6 yo dislikes reading

[omishev]

My DD was in kindergarten this year and struggled with reading so we really need to practice over the summer. She loves when I read to her but doesn't like to read herself. Her teacher says she is a "common sense" learner meaning that reading some random sentence in a reading book is pointless to her. So sitting down to "practice reading" is like pulling teeth. If I can incorporate it into daily life she sees the point and is much more cooperative. Any ideas? The other complicating factor is the little brothers. She is so easily distracted and I have very little time alone with her

[three4me]

What about buddy reading something if high interest to her? You read a page, she reads a page, etc. 

[Lori D.]

Try scheduling in advance each day to make a 15-minute period happen where little brothers are not in the same room and are quiet -- they are napping, or they are in the after-lunch quiet time on their beds, or watching a video you set them up with, or in the evening when the other parent is overseeing them.

Try "buddy reading" ("you read a page (or sentence), I read a page (or sentence)" ). Make the reading environment cozy and inviting -- cuddled up together on the couch, or make a nest of blankets and pillows on the floor.

Try stepped readers. Lots of fun illustrations and just 1-2 short sentences per page at the early step levels.

Try non-fiction -- it is informative and has a "point" to it.

[HomeAgain]

I think I would ask a few things.  What has she been taught in Kindergarten?  Her teacher's assessment of "reading a sentence makes no sense to her" is a bit wacky.  Reading a single sentence should offer a basic story to a child.  "The cat sat on the mat." is a sentence that gives the child a picture in her head.  What method of reading has she been taught?

I would honestly just pull out my trusty Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons book.  I don't follow the script.  I make a game of it with the kid by sliding letters on a board (you can make paper ones or use magnetic ones) for the sound recognition part, go over the words for the second part, and have the kid read the story for the third part, with the picture covered.  The second time around I'd let the kid see the picture as they read. 

Why start all the way back here at the beginning, though?
1. To build confidence.  Easy work is simple, quick, and done with for the day.
2. Because I don't trust that the school didn't jump right into a paltry mix of phonics with strong sight word emphasis and teaching the children reading clues like "guess the word based on the picture."  I'd rather just take the time to reinforce the basics and keep it low key.

[PeterPan]

My dd was one who didn't want to read easy readers, etc. She was very bright and wanted to read what she wanted to read and not anything else! There definitely can be things like that, where a dc just has an opinion about what they like to read. 

But odds are, if this is a ps, they just flat didn't teach her to read. As the others said, get a good reading curriculum, ANY good reading curriculum, teach her to read, drill the word lists to fluency and she'll probably learn to read just fine. Also she's young enough that there's not a ton expected at this point. Like if she's reading CVC words and basic sentences (a cat sat on a mat, etc.), that's pretty age-appropriate. She will grow a lot between now and fall. That's another 3 months, which is HUGE in the life of a child that age.

So make sure you're reading aloud to her and playing audiobooks, teach her to read, and see if it comes. 

[sweet2ndchance]

Can she "teach" her little brothers to read?

When my oldest daughter learned to read around age 6, she liked to play school with her younger sister who was 2 - 3 years old at the time. Both girls benefited from it because my younger dd got exposure to phonics well before I would have introduced it to her and  my older dd was practicing her phonics and reading skills without even realizing it.

Of course this assumes she was taught phonics at school. If she was only taught sight words then I would get a phonics program and have a daily family reading lesson. The younger brothers get to participate if they want to but I wouldn't force them. Let your older daughter help teach her brothers if you are going over a concept she already knows. Even if none of the instruction sticks for the younger ones, your daughter is getting valuable instruction and reinforcement.

[Ellie]

4 hours ago, omishev said:

My DD was in kindergarten this year and struggled with reading so we really need to practice over the summer. She loves when I read to her but doesn't like to read herself. Her teacher says she is a "common sense" learner meaning that reading some random sentence in a reading book is pointless to her. So sitting down to "practice reading" is like pulling teeth. If I can incorporate it into daily life she sees the point and is much more cooperative. Any ideas? The other complicating factor is the little brothers. She is so easily distracted and I have very little time alone with her

Are you planning to homeschool?

 

[Tanaqui]

Of course, even if you're not planning to homeschool you're welcome here!

With that said, I'm going to piggyback on what everybody else has said. Phonics review. Spalding is inexpensive and not too difficult to implement for the average parent who doesn't homeschool but would like to do some extra work afterschool and during breaks. It's maybe not the most fun curriculum, though. Other people can suggest other ones.

