Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy READING blues

well, thank you all for the ideas & thoughts!

I have not had him tested, because when I bribe him, he reads just fine! And during our 20 min. he reads like a river, sounds out hard words, ask what more challenging themes mean... just a normal little reader.

I am looking for creative ways to spark his ENTHUSIASM... if it can be done. I believe he could be doing much better given the desire to practice, there's just little motivation.

He began reading Charlie Bones and was very enthusiastic, but the book was just out of his reach. He was very committed to read these harder books for himself but it became clear they weren't a good fit.

After that, we moved down to the Dragon in the Sock Drawer. He loves the adventure, science fiction type books/stories - but is LAZY in reading them.

He'd rather be playing with his friends, engaged in sport, doing math or origami... drawing... pretty much anything other than actually reading the story. Although, will do so on long car trips (which are infrequent as we live in a small town).

I tried getting illustrated books at his lexile level to see if maybe a break from chapter books would do the trick... a little but not to what I had hoped.

I guess I'd like to see him just work to his potential but his lack of desire prevents this, I think.

For math, he'll lay in bed before he goes to sleep and jump up and request to be taught this, that & the other thing and then practices it until mastery (which isn't long).

How do I get anywhere close to this for reading?

You may not ever get the reading to match the math, if the passion is not there. Or he may just be learning in spurts, and some day he'll switch his interests. I don't think there's any one magic trick to make your kid into someone who enjoys reading. And sometimes it just takes time. Our DS7 will read in the car for long trips (and it turned out to be lucky that we switched to a school that's a 45 minute ride each way, so he'll read). Otherwise, there are many other things he'd rather be doing. He will also spend a lot of time reading wiki entries about his favorite pasttime, Minecraft. So he is getting reading in, just not high quality literature! We encourage him by reading a lot ourselves, getting lots of different books from the library we think he'll like. He's enjoyed the Life of Fred series very much (which is math). The Penrose the Mathematical Cat series is fun too.

thanks... we were just looking on amazon - he wanted origami. tunnel vision.

thanks for all the thoughts. I ordered some sir cumference books... and 2 origami's with the deal that more reading comes with more origami!!!

We shall see... we shall see.

My ds9 also doesn't like to read all that much - which is weird, because my three others do. His brother and one sister just read constantly. Ds9 is more active and "hands on" and he loves math and is very good at it.
We've tried for years to get him to read and it IS better, but he may never love it as much as the others. Even math, for him,is best done while moving
One thing that has really helped is good magazines. I let him read at breakfast and lunch (if he's home) and I bring them in waiting rooms and the like. Look at Carus publishing - ds loves Muse, Odyssey, Calliope... they're challenging, interesting and short.
He also enjoys books-on-CD. I get them from the library regularly and we listen whenever we go somewhere. He does like when others read - he came home from school on the last day and immediately asked me to go to the library to get the book they'd been reading aloud but hadn't finished. Sometimes with kids like this I think you need to "spark" their interest a bit (whereas the others will read a label, a loose piece of paper, a boring article, anything!).
Oh, and as others have said, he really did like the LOF. Now, I'll admit, he's a bit lazy too, and he wasn't working out the problems, but he did read it for hours the first day the new one came (not new in the series, just new for us).
Another thing I do is get tons of books at the library and leave them everywhere. I mean, I'll get 20 or 30 that I think he might like, and if he enjoys two or three, I'm happy (on his own, he struggles to pick out one or two).
I also recommend comics if he enjoys them. Ds9 loves Calvin and Hobbes, Zits, all kinds of things. My older kids have old books and he can read them for hours. I truly think Calvin and Hobbes has taught him vocabulary and he's developed a wicked sense of humor.
Keep trying. I don't think that there's a magic bullet, but by my constant "throwing" things, a few have stuck and he's now occasionally reading even when it's not the forced half an hour before bedtime!

I too have about 30 books checked out at once. I always have fines as a result of it!!

I am going to invest in LOF books, can you recommend a good one to start?

He has those Times magazines for kids and on occassion will want a Highlights, but he likes the facts of Times more, I think. I think leaving them in the car with some other books will be my next step.

I think Calivn & Hobbs is a GREAT idea... it's our sense of humor too and he'll really appreciate the illustrations and cheeky-ness of what they offer.

So funny, after all these posts today, we briefly talked about moving away from the "20 min." and reading to enjoy and just spending more time doing it.

He read Judy Moody for 30 min. and just now wanted extra reading time before bed!?!?

This is lower than the range his teacher recommended but at this point, WHO CARES, seems like a great start!

Will go to library tomorrow for C&H... thanks again!

He loved Calivn & Hobbes! When I let him wander around our dinky bookstore today, he was searching for origami books and how to make bracelet books.... the world's best jokes books... I'm willing to let this jump start the enthusiasm.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

We have the same problem! DS8 is all math, and says he's "not a fiction kind of guy." He likes to read math textbooks, and textbooks of any kind (just renewed a college physics book at the library, which he has to have because it's two editions newer than the identical one that we have at home), dictionaries, books on paper airplanes and origami and magic tricks and science experiments. He also (don't tell him comics are fiction) loves Calvin & Hobbes, Garfield, Heathcliff, MAD Magazine books like Spy vs Spy, and those sorts of things. That's what he's doing this summer, so far.

Luckily, the school has an excellent summer reading program in the interests of cutting down on summer regression, so he feels fairly motivated to try for the prizes. Getting him to write it all down for the program is another thing, however.

You might intise him to read more with his interests. Some suggestions are books on magic tricks, Legos, Yo Yo tricks, castels or Math.

Mental magic : surefire tricks to amaze your friends / by Martin Gardner ; illustrated by Jeff Sinclair. Gardner, Martin, 1914-

Secrets of mental math : the mathemagician's guide to lightning calculation and amazing math tricks / Arthur Benjamin and Michael Shermer.

The fractions book is the first in the series that is available now. I understand the story line starts there, so until the earlier elem books come out in a month, fractions would be the best starting point for LOF. We do like Ray at Horrible Books - free shipping and awesome service.

We have had so much success in the past few days! I moved away from the time and just said, "well, we're going to read..."

He read Judy Moody and has been flipping through Calvin & Hobbes and other magazines.

I checked out a card tricks book - after 35 min. or so of reading, he turned to this and mastered his first card trick.

Makes me wonder why I didn't think of this earlier?!?

Waiting for the Sir Cumference books, LOF will be next and mental magic & secrerts of mental math.

Thanks so much for all the great recommendations!