Our DS4 is the same with the not wanting to work hard if something doesn't come to him right away. We do the you read a page/i read a page too, and he scans the pages first to see which one might have a word he doesn't know, then he chooses the other page to read. He doesn't like sounding out words either. When he comes to a word he doesn't know, he'll try a few guesses based on what letters are in the word, but he doesn't try to figure it out by sounding out the word.
We have to remember to praise the effort too - that seems to help. I remember to praise the effort more on physical stuff, because DS is so very cautious, but i need to work at my praising the effort on the academic stuff too. DS4 also goes through phases when he doesn't want any help (especially with lego stuff), which is nice.