[SKL]

Let her pick her own books at the library and read at her own pace.  If she doesn't know all the words, supply them or let her just enjoy the pictures (her choice).

Keep reading good books aloud as much as possible.

Borrow (or buy) age-appropriate storybook and/or song DVDs where there is a story with subtitles, and watch with the subtitles on.  My favorites for that age were the Scholastic storybooks on DVD.

Give her some projects that involve following simple directions (using diagrams or words).  Lego is good because they do the explanations without words.  Kiwi Crate might be a good option.  Following simple recipes in a kids' cookbook.  Simple models / toys to put together etc.

Let her order off menus, write / follow grocery lists, etc.

Consider getting her vision checked to make sure the seeing part of reading isn't too much of a chore.

[Tanaqui]

Quote

Consider getting her vision checked to make sure the seeing part of reading isn't too much of a chore.

Oh, yes. School-aged children should have their vision checked yearly, even if the parents don't think they've seen any sign of vision problems.

[Bay Lake Mom]

A large number of kids aren’t ready to learn to read in kindergarten. Be careful not to push this too much. You will do more damage than good. 

If you really need to have her reading by the fall, get either Phonics Pathways or Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons. Most libraries have these. Work through the program. Let her choose one library book each week. Teach her to use phonics to read 1-2 pages a day. When she’s read it (slowly), then you can re-read it to her.  I would also give her a month off before trying again. 

I have 2 daughters. One learned to read in 1st grade (when she was ready). She is now a great reader (age9). My youngest is 8. She has learning delays, and she is just now ready to learn to read. Now that she’s ready, she’s making progress. 

[Holly]

My DD was a reluctant reader at 6.  She loves books now (at 15).  Once they build some fluency, it gets to be less work and more enjoyable.  I kept her reading lessons very short, even just a couple sentences at first!  Eventually she picked up speed.  My kids have really liked the McGuffey readers (free on gutenberg.org).  They start with just a couple words on a page and quickly work up to little stories.  They are really well done for beginning readers.

Lots of good ideas here, I just wanted to give a bit of "been there, done that" encouragement! 

[Ellie]

On 6/18/2018 at 2:06 PM, omishev said:

My DD was in kindergarten this year and struggled with reading so we really need to practice over the summer. She loves when I read to her but doesn't like to read herself. Her teacher says she is a "common sense" learner meaning that reading some random sentence in a reading book is pointless to her. So sitting down to "practice reading" is like pulling teeth. If I can incorporate it into daily life she sees the point and is much more cooperative. Any ideas? The other complicating factor is the little brothers. She is so easily distracted and I have very little time alone with her

I also want to say that I am not surprised that a five-year-old child "struggled with reading."  If she was in a public school, it is probable that she experienced sight-reading, and no amount of "practicing" will help. IMHO, your best bet is to read aloud to her from really good children's books, just for enjoyment, because that's what parents do. :-) If you send her back to school in the fall, you might consider doing something at home with her, such as AlphaPhonics or Explode the Code or Victory Drill Book, all of which are true phonics and are easy to implement after school. If you are going to homeschool, I'd recommend something more comprehensive, such as Spalding; but doing Spalding after school would be too much, because after school your dc needs to come home and goof off.

[4KookieKids]

I do have a kiddo who will be seven next month who hates easy readers. It is just about the bane of her existence that all she can actually read *well* are books far below her interest level, and she has no hope of reading anything that interests her. We limp along by giving her extensive access to audiobooks courtesy of the local libraries, while continuing to work on her reading skills, but sometimes I wonder if it almost makes things worse when your current favorite books are things like Tuesdays at the Castle, Harry Potter, Secret Garden and Little Princess, and you're still stuck slogging through stuff like Frog and Toad if you want to actually *read* yourself, because even Henry and Mudge is a bit too advanced for your current reading skills. Granted, this child does appear to have vision issues not flagged by the normal optometrist and was given a dyslexia dx based on significant deficits in her phonological processing. But it is also the case that she's often stuck in a place where she's not motivated to read because the stuff she can read is boring but the stuff she wants to read is hopelessly too advanced for her to even try. I don't blame her for occasionally throwing a book across the room in frustration, quite honestly...

