Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Picky reader suggestions...5-year-old boy

Have you tried the Mo Willems books? My twins LOVE them, and the first graders literally run to that bookshelf in the library to check them out.

Also, the loved the Scared Squirrel books by Melanie Watt.

Is it possible he has a visual challenge? This sometimes seems to be the issue with good readers who are relucant to read themselves, but prefer to be read to.

I guess my point about "Boys like..." is that while I certainly think it's fine to offer nonfiction and Capt Underpants, etc, I wouldn't get into the mindset that it's pointless to offer other diverse chapter fiction to boys. It may just take a while to hit on the right thing, or sometimes it's a maturity issues. DD has a friend who was not interested in reading really at all till about age 8, but now he's a major fiction buff. They kept reading aloud and kept trying different things, and actually it was Harry Potter that clicked.

I agree, I was just saying (since she was comparing her DD and DS) it's not unusual for boys to not as interested in fiction or chapter books so she could try more nonfiction if she hasn't already.

My DS9 liked Time Warp Trio around that age, I believe. And DK makes some really lovely encyclopedic-type books. How about some classic mythology? Is your kiddo into math? Life of Fred has funny stories along with math. (My son just read for the stories and never did the math problems).

DS just had his eyes checked by an optometrist a couple of months ago, and his eyesight was normal (DD needed glasses, though!). Is there something more specific I should be asking about? He seems to see well in everyday life, although we will watch for eye problems (myopia and astigmatism in relatives).

I do suspect that there is a bit of possible perfectionism going on - he doesn't like to read aloud. Although he reads very well aloud, he HATES being corrected on pronunciation (even though it is seldom necessary). Still, if I skip a word when I read to him, he will sometimes correct ME (LOL!) He's been correcting me since he was about 3, and that's actually how I started to realize what a good reader he actually was - he was following along as I read!

Sweetie - great ideas. I actually do the "frog in my throat" all of the time (great minds....)! This is how I usually get DS to read to me these days.

DH loves Harry Potter and DS has shown some interest in listening to the first book. We'll see how that goes (DD LOVED HP - read and re-read!). DS also recently asked to have an entire children's Bible read to him (took a few nights) - I cannot always predict what he will like at all!

I do occasionally "catch" DS reading (and I quickly and quietly walk away). I would simply like to see it happen more often.

I don't mean to compare DD and DS too much, but DD is an excellent reader (and they were "raised" very much the same way), so that formula "worked" for her. Academically, this has been extremely helpful. She reads constantly (fiction and nonfiction) and just knows so much from the simple act of reading. DS may actually be better at math in the long run (DD is good, but DS is a little scary-good as to how he reasons).

The suggestions are great - THANKS!

If he appears to track well when he's reading aloud and doesn't miss words or lines frequently, his eyes are probably fine. Some kids have convergence insufficiency. I mentioned before how DS was in an accident and had a sixth nerve palsy so one of his eyes was "stuck" for months. I finally got him into a neuro-opthamologist (after he had basically recovered and his eye appeared to track again) and one of the things she did was watch his eyes when he read aloud. She noted that his reading was fluent and his eyes were tracking together, so decided that his eye is probably fine now.

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!).

Fablehaven is truly not that difficult, but it is exciting. It's stimulating, not because of any tricky words, but because of all the puzzles being solved and magical creatures being discovered and interacted with.

I met the author when he visited near us, and he mentioned an exciting new series he's working on. It's about several kingdoms that each have different laws of physics. I thought that sounded interesting. If your DS likes science, that might be a series to look for in the future.

I'm afraid I can't offer any other advice, but good luck!

Thank you for sharing your experience, polarbear. This is reassuring.

I know you know this, but every kid is different. And it'll work itself out.

My PG son started reading books fluently when he was 3 1/2 and was devouring chapter books by K. He loved fiction, non-fiction, magazines, you name it. And he still does.

My dd started reading around 3 1/2, too but never really wanted to read a book on her own. I bribed her the summer before K to read one of the stink books and she read it in a few hours, but she wouldn't read again for me on her own and refused to participate in any kind of bribery. When she was first, she finally had a teacher who knew how advanced she was, and she assigned some incredible Newberry-winning books in 1st grade. She was required to read them and write a response. And by December of her 1st grade year, she'd read 6 long chapter books in class. She's in 2nd grade now and she just brought home her reading test and it's at 8th grade level. But she still rarely reads at home. We read to her every night and if we're too slow getting to her room, she'll go ahead and read, but otherwise she just waits for us.

If I were you, I wouldn't worry too much about it.