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I'm looking for suggestions to help my 6 year old. We are stuck in an in between place in terms of his reading. He has the ability to read beyond the 3rd grade level but puts rules and limits on the books he will read. He won't read anything that he cannot finish in one sitting because he is worried he will either lose his page or forget what he has read before. This rules out most chapter books. He has lost interest in the subject matter of the majority of the shorter books in the kids section with the exception of graphic novels. He likes these but we have exhausted the collection at the library since he goes through them so fast. Any other parents working through this that have tips. I'm really struggling to find anything that meets his needs. I would really love for him to make the jump to longer books so I don't have to be checking out 30+ books at a time, most of which go unread. Thanks.

I let my DD pick out a book mark at Barnes and Noble when she started into longer chapter books. Since she picked it out she seems more inclined to use it. That would at least solve the place issue. Or, maybe he could use a piece of paper to hold his place. He could jot down a few notes on it to review prior to starting up the next time.

Would practice help. Ie. Start a book he can read in an hour but stop half way through for a special snack and go back after 10 minutes. Then extend the time. I can be a hard skill and their are times I go back to a book and can't remember anything until I have read a few pages.

You could try a book such as Winnie the Pooh that has self-contained stories within. Other ones are collected tales of Curious George and Thomas the Tank Engine.

Also Milly Molly Mandy and Teddy Robinson.

My daughter was like that. She loved complicated plots, which weren't found in picture books, but chapter books made her nervous. I think they felt like too much of a commitment (even though we read chapter books to her at night). Finally, I got a chapter book on her Kindle and bribed her to finish it. It worked; she got over her fear and then started choosing more appropriate reading. The other thing about reading on Kindle that helped is we can enlarge the font, which makes reading easier for younger kids.

I found for my DD6 letting her take the lead in when she wanted to read the longer/advanced books worked best. I think she could sense that I wanted her to move on from fairy/princess books and so resisted quite a bit (she is very self directed and independent). she also preferred advanced books with complex stories but wanted us to read it to her.
Roald Dahl books were the turning point - she loved them so much she picked up where we left off and has been reading longer books since (secret garden, the Penderwicks etc). She reads all the time but will alternate from book to book unless she finds one irresistible. It also helps that her older brother is an advanced reader and she wants to read (actually do better than) what he is reading.
Currently she is obsessed with captain underpants unfortunately!!

DS would not touch chapter books at 4 years old because he was scared of too many words in one page and the black and white format. But, he had moved on from picture books. So, I got him the kindle app on iPad and downloaded the book series that he was crazy about and was asking me to read to him - I also taught him to zoom in on the words so that the font size increased and the number of lines per page were so few to not be intimidating. This worked like a charm - he read a book per day on his iPad kindle app. I switched him to paper print books from the same series after some weeks and he was able to handle it. I think that this approach is worth a try. Good luck.

I was going to say...during my read aloud time at night with my younger son when he was in K, I would get a (fake) tickle in my throat right at a good spot and ask that he read for a minute or two to me...and then go back to reading. When we read at night he was snuggled right up against me reading along with me.

Other times I would (not tricking him) be so tired I couldn't keep my eyes open and he would suggest to me that he read to me...and then once I was snoring he ended up with the book in his bed (we read at night in mine) and would finish it. I would have him tell me the part that I missed (figured summarizing was a good skill). Later, would read the end before I returned it to our shelf or the library.

My son is very picky about what he'll read—some graphic novels have high lexile scores, and he loves those.