How much reading do you daily require of nonreaders?

[PinkInTheBlue]

Unfortunately my 13 and 11 yr olds just aren't becoming the reading lovers like my husband and I. I don't get it, but that's another topic. :)

 

So, I have to require quiet reading everyday for school. I'm wondering what's the range of reading time we all have here. I'd like to push them up a bit more on their time.

 

Thanks!

[Moni]

90 minutes, minimum

 

Three :30 min sessions daily or

two :45 min sessions daily

or

one :60 min sessions and two :15's, etc.

 

 

:seeya:

Edited September 12, 2009 by Moni

[gingersmom]

check out The Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease.

 

Read out loud to them everyday. Before you know it they will be reading by mythemselves.

[Vida Winter]

At least an hour, usually more.

[hsmom3tn]

I started out by giving them specific books to read (usually something to supplement whatever we were studying) and telling them how many pages they had to read each day. This usually took 20-30 minutes.

 

-Plus-

 

I let them choose a book on their own and required that they read at least 30 minutes of it each evening. They usually would go on reading longer because they'd get interested in the book.

[Zanyan]

No one read out loud to their kids more than I did. No mother loves to read more. No one has been more enthusiastic about finding ways to help my children love to read. Yet they don't. :(

 

I require a half hour a day of novel reading, and then, of course, they do quite a bit of reading for their other academic subjects.

[PinkInTheBlue]

Thank you. :) Yes, it is tough because I did and do read aloud and openly share how exciting and wonderful loving to read is. They have always been in an atmosphere of readers at home. Oh well. I can still hope. Until then, I require. :) It's time to give it a bit of a bump up to 1 hour around here. I think it'll be better handled by all if I split it in two 30 min sessions.

[LauraGB]

With ds I used to require 1 to 1.5 hrs extra reading, usually before bed, but he would only read a few pages during that time (:confused:) and at that rate, he might finish a book each year! So, I switched to amount of pages and made it very clear I didn't care how long it took him. Presently we are at a measely 25 pages per day, aside from school stuff, but for him, for now, its do-able and he doesn't complain.

 

I am very interested in other answers to you question.

[phathui5]

It's from 1-2 pm here, though I have kids who like to read. I think I'd keep it the same regardless.

[PinkInTheBlue]

Well, one of the things I've changed to in order to assist with speed and comprehension is the use of unabridged audio books. They have their own copy of the book and they read/follow along. I actually got the idea from the Virginia conference with SWB. It's more important to me they cover the great books than whether or not they tackled them completely alone.

[LauraGB]

Well, one of the things I've changed to in order to assist with speed and comprehension is the use of unabridged audio books. They have their own copy of the book and they read/follow along. I actually got the idea from the Virginia conference with SWB. It's more important to me they cover the great books than whether or not they tackled them completely alone.

 

 

This is a really great idea! We are doing The Secret Garden for lit right now, and I've got him listening to it so we can actually keep moving forward together w/dd. Having him follow along in the book is a fantastic idea (why didn't I think of it?!).

Edited September 12, 2009 by LauraGB
because what I originally wrote had no relevance to the discussion!

[AngieW in Texas]

My 11yo is dyslexic. She would be happy to listen to me read to her all day long, every day. I do read to her every day (SL readalouds). She listens to audiobooks a lot, but she gets stuck in a rut and likes to listen to the same audios over and over and over.

 

I require her to read from a book of her choice for 25 minutes every day. She reads from a book that I assign for 20 minutes every day.

 

Outside of that, she rarely reads anything other than comic book collections like Garfield, Foxtrot, Dilbert, and Calvin&Hobbes.

 

For her reading is a tremendous chore. She can read at grade level now, but it is still a lot of work.

[Sasharowan]

I started out by giving them specific books to read (usually something to supplement whatever we were studying) and telling them how many pages they had to read each day. This usually took 20-30 minutes.

 

-Plus-

 

I let them choose a book on their own and required that they read at least 30 minutes of it each evening. They usually would go on reading longer because they'd get interested in the book.

 

:iagree: This is what we do too.

[fivetails]

I don't require 'reading for fun' ~ by this, I mean that I don't require dd12 to read anything that isn't part of what we do as 'school'. She does have material that must be read, but outside of that, "free reading" - or whatever you want to call it (ha, I seem to remember "Super Silent Reading Time" in elementary LOL) - is not mandatory. I don't make a rule about 30 min per day or anything like that - mainly because reading for fun isn't something that *everyone* enjoys.

