him a while. I don’t know if he’ll find the whole talking-animal thing off-putting, but there are awesome action sequences to balance that out.
And how about the Artemis Fowl books? I haven’t read them, so I can’t personally vouch for them (the only Eoin Colfer book I’ve read is the final book in the Hitchhiker series, which I liked well enough), but if he’s enjoying Harry Potter, he might enjoy those, too.
Heck, I’ll throw in a vote for the Hitchhiker books when he’s a little older. They are very British, so he might not get everything, but frankly, it took me until this past year to figure out why the Wikkit Gate from the first book was so funny and missing that joke didn’t at all hurt my enjoyment of the story.
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it’s TOTALLY normal for boys not to like to read. TOTALLY NORMAL. i’d try the Percy Jackson series. We always recommend this one for reluctant readers. Also Geronimo Stilton. Also a great series!
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Harry Potter was the very first book I began reading to little miss when she was maybe three months old.
That Rowling. She must lace her books with heroin or something.
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I could have written this myself. Jay is so happy when doing math/science but getting him to read is like pulling teeth. We too read Harry Potter but I still have to find something that he can read on his own.
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Haley is the same way! Math and Science, she’s good. No complaints. When it comes to writing, she loves it. Reading is our struggle. It seems like she just doesn’t want to take the actual time to sit and do it, except when she gets into a book she really likes. It’s tough, we go back and forth. Books that come in a serious I find are best for her. They should have more kid book groups where they can read the same book and then talk about it. I bet that would give them something to look forward too.
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Sounds like a plan to me. I would think stumbling would be expected, there are some odd words in those stories.
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My cousin became a reader, because of those books. He was maybe 10 when the first one came out and was a horrible reader. But something in it caught his attention and he’s been a reader ever since. It’s what made me read it back then actually. Now I’ve read through book 4 with my girls.
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My boys also like the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. The 10 yo devoured them all in about 5 months. Books that are multiple hundreds of pages long. Love it! And they are now wanting more….of all books.
(Here via Google Reader shared items from Issa, just so you know.)
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This is a great approach, and one that I use with DJ too. The other thing we do is not allow him to see certain movies until he’s read the book. It took us almost 2 years to finish Charlotte’s Web but he loved it and is now excited about watching the movie. We’ve started on the Chronicles of Narnia series now. The other thing I’d just note is that love of reading and love of schoolwork are most definitely not one in the same. Don’t be too discouraged if he doesn’t like to read for school. When I was a kid, I HATED reading whatever was required of me but then I’d head to my grandparents’ cottage in the summer and eat books for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Just have some patience and keep doing what you’re doing by exposing him to books that will help him learn that he can, in fact, love reading too.
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Hang in there , your doing it right ! It was hard to watch when 1 of my kids didn’t fall in love with the things I felt made the world spin, then I realized how they were spinning it their own way, which was even more awesome. Reading is was and always will be, and big pictures with less words is not a bad thing, it’s the beginning.
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I’m a huge reader too, always have been, and the boy, well, not so much. I hate to say it, but I think it might be a boy thing at this age. This has been a bit of a struggle for me the past couple of years too. He’s actually finally started to like a few things more, but it’s taking time.
He just LOVED the whole Wimpy Kid series , we’ve got all of them… and before that he was into the sci-fi People of Sparks books… although that only lasted about 2 books. I’ve been trying to get him into Harry Potter, but it’s not really sticking. He enjoys graphic novels, and I figure, so what if it’s accompanied by pictures, he’s still at least reading and expanding his vocabulary (to that end, a funny story – my Mom was reading through a Wimpy kid book to try to find “harder” words to quiz the boy on last year… and she was cracking up herself while reading the book!) . So he’s big on the “Bone” series as well. I’ll send you other suggestions as I seen books popping up in the boy’s bag!
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GL! Glad the Rowling seemed to perk up his interest. Graphic novels definitely seem like a good way to involve boys and people who are less into reading, in general.
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You know, I am very strong in both math and science, and I still love to read. I don’t think one precludes the other. I also think you’ve gone about this in a very smart way, and which a GREAT series, to boot. After that, may I suggest the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series? Those were just as creative as Harry Potter, and if he likes Rowling he very well might like these as well.
My sister never liked reading, until she was hooked into Twilight. Now she INHALES every book she can get her hands on. Sometimes you just have to find that “gateway” book.
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