Assigning reading without killing the love of reading

[lighthouseacademy]

How do you assign reading for school without killing the love of reading?

My son reads VERY well- but it is hard to get him to read something that he has not deemed worthy (and his criteria changes from day to day and is rather arbitrary so I can't help there...) I want him to read some of the appropriate books for year 2 and I am struggling to figure out how to have fun reading time and school reading time.

[Amy in Orlando]

One idea is to get some books on tape of things you want him to read. He might (like all of my sons have) develop an interest in reading other books similar. Another thing we used to do was "fun reading" time usually involved Dad and school reading time was my department. Dh and the boys had so much fun reading ridiculous books together. Your son is VERY young, I wouldn't worry too much yet. Do the "appropriate" books as read-alouds for now and let him have some freedom for "fun" reading.

[klmama]

At our house, fun reading time happens whenever the dc can squeeze it in - in the van on the way to activities, in the bathroom, etc. They can read anything they want then. The assigned reading happens during rest time after lunch. The dc feel so happy about getting to just lie around reading, they are usually thrilled about whatever I give them to read! FWIW, I pick books from the Activity Guide list, SL lists, and Veritas Press lists, so they are very good books. Whatever looks most appropriate for that individual child gets on the list. Sometimes I order more from the library than we will need for a given time period, just to be able to pick out the best ones. We have very few books that the children don't want to finish, and they often ask to put them on their Christmas wish lists because they enjoyed them so much.

 

One thing I found with my ds when he was your ds's age - if I read the first chapter or two aloud to him, he would want to find out what happened next and would be more willing to read the rest of the book himself.

[Stacy in NJ]

Is your son 6 years old? At six I would just take a weekly trip to the library, help him pick out some appropriate books, and not worry too much about whether he's reading books from a list. When he's about 8 or 9, I'd start assigning books by number of pages or chapters per day. Until that age just provide enough quality books and let him choose. You can read aloud books from the list.

[Kris]

How do you assign reading for school without killing the love of reading?

My son reads VERY well- but it is hard to get him to read something that he has not deemed worthy (and his criteria changes from day to day and is rather arbitrary so I can't help there...) I want him to read some of the appropriate books for year 2 and I am struggling to figure out how to have fun reading time and school reading time.

 

My son hated reading. Absolutely hated it. Books had cooties and that's all there was to it. They had the AR program at school and he was reading books five to seven grade levels lower than what he was capable of -- one point books to get through quickly and get it over with. I begged his teachers to *make* him choose higher grade level books, hoping he wouldn't be so bored with them. But they wouldn't do that, and told me elementary kids weren't allowed to go to the high school library (which was in the next building). Unfortunately, because of his reading scores, he had to get over thirty points per quarter. So he had to read a lot at home and hated every minute of it. It was a constant battle.

 

When I brought him home, I let him choose what he wanted to read from my approved list. Since his school said he had been reading at ninth grade level, the list had a few seventh grade "boy books" on it, but the rest were from the ninth grade list and up.

 

If he didn't like a book after the first fifty pages, he didn't have to read it anymore. There was enough to choose from that whether or not he wanted to finish some of them just wasn't a big deal.

 

I'm so glad it worked, 'cause I didn't have a "Plan B." :D

 

Once he started (1) reading books that weren't written for much younger kids and (2) had some control over the process, he was off! Now, he's still not obsessed with books like I am, but that is *one* battle we're not fighting anymore and he's even recommending books to his friends to read -- and they are discussing them!

[lighthouseacademy]

Yes, my son is 6. However, he needs help picking reading books- he just finished Charlotte's web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, Henry Huggins, etc on his own. He gets upset with me if I don't bring him more chapter books from the library TWICE a week. He needs books and I am balancing emotional level of a 6 yr old with high reading level. He is young, but I feel that he needs to have some of the reading books that are history appropriate to read too.

[Amy in Orlando]

Yes, my son is 6. However, he needs help picking reading books- he just finished Charlotte's web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, Henry Huggins, etc on his own. He gets upset with me if I don't bring him more chapter books from the library TWICE a week. He needs books and I am balancing emotional level of a 6 yr old with high reading level. He is young, but I feel that he needs to have some of the reading books that are history appropriate to read too.

 

If he's reading that well, I'd strongly urge you to take a more "unschooling" approach to reading. I love the reading books suggested by TWM, but ...he's 6. If you're planning to homeschool for a while, he'll cycle through this time again and will gain much more from his reading. Of course, if something strikes his interest, pursue it, but otherwise, maybe just let reading be reading for now.

[Melissa in Australia]

my reading hating son is a little older (10). but what I do is we take turns to read . He reads 3 pages to me, and then I read 3 to him. he has dyslexia, and really struggles to read. this way he gets the rhythm of the book, and can follow the story. instead of it just being a long jumble of boring words.