[Rosie_0801]

7 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

I do have a kiddo who will be seven next month who hates easy readers. It is just about the bane of her existence that all she can actually read *well* are books far below her interest level, and she has no hope of reading anything that interests her. We limp along by giving her extensive access to audiobooks courtesy of the local libraries, while continuing to work on her reading skills, but sometimes I wonder if it almost makes things worse when your current favorite books are things like Tuesdays at the Castle, Harry Potter, Secret Garden and Little Princess, and you're still stuck slogging through stuff like Frog and Toad if you want to actually *read* yourself, because even Henry and Mudge is a bit too advanced for your current reading skills. Granted, this child does appear to have vision issues not flagged by the normal optometrist and was given a dyslexia dx based on significant deficits in her phonological processing. But it is also the case that she's often stuck in a place where she's not motivated to read because the stuff she can read is boring but the stuff she wants to read is hopelessly too advanced for her to even try. I don't blame her for occasionally throwing a book across the room in frustration, quite honestly...

 

She may prefer to learn from one of the old fashioned spellers.

[4KookieKids]

46 minutes ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 

She may prefer to learn from one of the old fashioned spellers.

I'm not sure what you mean; could you explain please? 

We do Spalding regularly, recently have been giving an effort towards Blend Phonics (utterly boring to this child, but she has weak working memory and struggled with learning the phonographs in Spalding), and her dyslexia tutor does this Blue Book Method with her (among a lot of other things - the blue book method is about 10% of what they do): https://www.learninghouse.ca/products/6435/products_detail/the-blue-book-method.html

[Ellie]

37 minutes ago, 4KookieKids said:

We do Spalding regularly, recently have been giving an effort towards Blend Phonics (utterly boring to this child, but she has weak working memory and struggled with learning the phonographs in Spalding), and her dyslexia tutor does this Blue Book Method with her (among a lot of other things - the blue book method is about 10% of what they do): https://www.learninghouse.ca/products/6435/products_detail/the-blue-book-method.html

Are you following the Spalding Method as closely as possible? Daily oral and written dictation of all phonograms that have been taught so far? Dictating and analyzing 20-30 words weekly?

[Rosie_0801]

1 hour ago, 4KookieKids said:

I'm not sure what you mean; could you explain please? 

We do Spalding regularly, recently have been giving an effort towards Blend Phonics (utterly boring to this child, but she has weak working memory and struggled with learning the phonographs in Spalding), and her dyslexia tutor does this Blue Book Method with her (among a lot of other things - the blue book method is about 10% of what they do): https://www.learninghouse.ca/products/6435/products_detail/the-blue-book-method.html

 

Such as Webster's Speller.

[4KookieKids]

7 hours ago, Ellie said:

Are you following the Spalding Method as closely as possible? Daily oral and written dictation of all phonograms that have been taught so far? Dictating and analyzing 20-30 words weekly?

 

I messaged you about it a while back, actually, to sort out how we can do better. We had been doing more than 30 new words a week, at her insistence, but only reading the review words back each day and not re-writing them. Also, I hadn’t realized that I was supposed to continue to tell her exactly which phonogram to use in words, even once we’re over halfway through the word list. So we will be correcting those two issues when we have a fresh go after our little summer break and forray with blend phonics. But yes, even with daily dictation for over a year, she still struggles to recall her phonograms. Her memory is just bad! ?

[Ellie]

4 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

 

I messaged you about it a while back, actually, to sort out how we can do better. We had been doing more than 30 new words a week, at her insistence, but only reading the review words back each day and not re-writing them. Also, I hadn’t realized that I was supposed to continue to tell her exactly which phonogram to use in words, even once we’re over halfway through the word list. So we will be correcting those two issues when we have a fresh go after our little summer break and forray with blend phonics. But yes, even with daily dictation for over a year, she still struggles to recall her phonograms. Her memory is just bad! ?

::face palm:: Apparently I suffer from some sort of memory loss, lol.

[4KookieKids]

29 minutes ago, Ellie said:

::face palm:: Apparently I suffer from some sort of memory loss, lol.

 

Ha ha. It's ok! ? I figured you just didn't remember because you have such a huge base of folks pestering you with Spalding questions! lol.

[4KookieKids]

12 hours ago, Rosie_0801 said:

 

Such as Webster's Speller.

Ok, yes, we've done some Webster's speller as part of the syllables/blend phonics program we have been working on. ? Thanks.

