Aversions to reading and issues with books/reading

[chocolate-chip chooky]

As a follow-on to the 'what are you reading' thread - I'm wondering what aversions your kids have to books or what issues you have come across.

 

Here are ours:

 

- my daughter would not pick up a book for independent reading for over 6 months at one point (age 8 ish), because she felt such loyalty to the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series. Nothing could possibly live up to that and she was scared that she maybe would love something as much (or even *shudder* more) than Percy, and she wasn't willing to risk the betrayal. I did LOTS of reading out loud during that time. Her attachment to all things Percy was kind of obsessive...

 

- my daughter had a real issue with feeling she had to like books and she'd plod through things she wasn't enjoying, sapping the joy out of reading entirely. I ended up posting a 'readers' rights' poster on our fridge for all to see. It is your right to skip pages, to re-read a book, to dislike a book (*gasp*), to read anywhere etc etc. It actually helped!

[Jackie]

As I mentioned in the other thread, my daughter has/had an aversion to reading anything she couldn't confidently complete in one sitting. You would think we didn't own bookmarks or something. She's a strong reader, and we have done family read alouds of chapter books for years, but she just now started reading the Horrible Histories books, which take her 2-3 sittings. And Shiloh as an assigned book, which has taken her more than one sitting. She still thinks it utterly ludicrous that she could read some of our family read aloud books on her own, despite clearly being capable.

 

And speaking of Shiloh, her other aversion is tension. Not even necessarily pain or death, but tension. She hates any part of a story where the outcome looks grim even if it's pretty certainly going to come out all right. We often have to start a book by saying "we've already read it, and it will all be fine by the end even if it gets a bit scary in the middle". And then we have to remind her of that regularly. She got most the way through Shiloh and then stopped reading it because it was too upsetting. She'll finish it when assigned (she says so, and I don't doubt it) but she was done reading for fun as soon as the dog got hurt and the reader doesn't know if he will survive.

[SKL]

I have one kid who just doesn't want to read.  I don't know whether it's residual eye teaming issues or she just doesn't want to commit the time.  She enjoys listening to books and has good reading skills.  She is a very physical kid - loves sports, beauty, flavors.  Doesn't mind writing or drawing.  I guess maybe books are too two-dimensional.

 

My other kid has always been a book fiend, but she seems to be reading less nowadays.  Maybe she needs to find a new series that speaks to her.

[bookbard]

Interesting. My 5.5yr old has been reading for years but says she hates reading and never sits down cosily with a book - weird to me as reading is my favourite activity. I am assuming it will kick in sometime in the future . . .

[debi21]

Chooky, 

 

My 7 yo is like that right now with Harry Potter. He insists there will never be another series of books he will enjoy as much after Harry Potter. However, just have got him through the first two Percy Jacksons and they at least rate 'good', and he wants the third badly (next on online library wait list). Unlike your attitude (which I admire) I fully intend to force him through other stuff. He thinks most things are ok once he gets into them. I can't have him so completely obsessed with everything he reads as he is with HP anyhow.

 

[Runningmom80]

My oldest has been a voracious reader almost his whole life.  Nothing has deterred him yet.

 

My younger DS is shaping up to follow his brother.

 

My DD, well she's not a fan of reading yet.  I suspect she's 2e with dyslexia and possibly ADD, we are just beginning to try to unravel her.  I'm constantly on the lookout for books she'll love, but I'm beginning to understand that this can't be solved with a different genre or author. :(

[Clemsondana]

My older child really struggles with books that involve cruelty.  We had picked up several sonlight books at used book sales and I had planned to incorporate them into different history units, but I found that many of them were really upsetting to him.  I know that their goal is to have kids be emotionally involved in the subjects, but my child just quit wanting to read at all because he couldn't understand how people could act like they did in the books.  We switched to non-fiction books, and while he still learns that people throughout history have behaved horribly, it's much easier to learn about it now that he's not constantly reading first-person stories.  I still buy some of their reading recommendations, but now I skim through them before bringing them home.

[Dmmetler]

For years, DD could not handle any book that even insinuated an animal might be hurt or killed. Sonlight was a fail here for that reason- way too many "dead dog" type books. Charlotte's Web (which was a read-aloud for their either kindergarten or 1st grade core) led to a total meltdown and tears and panic at the first sentence or two because of the possibility that Wilbur might become bacon. What finally got her past that was the Athena's lit class-and that was one reason why I enrolled her for it, after discussing it with Kirsten (who teaches the class)-because by seeing other kids were upset, too, it helped her to get past the "I cannot read this!" block. We had a similar problem with history about at reconstruction on, and again, ended up doing the Athena's SoTW classes so she had a group of kids to go through it with and so she could see that it did bother other people, too. The class activities were easy and fun for her, the readings not challenging, but the emotional load was.