 

Dd12 is *capable* of reading ~ this is proven through the material she IS required to read (school related), anything beyond that is her choice. I won't force "silent reading time" -- because some people just do. not. like. to read for 'fun'. She's one of them. Her hobbies are wide & varied, and include things like singing, drawing, playing instruments, making bead crafts, riding her bike, skating, sledding, and all sorts of other things... she's not a kid who normally enjoys sitting down with a novel. It's just not her idea of a good time - and I can understand that, because while I might be a reader, I sure don't enjoy drawing like she does and having someone force me to spend 30 min per day drawing horses would drive me stark raving mad. :tongue_smilie:

 

As long as she is capable, I'm happy. She does, on occasion, choose to read for fun - and most of the time, she chooses a non-fiction book. For a bit, she was interested in the Cat Warrior series - but even there, she preferred the manga style ones. She's just not a novel reader - or at least not at this point.

 

That said, she now has custody of my Twilight book and had her nose stuck in it yesterday, flopped on a blanket outside. I'm watching this development with great interest... ;)

 

Ds10 - does not yet read without help. He is a beginner braille reader/writer ~ and it's yet to be seen as to how far he will be able to advance with that..likely not to the grade two level (nothing to do with school grades - braille itself has two main levels), but I'd like to have him confident with the grade one level. He loves to be read to by his sister or I, and also loves to listen to audio books. :)

[Amira]

I also use audiobooks with my son who doesn't love reading as much as I'd like. He's in 5th grade and does 30 minutes of academic reading on his own, 30 minutes of me reading aloud, and then at least an hour a day listening to audiobooks (and usually a lot more). Since I'm the one who loads his mp3 player with books, I can make sure he's listening to good books. He'll listen to almost anything and has gotten through many more books than he would have if he had to read them. I'd prefer that he read them, but audiobooks will have to do for now.

[Peela]

Mine read in the evenings most days as well (their own choice of books although I do have influence there), but I generally read aloud 30-60 minutes and they read independently 30-60 minutes during the school day. It varies. They also read for some subjects- dd15 is doing LLATL Gold and it involves a fair amount of reading. Their history involves reading. Probably a decent couple of hours a day, 4-5 days a week.

I still read aloud the harder stuff. I think that is the thing that has my kids reading at a pretty high level.

[Mrs Mungo]

Ninety minutes. At least forty-five must be from their current required reading; the rest can be whatever they want, including twaddle. ;)

[Mrs Mungo]

"free reading" - or whatever you want to call it (ha, I seem to remember "Super Silent Reading Time" in elementary LOL) - is not mandatory.

 

Hee hee, Sustained Silent Reading, anyone else reading Ramona Quimby, Age 8 with their young ones at the moment? :D

[Melissa in Australia]

my ds 15 reads for 1 -1 1/2 hours every day

ds13 reads for 1 hour every day

ds 11 who has dyslexia and is very poor at reading reads 3 pages out loud to me every day.

dd9 reads aloud to me.

ds5 reads those simple abeka readers out loud to me.

[Pamela H in Texas]

I only scrolled through the first few messages, but I gather I'm in the minority.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't require a teenager to read outside of literature schoolwork. Sometime between 11 and 13 (6th or 7th grade), I would have cut out required "free reading" time.

 

So then it becomes things like reading 1-3 chapters for a literature assignment directly related to what we're studying (British Lit, tied to history, a certain person's work, etc). But that isn't free reading and I wouldn't try to make up for free reading.

 

Anyway, JMO...

[ma23peas]

I really have had non-readers, one child I can't keep a book in her hands, the other..it's just impossible..so I required myself to read aloud to THEM at least an hour a day..then I figured out what books started them up...for mine it was Redwall, Dragonspell, Dragons in our Midst etc. my non-reader begged for each book, we have all in that series now..once he got reading quickly then I started passing books on to him, he reads about 1 book every two weeks (he's on Count of Monte Cristo and it's taken him some time to get that one done!)

 

Always 30 minutes a day, but usuallly they fit in extra time on our driving errands..

 

Tara

[PinkInTheBlue]

My question completely refers to required, literature-as-a-subject reading. Extra reading we encourage and applaud but don't really require. My 11yr old does that lightly and on occasion and I'm not above rewarding it. :) I also don't care if that reading to twaddle either.

[Moni]

I don't require 'reading for fun' ~ by this, I mean that I don't require dd12 to read anything that isn't part of what we do as 'school'.

 

Same here.

The 90 minutes is Required Reading for School.

 

I don't even count the non-Required reading.

Any reading done outside my Required Reading I don't log or track. I trust I'm not even aware of the bulk of it........

:seeya:

[Zanyan]

Same here - when I said I require 30 minutes a day of novel reading, that referred to novel reading *for school.* I never require reading for reading's sake. My husband is a college graduate, successful in his career, and he never reads fiction for fun. Never. My best friend from college has her Ph.D. and is a university professor and she never read for fun growing up, nor does she now. They both only read for work or for information.