Loy58 - I haven't had a chance to read the replies, but fwiw, my EG ds did not show any interest in reading for pleasure for a *very* long time. When he was in early elementary he consistently tested light-years ahead of his peers in reading level but he didn't read for fun, and he didn't ever choose to read fiction. What he mostly did was to look through non-fiction books (at all levels, picture book through college level) and only read whatever interested him. He never talked much about any of it except that a year or two after he'd read some bizarre off-the-wall trivial set of whatever he'd bring it up in conversation. When we tried to encourage him to read fiction he'd read the first page and decide it wasn't interesting.

The year he finally got hooked on reading fiction was 4th grade. He had a best friend who loved to read, and for some reason when his friend started reading Percy Jackson ds decided he'd read the same book just to see if he read faster than his friend. That's what it took to get him "past the first page" and those books are well-written and popular for the age ds was, and he was hooked. He read all the PJ books. Within a few days lol. Then he went on to another popular series, then another, and then he ran out of age-popular series and he was devastated. Since then he will go through periods of having his nose glued to books and not wanting to do anything else - when he finds a good story/series he loves, and long periods of time when he doesn't read anything except non-fiction.

For all that quirkiness, reading below ability level and not reading at all (not to mention reading more than a few books "backward" lol), he's not lost any ground in terms of being a highly capable, fluent reader. He started out light-years above grade level and stayed there. He started out reading quickly and still does.

So fwiw, I'd try not to worry about it too much.

What we did do with our ds, is what was recommended to us always by all of our children's elementary school teachers - we read to our kids for as long as they would let us, into upper elementary and beyond. That was the way ds was exposed to fiction for most of his childhood during the times he was refusing to read on his own.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - fwiw, ds is reading the Fablehaven (is that the name?) series right now. He's headed into high school next year. He could have been reading it (based on ability) back in kindergarten. His best friend fell in love with the series in 4th or 5th grade and kept urging him to read them and he refused, convinced he wasn't interested. He forgot to take the book he is currently reading to school a few weeks ago and needed something to read during silent reading time. There wasn't much in his classroom to choose from that he hadn't already read, so he picked up a Fablehaven book and read because he *had* to... and that got him past that first page and voila, he realized why his friend back in 4th grade kept telling him to read them. (I haven't read them, so I have no idea if they really are all that exciting lol!).