Ideas for Reluctant 8th Grade Reader

[Paige]

Deleted

Edited October 26, 2021 by Paige

[Lori D.]

Perhaps doing some of your Lit. together aloud and just discuss in the moment as you see things you each want to talk about, or sometimes later, while driving or at the dinner table. The reading could be buddy reading style "you read a page, I read a page", or listening together to an audio version. Also, what about making doodle style "sketch notes" while listening to capture key elements of what is going to aid memory? And you could gear the amount of focused Lit. such that she could still do her high interest reading.

Or perhaps the focused/deeper part of your Lit. study could be short stories -- short, so much easier on the attention span, and practice digging into the stories. Also, there are a lot of crazy, quirky short stories out there, so that could be fun and click with DD's interests. And again, you could gear the amount of focused Lit. such that she could still do her high interest reading.

Or, Movies as Literature (Stout) or Cinema Studies for Literature (7 Sisters) are programs similar to your option #4, but inexpensive and can be done at home together.

Or, maybe she's not ready for more formal Lit yet, and you could just do Figuratively Speaking aloud together, about 20 minutes to do 1 lesson a week, to start learning about literary devices and how they work. And couple that with taking a bit more time with your option #1 -- maybe on 1 book per quarter, and take time to dig in and do activities -- but don't drag it out so long that she ends up hating the book and hating the idea of looking deeper at literature.

Or, maybe a live classroom and discussion would help "pull her along" through books that she's not fond of. But, she may not be quite ready for that to actually be of help -- in my Lit. & Writing co-op classes, that helped for the high school students with LDs or attention issues, but sometimes it didn't work for the 7th/8th grade students with attention issues or LDs -- they just didn't have the needed brain development in the needed areas for the class to "pull them along" and would give up on the book.

Just some random thoughts... BEST of luck in coming up with what clicks for you and DD! Warmly, Lori D.