[Tanaqui]

Just going to jump in - my dyslexic kiddo found Spalding too front-loaded. Too much to remember, just like yours. By all means, 4KookieKids, start following the program exactly as written, you already have it! - but if that still doesn't help it may be time to move to one specifically written for dyslexics.

[4KookieKids]

On 6/21/2018 at 12:44 PM, Tanaqui said:

Just going to jump in - my dyslexic kiddo found Spalding too front-loaded. Too much to remember, just like yours. By all means, 4KookieKids, start following the program exactly as written, you already have it! - but if that still doesn't help it may be time to move to one specifically written for dyslexics.

 

Yes, our educational therapist told us that dyslexic children with poor working memory often do struggle with the Spalding program. However, she also said that my daughter would likely be in a much worse place than she currently is , If I had not used it, because so many other programs do have at least some sight words early on, whereas Spalding  focuses so heavily on phonograms and sounds as building blocks. 

Somehow, against all odds perhaps, this very dyslexic child really enjoys writing, though, so we will probably continue with Spalding at home so long as she is enjoying it, and let her dyslexia therapist do other stuff with her twice a week . Once she is no longer doing dyslexia therapy, I will work with her therapist to figure out the best plan for her to move forward.

[Rosie_0801]

2 hours ago, 4KookieKids said:

Ok, yes, we've done some Webster's speller as part of the syllables/blend phonics program we have been working on. ? Thanks.

 

The Parker readers are pretty good too. The archaic language lends some interest, I found with my kiddo.

[ScoutTN]

OP, 5 is young and not all kids are ready then. One size does not fit all. I had one who was reading Little House books at age 5 and one who was totally not interested or ready. The second one didn't really read fluently until age 8. Now he reads well, enjoys it and has an amazing vocabulary. 

I would use a basic phonics book like Phonics Pathways or Alphaphonics,  in short (5-10 minutes, on the sofa) lessons daily, to make sure she really has the skills. Strong possibility school did not teach phonics or teach it well. Read lots and lots and lots of books together.  If she doesn't want to read right now, back off a bit and come back to it later, when you've done some solid phonics. Use audiobooks too. 

Be patient and persevere. Cultivate a culture of books and reading in your home. 

Don't let the school label your child something negative if she isn't ready to read yet. 

 

 

 

On 6/19/2018 at 11:53 AM, Tanaqui said:

Oh, yes. School-aged children should have their vision checked yearly, even if the parents don't think they've seen any sign of vision problems.

Yes, this too. More than what the pediatrican's office does, which is just a very superficial check for nearsightedness. 

[katilac]

If she's a common sense learner, it's easy enough to cater to that and get in practice reading and writing. 

Let's see what's on the shopping list . . . now what do we need to add? 

What does this note from dad say? "Do you want to go to the park?" 

You don't want anyone to eat the candy bar you bought? You better put a note on it. 

Scrabble or Scrabble Jr with someone being her partner. 

Looking for items in the grocery store.  

Keep reading to her as much as possible, it's incredibly helpful in the long run. 

If you do partner reading, keep it separate from reading out loud, which should remain completely fun and stress-free. 

And I second the idea of running through a phonics book from the beginning, there's no telling how they taught her at school. My oldest spent a month in kinder, and they CLAIMED to use phonics, but actually taught them to look at the picture on the page for clues and all kinds of stuff. Her reading skills regressed in a few short weeks. 

But for a practical kid in particular, you can't beat reading and writing notes. At that age, I got constant notes like, "mom gEt cheros" and "i am mad sis is mEaN" and I wrote many to them. 

I also like daily copy work, which doesn't have an immediate use to the student but can be done in a few minutes. 

[Petrichor]

I didn't read all of the responses, so apologies if this has been asked already.

Do you read for your own enjoyment where she can see you? Does she open books and "read" them even if she isn't reading the text? In other words, does she like books?

Does she have access to interesting books? Forward facing bookshelves/ledges are helpful for encouraging kids to want to pick up books.

My kid didn't read at 5, or even at 7. He started reading road signs at 7/8yo. I surrounded him with books (library mostly,) and I made a point of having reading time.

He resented being asked to read early/simple/silly readers (like bob books and similar) and would refuse to do them. He reads (on grade level) chapter books now (9yo) and every once in a while (less than monthly TBH) I'll check to see if he's understanding anything he's reading, and he does. We use a separate curriculum for comprehension (WWE) and I check for comprehension at times when I read aloud to him at bedtime.