A child who just doesn't like to read or be read to?

[Nancy Ann]

My son is just starting 4th grade and is 9. He likes non fiction books that we read for history and science like Usborne. I have a very hard time getting him to enjoy the fiction chapter books I read to him. Once in awhile we may discover a story that is engaging to him but mostly he does not enjoy it and struggles with following along. I have tried various kinds of books and various levels of books. So, I am wondering if this is just a maturity thing for him? I think he is more of a visual learner, he does play video games and watches tv but we do limit those. I wonder if his skills with listening are just very weak. He likes the non fiction books but many of those are Usborne and very visual. We are reading from Children's History of the World and he seems to tolerate it and find parts of it interesting.

 

He does not enjoy reading on his own either. He is reading on level but is still struggling with fluency. I think I need to go back and deal with his decoding skills. We have only done sporadic phonics and I can tell when he is reading that he is just doing it from memorization and not trying to decode or sound out the words he is struggling with. If the word doesn't come to him fast he just says something. We are going to do Stairway to Reading to work with his decoding skills.

 

I have been reading to him tons and tons since he was 4 years old. I don't get it? People always say if you read plenty to your children they will form a love of reading!! Well, it didn't happen here!!

Edited August 9, 2011 by Nancy Ann

[Farrar]

Some people, especially boys, just like nonfiction more. I don't think you can get a really good education without doing some fiction books, but I would start focusing more on reading nonfiction for him. There's more and more out there - some of it really good stuff. I would start giving him more nonfiction to try and doing longer nonfiction read alouds. Just my personal take.

[jcross222]

You have just described my son exactly. The only fiction chapter books I have found that he will read are the My Weird School series by Dan Gutman. He seems to be willing to read these. They are at or just below his reading level, so I am having him read to me 15-20 minutes a day for fluency practice. I have 3 other reading kids in our house, all very good readers. They were all taught by me. He is the least interested by far. I do have to say, though, that even though his older brother has always been a great reader, he also would much rather read nonfiction. My 2 reading girls, on the other hand, love both fiction and nonfiction.

My plan is to just let him be as interested as he wants to be making sure his fluency improves over time with practice. He is very good at math and loves to build and tinker more than my other kids. Reading may never be one of his favorite things to do, but that's alright by me.:001_smile:

[pahansen]

I agree that the nonfiction phenomenon is much more common with boys. Thing 1 is like that, even though he has a fantastic imagination. The first nonfiction he latched onto for himself was A Series of Unfortunate Events this summer. It's just so depressingly tragic and droll that it's irresistible to him. :) He's an excellent reader, but he doesn't like fiction. He will, however, sit down and read The Way Things Work, which is way more technical than what would hold my attention at age 36!

 

I agree that learning to love books is very important. You might want to forgo some of the classics in the interest of just plain "books he might enjoy". (I realize that may not be a popular opinion, but desperate times...) That's how we got to A Series of Unfortunate Events.

 

The other thing I've discovered, particularly with Thing 2 (my visual learner), is that some children can listen better when they're doing something else at the same time. I know it sounds bizarre, and I wouldn't have believed it if my pastor's wife -- a career special ed teacher -- hadn't suggested it and if I hadn't experienced it for myself . Thing 2 has a tough time concentrating, but sit her on a bouncy ball and let her bounce while you read, and she's focused. Thing 1 played games the whole way through our reading of Charlotte's Web but absorbed the whole thing. When I read aloud, I no longer demand total attention. I allow them to do something else as long as the TV/music is off, they're not making noise that would distract others, and they're each playing alone. (Needless to say, if they're playing games together they're not paying attention to you!) It's worked really well for me for summer reading, and it's allowed me to keep things quiet so that all three of them can be in the room together.

 

Good luck!

--Pamela

[MerryAtHope]

Any chance he has some auditory processing struggles? Does he enjoy easier read-alouds that have pictures (fictional) rather than chapter books?

 

In addition to letting him do something with his hands as Pamela mentioned, have you tried any of these things:

 

Slow down how you read just a bit. Take slightly longer pauses between sentences and paragraphs. If he does struggle with listening skills, it's possible the words are all running together and he needs more time to process. (ImagineifItypedallofthewordstogetherwithnospaces! That's kind of what it's like for some kids who struggle with auditory processing--they need a few seconds to separate the words and make them meaningful).

 

Use varying voices, tones, and loudness. Try whispering sometimes or stopping suddenly just before you say the exciting thing.

 

Occasionally stop to ask a question--what do you think will happen next? Why do you think the character did that? Has anyone ever done the same thing to you? And so on. When you start the reading, ask for a recap of what happened in yesterday's reading.

 

Auditory processing can sometimes affect reading too, so it might be something to check into since you're seeing some struggles with fluency there too. But fwiw--I have one who only occasionally liked read-alouds even at age 9, and another who didn't even begin to like reading independently until age 10...And both love reading and being read to now. So, even though it feels like you've done this forever, you may yet see your work pay off.

 

Merry :-)

[Pam Wilhelm]

When I was young.....egads! That was ages ago!!! ..... I read only nonfiction until probably around 6th or 7th grade. All of a sudden I took off with my reading... read everything in sight! I turned out okay....maybe not great, but okay.

 

Keep trying.... maybe find nonfiction/living books that are more interesting for him.

[Nancy Ann]

Thanks guys,

 

We are doing Stairway to Reading to go back and deal with any decoding and learning problems for reading. If that doesn't work than I will have to get some sort of professional or different help with his reading. I want to go through the Stairway to Reading first before I start using labels.

 

I am thinking of sending back our Sonlight curriculum. I am still under the Love to Learn guarantee. It makes me sad because I really like it. I like that everything is planned out with quality books and lessons all the way through high school. Sonlight LA is also really great when we add The Writers Jungle philosophy to it. Those creative writing assignments do not seem nearly as difficult when you do them as Free Writes!!

 

Anyway, My son really likes non fiction, he likes science and he likes math. So it doesn't seem to work that we use Sonlight when the majority of that is reading, literature. There is some non fiction, but I think in general it is too expensive and too constricting for our needs right now. I need to have more flexibility in the books we choose.

 

I think I will go with Truth Quest for history they have some great lapbooking and notebooking elements now and we do enjoy adding that. With TQ I will have a variety of choices for history books.

 

I also saw a great book list http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html Between this and Honey for a Child's Heart we should have plenty of book selections for reading material.

 

For language arts we are doing BraveWriter and I may look into LLATL. I really like Sonlight LA and it seems LLATL is similar.

 

We will also do some occasional Five in a Row or Beyond FIAR units. Those are really great!!

 

I just didn't want to have to have to depend on the library and pulling together my own lessons!! But, I think this will work out better for my son. I just need to pull up my boot straps and get it done!