lindsrae Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 My almost 7 year old DD is reading at about a second grade reading level, on target, but we are hitting a bit of a brick wall. As reading level goes up, so does the length of a book, and she balks at anything she considers "long." She gets to a certain point, and she says, "I'm done!" and kind of shuts down. I do know she needs extrinsic motivation--she read for about three days straight to get the first prize in our local library summer reading program. Any momma been down this road that can give me some good books to try or any gentle nudges to get her to spend more time reading? She will listen to me read all day or listen to almost anything on audio, but she just doesn't want to do the hard work herself. I want to encourage her, but at the same time--just READ already! :) I'm dying for her to get to that stage where she just picks up a book on her own and reads it for pleasure--not because I'm requiring her too. I'm trying REALLY, really hard not to compare, but lots of her little friends are reading for pleasure, and she's the kid who will play with her stuffed animals all day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmc1970 Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 My daughter is 6 years old and she is very similar. Her reading ability is just fine, but in the middle of a book, she will close up shop and say she is done. I found it helps when I have her read one page, then I read the next page and so forth until we finish the book. I notice she can go longer and longer by herself this way. Also, when I am really interested in what she is reading and say things like, "Wow, I wonder what is going to happen next. What an exciting book. Can you share with me what happens when you are finished?". It also helps that my 4 year old asks her to read to him and he is not very fond of her not finishing a book he chooses ;) Hope that helps a little, but I'd love to hear other responses too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vida Winter Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 Try getting her a kindle or other e-reader. She can change the font to a large size and not get intimidated by the length of the book. She can also look up words easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 Have you tried using audio WITH a matching hardcopy book? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairy4tmama Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 What about setting an amount of time you want her to be reading for in a sitting such as 20 minutes then start with 10 minutes and tell her that every day you will increase the amount of time by 1 minute. This is what I did with DS as we transitioned to more complex books it helped me allow for deviations in font type and sentence structure that made it difficult to say read x number of pages and it gave him the structure of knowing we were only going to read for x number of minutes with a gradual/ mostly painless increase. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penguin Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 (edited) I have the same issue with my DS11. He is a very strong reader but he needs to build his stamina. I like fairy4mama's suggestion to gradually increase the amount of time at one sitting. I am going to try something similar with my logic-aged fellow. In fact, you are inspiring me to hop over to the middle grades board to post a similar question :) And while I think that stamina (referring to time spent with the book in a single sitting) is important, I am not bothered that my son balks at THICK books as long as he has no problem with DIFFICULT books. It isn't too hard to find relatively thin, challenging books. After all, some picture books have a very high reading level. And the right short stories or thin novels can provide the same rich language experience as a longer work. This is true all the way through - William Faulkner comes to mind:) Edited June 14, 2012 by Penguin typo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roseyw Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 I like the idea of going up every minute and building it up to 20 minutes. Mabye you could set a specific time, say 20 or 30 minutes and if the succesfully reach your target, you could reward them with a sweet or play time on a games console or something like that. Reading should be made enjoyable though. If the children are not interested in what they are reading, it is made twice as hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LMD Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 What I did with my DD was start off reading the first couple of pages of a chapter, then getting/requiring her to finish it. Doing this everyday makes the book go very fast! I also found that this helped her 'get into' a book which was otherwise overwhelming. Also, dangling a movie version to watch when they've finished is a good carrot I've found! DD really loved the Sophie and the shadow woods series, they are fairly short and a spunky female main character... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sierramv1 Posted June 14, 2012 Share Posted June 14, 2012 My son was 8 before he started reading for pleasure. At the time he was very into Star Wars, so I let him pick out some easy leveled readers at the library, way below his ability level (I'm not a fan of the new star wars by the way, so this was difficult for me to indulge). He could read them with ease and inhaled them, which prompted another trip to the library for more "easy" readers. This went on a couple of times, and them he moved to the chapter books about star wars. He is now 9, and has since read all of his Sonlight readers, by himself (yeah!) and finished the first three books from the Eragon series, the last being over 700 pages. Now I have to tell him to put the book down and come do his school work :lol: , a great "problem" to have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lindsrae Posted June 15, 2012 Author Share Posted June 15, 2012 My son was 8 before he started reading for pleasure. At the time he was very into Star Wars, so I let him pick out some easy leveled readers at the library, way below his ability level (I'm not a fan of the new star wars by the way, so this was difficult for me to indulge). He could read them with ease and inhaled them, which prompted another trip to the library for more "easy" readers. This went on a couple of times, and them he moved to the chapter books about star wars. He is now 9, and has since read all of his Sonlight readers, by himself (yeah!) and finished the first three books from the Eragon series, the last being over 700 pages. Now I have to tell him to put the book down and come do his school work :lol: , a great "problem" to have. I hope we have this problem some day with this kiddo. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hollyh Posted June 15, 2012 Share Posted June 15, 2012 Only experience I can share is my own as a child. I don't remember really reading for pleasure until 4th grade (although I know I was top of the class and good AT reading). What helped me to read was a reading challenge at school (incentive) and finding a book series that I loved. That got me hooked and I began reading literally every minute of every day that I could. My punishments became that I could not read!:001_huh: So, it may still just be yet to come! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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