 

She's gotten better able to handle it, but for a few years there.....try finding really gentle, light, nothing bad or intense happens books which are also challenging for a 7 yr old who reads on a post-high school level!

[chocolate-chip chooky]

Chooky, 

 

My 7 yo is like that right now with Harry Potter. He insists there will never be another series of books he will enjoy as much after Harry Potter. However, just have got him through the first two Percy Jacksons and they at least rate 'good', and he wants the third badly (next on online library wait list). Unlike your attitude (which I admire) I fully intend to force him through other stuff. He thinks most things are ok once he gets into them. I can't have him so completely obsessed with everything he reads as he is with HP anyhow.

 

 My daughter refuses to even try Harry Potter. I think this may be related to her sense of loyalty to all things Percy.

[Jackie]

My daughter refuses to even try Harry Potter. I think this may be related to her sense of loyalty to all things Percy.

Sometime in the past, DH or I must have told DD that Harry Potter was "scary". Now if I bring up the books at all, her response is that she will never read them because they are too scary. We've now done read alouds that would qualify as much more "scary" than Sorcerer's Stone, but she's holding on to her belief.

[Runningmom80]

 My daughter refuses to even try Harry Potter. I think this may be related to her sense of loyalty to all things Percy.

 

Oh man!  I hope she comes around. Although, then she won't want to read again, because nothing IS as good. ;)

[SeaConquest]

As I mentioned in the other thread, my daughter has/had an aversion to reading anything she couldn't confidently complete in one sitting. You would think we didn't own bookmarks or something. She's a strong reader, and we have done family read alouds of chapter books for years, but she just now started reading the Horrible Histories books, which take her 2-3 sittings. And Shiloh as an assigned book, which has taken her more than one sitting. She still thinks it utterly ludicrous that she could read some of our family read aloud books on her own, despite clearly being capable.

 

And speaking of Shiloh, her other aversion is tension. Not even necessarily pain or death, but tension. She hates any part of a story where the outcome looks grim even if it's pretty certainly going to come out all right. We often have to start a book by saying "we've already read it, and it will all be fine by the end even if it gets a bit scary in the middle". And then we have to remind her of that regularly. She got most the way through Shiloh and then stopped reading it because it was too upsetting. She'll finish it when assigned (she says so, and I don't doubt it) but she was done reading for fun as soon as the dog got hurt and the reader doesn't know if he will survive.

 

I know that F is younger than S, so this all sounds normal from my perspective. S went through the exact same things a few years ago. We tried Percy Jackson around age 5, and it was too intense. He asked me to stop, so we did. I don't think it would bother him today. 

 

He also was averse to reading anything that couldn't be finished in one sitting, even though he had listened to me reading chapter books for years. In time, he just moved past it. I kept introducing longer books, would read him the first few chapters to get him hooked, and then told him that the rest was up to him. Eventually, he did it.

 

Then, he was intimidated by the size of some books, like Harry Potter. He eventually moved past that too. She is still really young. I think it's normal.

Edited September 7, 2016 by SeaConquest

[Jackie]

I know that F is younger than S, so this all sounds normal from my perspective. S went through the exact same things a few years ago. We tried Percy Jackson around age 5, and it was too intense. He asked me to stop, so we did. I don't think it would bother him today.

 

He also was averse to reading anything that couldn't be finished in one sitting, even though he had listened to me reading chapter books for years. In time, he just moved past it. I kept introducing longer books, would read him the first few chapters to get him hooked, and then told him that the rest was up to him. Eventually, he did it.

 

Then, he was intimidated by the size of some books, like Harry Potter. He eventually moved past that too. She is still really young. I think it's normal.

Oh, it's completely normal for her age. The intense reaction to tension might be a bit much, but that's her being her.

[Dmmetler]

I know that F is younger than S, so this all sounds normal from my perspective. S went through the exact same things a few years ago. We tried Percy Jackson around age 5, and it was too intense. He asked me to stop, so we did. I don't think it would bother him today.

 

He also was averse to reading anything that couldn't be finished in one sitting, even though he had listened to me reading chapter books for years. In time, he just moved past it. I kept introducing longer books, would read him the first few chapters to get him hooked, and then told him that the rest was up to him. Eventually, he did it.

 

Then, he was intimidated by the size of some books, like Harry Potter. He eventually moved past that too. She is still really young. I think it's normal.

I've mentioned this before, but one thing that helped DD when the size of books was intimidating was getting old PS readers, which were mostly chapters taken from fiction, mixed in with short non-fiction from Kids Discover and the like and poetry. Being able to finish a story, and the format with illustrations and generally big text made her feel a lot more confident, and once she's been introduced to the characters and setting, then she was comfortable going and getting a big stack of books from that author, especially if they had familiar characters. Things like reading one chapter of a "Ramona" book in a 4th grade reader at age 5, and then spending the next two weeks reading dozens of books by Beverly Cleary. And old PS readers are pretty cheap at used book stores or on Amazon.