[lynn]

One thing I do with my son is I make of list of books to read for the year and he has to choose one of those then when he finishes his required 20min a day of reading which usually extends into 45min as we read aloud before bed, he can choose something he wants to read.

 

Another thing I find that when my kids do not want to read from the list, if I read the first chapter to them they usually get into the story and want to read it on their own.

[hsmamainva]

We've pretty much always used Sonlight, which has daily reading assignments.

 

My rule of thumb is that they are given a 3-chapter-rule. If they really don't like the book, after reading 3 chapters, they can drop the book in favor of another one from the bookshelves downstairs (I have a ton of books!).

 

On average, they only drop around 2 books per year out of their Sonlight core.

 

For their own independent reading, they can read whatever they want. Right now, Star Wars books are a really big hit! My oldest son is into reading all the 'ship technical manuals' and my youngest son is reading the novels based on the movies.

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I definitely agree with Amy. You have plenty of time to get him reading along the curriculum. If you want him to have contact with a particular book, you read it out loud.

 

I read all our history readers aloud until 3rd grade, unless the child gets impatient and takes the book away from me to read himself. :-)

 

My fourth grader didn't want to read them on his own this year so I compromised. I read the odd chapters, he reads even.

 

This is a child who has read the complete Lord of the Rings trilogy own his own at eight.

[Jen500]

IMO 6 is too young to be assigning books to read. My dc have always loved to read. I agree w/ other posters who suggested that you might try reading some of those required books aloud. As my dc have gotten older, they've enjoyed reading a variety of books. When we got to the library, I generally pick out a few that I'd like them to read. And they usually end up reading them on their own, because they are just great books! For my kids, at this young age, assigning books would detract from our general attitude that reading good books is fun. YMMV.

[jamnkats]

I have never assigned any books to read and have 4 kids who LOVE books. The 6 and 8yo's aren't reading yet but love to have books read to them. The 12yo didn't learn to read until he was 10 and then really didn't enjoy reading and would not read on his own at all. It wasn't until we were about 1/2 way through Core 5 that he decided to pick books up on his own and now reads for enjoyment. I honestly thought that would never happen.

 

My 14yo has always had his nose in a book until the past 6mo or so. I keep suggesting books for him (we have quite a library) and he does enjoy books either his younger brother recommends or will finish a book I start with the girls or finish a book I'm reading them. I still read aloud to the boys (otherwise, how would *I* learn anything??? :)). I'm going to totally back off him I think for a while and see what develops.

 

So, my recommendation is to back off. Read quality literature to him and discuss it with him if you're concerned about the quality of books he's reading.

[Jill- OK]

I want him to read some of the appropriate books for year 2 and I am struggling to figure out how to have fun reading time and school reading time.

 

We have reading time separated into "You Read to Me", and "I Read to You", with each of us having a choice.

 

So, I might choose to read some of her library book about tigers to her, out loud, and have her read a little of the book about ancient Egyptian art (covering history and science) to me (these are the readings where we get our narrations). Her choice might be for the two of us to switch off reading chapters of Milly-Molly-Mandy.

 

This way, they get accustomed to having to read a little something they're not necessarily crazy about (I keep the 'required' reading at this age very, very short), but they also get to bring in books that excite them, and get quantity reading practice that way (I'd let him read as long as he wanted, or as long as you could manage, with the things he chooses).

 

HTH!

[Cedarmom]

Do you do read alouds? At that age when we did our history ,I read to him. My son was an early reader too, and could have read the books himself. He was like your son ,though, and had his own thoughts of what to read. I let him (with some direction) choose his own reading and just did the history out loud. The history was usually just one book a day , 15 -20 min (more if he wanted) I didn't assign books to him until he was 8 or 9. You could also show him different sections in the library and help him pick out biographies, science books, and other non-fiction books he would enjoy. Or you could just choose the books yourself and leave them laying aroud. With my reader, if there was a book laying around that looked interesting, he would just read it,I didn't need to assign it.

[swellmomma]

For assigned reading I put the books I want read into a washtub. During assigned reading they choose one of those books. I set the timere for 30 minutes. They can read any of those books they chose for those 30 minutes as long as they all get read by the end of the week I don't care which ones they do first. We also do alot of free reading here, in which they can read absolutely anythiing they want. For Ds this means he has 3 star wars books on the go, 1 goosebumps, 1 haunted canada and 1 tom clancy. His adhd means he always has more than 1 book on the go. DD focuses on horse themed books or children's classics (right now she is reading Heidi). Little Ds likes Deigo, and Bob the Builder books for his free reading.

 

For us I make a point of during assigned reading doing reading myself. Books/reading are important to us all, I give books as gifts, we read constantly, and apparently it has rubbed off. My fear was killing that with assigned reading, but I have found my washtub of books working and not killing that love.