Do you think that some dc just won't ever LIKE reading?...

[Sue G in PA]

My ds9, for the first time ever, is getting into a book (Bunnicula). Ds8 used to love reading but now despises it. Ds6 is hit or miss. My dd11 is the only one that will read simply for pleasure. If you have a dc who just doesn't like to read, what do you do? Do you still mandate reading each day? How much do you make them read outside of literature (I mean in History, Science, etc.) if they simply just gag at the thought of reading? I understand that reading is important, a must know skill. Is it possible, though, that some dc just aren't ever going to like reading? Just curious...

[Michelle T]

there isn't anything out there that everybody likes doing! My DS is actually okay with reading, although it is never his first choice of activity. But my DH really doesn't like reading. In our 18 years of marriage, he has read four books.

Michelle T

[Diana in OR]

My 12yos doesn't enjoy reading. He was reading indepdently in Kindergarten without much difficulty or instruction from me. Yet he doesn't like it. The one thing he likes to read are the comics and comic books (like The Far Side, Garfield, etc.)

 

I make him read certain books for school, but he doesn't read for enjoyment. His older brother, otoh, is a voracious reader and wishes he had more time to read for fun.

[kRenee]

I knew he could. He could read to me just fine. But recently I decided to have his vision tested (not the same as eyesight). Turns out he has difficulty tracking and getting binocular vision. Both would stress and tire the eyes quickly. We are doing vision therapy now so time will tell if he will like reading afterward.

 

Quick test:

take a pencil and have your child watch the tip as you move it side to side, around in a circle and in and out. Your childs eyes should move smoothly. If they jump around at all he/she may have tracking difficulties.

[Sue G in PA]

About the vision/tracking difficulties...I had his eyes checked and turns out he has a very slight astigmatism. He wears glasses for reading and he says it's a teeny bit better, but he doesn't really notice a big difference. Thanks for the quick tracking test...I'll do that!

[Tea Party Girl]

I am still holding out hope.

 

My oldest reads for pleasure. My nine-year old boy has STRUGGLED with reading. Last year we spent $90 per week every week of the school year for tutoring and he still only reads at a third-grade level.

 

BUT he loves to listen to audio books. His reading comprehension tested at ninth-grade. He listens to books I don't understand, and when I'm reading aloud, I'm amazed at the connections he makes before any of the rest of us.

 

My 6yo is following in similar footsteps as the nine-year old. Resisting reading. Not great for the homeschooling mommy ego. But she's young and I refuse at this point to even think she won't like reading eventually. She might be the type, though, that has to read while hanging upside-down, so she can be doing something else!

 

I think knowing what kind of learning strength your child has and helping them fall in love with STORY will help them to ultimately all love reading. Yep, that is my hope.

[Lolly]

My eldest was able to read very young. She is now 15 and doesn't read for pleasure because she doesn't find it pleasurable. She reads what is required and does just fine with it. Every once in a while she will find a book out of sheer boredom. Usually she doesn't finish it. Occassionally she will actually like one and read the whole thing. She prefers activities that involve some interaction with real, live humans.

 

My second finds reading to be painful. She is dyslexic.

 

My third reads everything she can get her hands on. We are now having to wait for books to come in new to the bookstore for new reading material.

 

The fourth is reading resistant. He seems to have some dyslexic tendencies, but can read fairly well. I'm thinking that he may one day come to enjoy reading. Most books don't seem to appeal to him very much. He is also a bit active and just plain doesn't like to sit as long as reading required.

 

This is coming from a house where reading should be a happy time statistically speaking. We have all the "right" atmosphere.

[MelissaM]

We don't all like the same things. I thinks it's weird to dislike reading. My dh hubby thinks it's weird to dislike target shooting. Yet, here we are. ;)

[8filltheheart]

there isn't anything out there that everybody likes doing! My DS is actually okay with reading, although it is never his first choice of activity. But my DH really doesn't like reading. In our 18 years of marriage, he has read four books.

Michelle T

 

LOL.....my dh is the same way. I think he has read 4 or 5 in 22 yrs of marriage.

 

Our oldest doesn't like to read. Never has. He has no disabilities or reading problems....he simply doesn't like it. He would much rather be outside hiking, rock climbing, biking, anything other than being cooped up in a house reading!

 

My 15 yos used to devour books (literally read all day). He has gotten away from that, but my 14 yod loves nothing more than to curl up with a good book and stay lost in it for hours.

 

12 yos is like oldest except he HATES reading. He is ok with it more this yr b/c we are doing LL from LOTR and he loves LOTR. But, nope, he would never consider picking up a book without being told he needed to read it. ;)

 

9 yod likes reading, but doesn't go off and read for pleasure very often. (definitely no connection here b/t ability and pleasure. She was reading on a 3rd+ grade level near the beginning of 1st grade.)

 

I don't worry about it. To each their own. :)

[Kathy in MD]

I'd check out this site to see if he has some vision problems that aren't covered in the standard 20 min eye exam. http://www.childrensvision.com/symptoms.htm

 

Also, has he every had any speech delays or problems? Not deciphering sounds easily is another common source of reading problems.

