Tips for encouraging a young reluctant reader?

[Mommie_Jen]

(I know, I'm sorry. It seems all my posts lately are about reading.)

 

DS1 is 5 1/2. He's convinced he can't do it, doesn't want to do it (because, hello, mom reads books to me!) and cowboys don't need to know how to read, they need to know how to wrangle horses and cows. :lol:

 

Our daily lessons are super short. SUPER short. He just can't take it. I am patient (outwardly, at least) and we are just working on CVC words. He's not making much progress.

 

He has made big strides with the b/d confusion I asked about earlier this week. BIG strides. He's just pretty convinced that this isn't necessary.

 

Do I just keep plugging along? Give the lessons a break and just read books with him? (But I feel that fuels the fire of "mom will do it for me"?)

[Ellie]

IMHO, a 5½yo is too young to be considered a "reluctant reader." And if he's already convinced, at his very young age, that he cannot, then yes, it would definitely be time to put everything away, and to re-evaluate what you're doing to teach him to read.

 

A 5yo should be able to expect his mother to do "it" for him--not sure what you mean by "it," though, since *most* 5yo children are not yet reading on their own and their mothers should still be reading aloud to them and teaching them using materials that don't require reading.

 

JMHO, of course.:)

[Mommie_Jen]

Thank you, Ellie, I appreciate all your reading wisdom you share here. I guess what I mean by "it" is the fact that he thinks that he doesn't need to learn to read because mom will do it for him. ;) I'm considering shelving the formal OPG lessons and just read for a few months. He has his letter sounds down pat. He is eager to do other work, just not so much on the reading.

 

After I posted this, I did find a few old threads and read through those too. Good advice.

[Alphabetika]

I confess I haven't had this experience, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt; my dd1 taught herself to read, and with dd2 I waited until she expressed serious interest in learning to read, which was when she was about 5.5 - 6.

 

But I think what I'd do if my child did this (and I've got dd3 to look forward to) is that I would keep reading to him. "Just keep reading, just keep reading, what do we do? WE READ!" *sing to tune from Finding Nemo*

 

If your ds will do his other work but still wants you to read to him, I say go for it. Make it a pleasurable time. He will gain so much wonderful information from you reading to him, much more than he could on his own, and I suspect that eventually that willl morph into him having the maturity and desire to learn to read himself. Again, just my two cents, not from experience. But I just wanted to encourage you.

[Critterfixer]

My youngest was convinced that engineers don't have to read anything except numbers at that age, too. He's still not a great reader, but I found that making sure he found out that information he wanted to know was in books, made up of words, was very helpful in moving him into the concept that words were important too.

If your son is into wrangling horses and cows, make sure he gets books from the library that specifically relate to his interests, even if they are not "story" books. (In my son's case, a majority of the books he checks out are information books. Stories still command very little interest.) Another great thing for boys in particular is to see the men in the house reading. My DH is not a person who would read any imaginative literature whatsoever. But he makes it a point to sit down every weekend on the couch with a book to read. Often my boys will join him with their books and everyone will read together quietly.

[EmmaNadine]

http://www.amazon.com/WHAT-COWBOYS-COWGIRLS-LEARN-READERS/dp/1591987350/

[Ohmomjacquie]

My dd took a long time to make the jump from knowing letter sounds to being able to figure out the words. I would put the lessons away and just have lots of early readers around for him to look at etc. Then on a few months pull the lessons out again.

[Ellie]

Thank you, Ellie, I appreciate all your reading wisdom you share here. I guess what I mean by "it" is the fact that he thinks that he doesn't need to learn to read because mom will do it for him. ;) I'm considering shelving the formal OPG lessons and just read for a few months. He has his letter sounds down pat. He is eager to do other work, just not so much on the reading.

 

After I posted this, I did find a few old threads and read through those too. Good advice.

But he's still young enough that thinking his mother will do all the reading is not a bad thing. Just because he knows his letter sounds doesn't mean he's actually ready to read. :-)