[Kathy in MD]

About the vision/tracking difficulties...I had his eyes checked and turns out he has a very slight astigmatism. He wears glasses for reading and he says it's a teeny bit better, but he doesn't really notice a big difference. Thanks for the quick tracking test...I'll do that!

 

than not tracking smoothly. Here's that site again.http://http://www.childrensvision.com/symptoms.htm

[lynn]

One day something will interest them and they will love reading then that interest will stop for a time. My oldest loved reading, he read all of chronicles or narnia, unfortunate events, all Jules Verne and many others before 7th grade now he's in 9th and I can't get him to read anything unless he has an interest. I guess he just read all he wanted and that was it. Now the other day he did check out the World Without Us and read it cover to cover in 1 night but get himt o read to kill a mocking bird for his lit class....yikes.

 

Funny, we were talking about this last night and many of the ladies said they had no interest until after middle school. It just takes the right book, topic sometimes.

[Tea Party Girl]

I'd check out this site to see if he has some vision problems that aren't covered in the standard 20 min eye exam. http://www.childrensvision.com/symptoms.htm

 

Also, has he every had any speech delays or problems? Not deciphering sounds easily is another common source of reading problems.

 

Thanks, Kathy, I'll check this out. Yes, we have had all the "regular" tests.

[Milseain]

My 12 year old doesn't read for pleasure because he doesn't find it pleasurable. My 8 year old like to read but we just finished 100 Lessons and he's happy to be reading "real books". (his words) My 6 year old is doing PP and she likes it. (100 Lessons when to fast for her.) I love to read but my dh doesn't . I would love for one of my children to love to read.

[Lux Et Veritas Academy]

Good question- I didn't like reading as a child, ditched lit classes in college, skipped as much writing as I could and now I absolutely love it all!

[Guest spicygirl]

I have always loved reading, and my dh loves it even more than me. We have two sons who learned to read easily at age 4, but neither one of them really care to read for pleasure now. My oldest likes comics and Captain Underpants though :rolleyes:

[Lolly]

Now that IS weird! How on earth can you not like target shooting?:confused: jk

[Rosie_0801]

Once they are at an age to be a fluent reader, I think everyone likes to read something. The something may not be a book. It may be a comic, the newspaper, wikipedia articles, the backs of cereal packets, vehicle registration plates etc. When my brother (absolute non reader) was about your boys' age he was given two little books, one about wind power and the other about solar power. He read those two books over and over for about four years, and would read nothing else. Boys this age tend not to enjoy reading fiction, and would rather listen to it. They usually will read non-fiction if it has lots of colourful, detailed pictures. Back to my brother, after that four years, Mum picked up a book from a garage sale called "Mr Pudgins" and he read that over and over too. If it helps, this kid who read the same 3 books for most of his childhood has turned into a rampant reader who I think spends more money on books than on rent.

There's hope for your guys yet! I think you'd might be better off injecting literature by reading to them, perhaps while they're working on art or something, and letting them read well presented non-fiction. Boys this age love to know how things work, so will get right into books about volcanos, machines; and often biographies if written at their reading level. They're much more into real than fantasy. If you can say "look at this, it's so cool!" you're probably on a winner.

Or maybe its just the boys I've come across :)

Rosie

[mcconnellboys]

I don't know, maybe... (helpful, huh?)

 

My husband really doesn't read. He has ADD and I tend to think that he can't sit still and concentrate long enough to read.

 

My older son is very much the same. I did insist on his doing the assigned readings during all the years he homeschooled. He might not have been overly thrilled with it, but he did it, he often found that he liked the works, and he actually began to (finally) read some on his own without me saying a word about it. Would he have done it had I not insisted that it was really, really important? No I don't think he ever would have.

 

He is back in school this year and they don't read nearly as much as we did, LOL. He seems to sort of disdain that fact, stating that what we did was much more worthwhile. Often the things they do read are things he's already read in past and so is very familiar with, which makes it easy for him.

 

I've found over the course of the past year that he's been picking up books from the schoolroom and just reading them on his own sometimes when he has nothing else to do. He's pulled his books from the dual credit Greek mythology course he took last year (he insisted I keep the books) and has been re-reading some parts of them. He regularly re-reads Tolkien and other favorites.

 

SO, I'm not certain that I'd call him exactly a reader in the sense of my younger son and I - but I think he's become much more of a reader than he might have been had we not stuck with it....

 

Can I say that this might be the case for others? No; it's just a single instance, I have no idea if similar results could be produced given different children and different sets of circumstances.... I just know that I breath a sigh of relief every time I see him reading on his own, as I didn't think he'd ever do that.

 

Regena

[siloam]

I have a mix here too.

 

What I am trying to balance is what to require of a child who doesn't like to read? Do you all stick to the WTM requirements, or do you relax them a bit?

 

Heather

[Mrs Mungo]

My cousin (who is in his second year of college) never liked reading until he started hanging out with my younger sister and our other cousin. Now he reads all the time. He experienced the "hey, this movie is ALL WRONG" phenomenon for the first time when he read Narnia just before the first movie came out.