Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy DYS DS7 Doesn't Like to Read

Great advice, hen27! We've started reading out loud to him and with him after reading all the posts on here. We also ask questions while reading to make sure that he understands what it is telling. Audio books is a good idea too. He doesn't need to be on a screen watching a video to learn something but listen to a story or subject he's interested in

Thank you so much!

My DD9 sounds similar. I recently had her assessed by a reading specialist who said she was reading at grade level and her resistance to reading was perhaps possibly related to ADD (just a guess on her part) - but this reading specialist probably has not worked with a kid like mine, she mainly works with kids who are trying to learn to read.

DD9 reads at grade level, hates to read unless it is a graphic novel, and loves YouTube. When I do find a book she likes, she will voraciously read it. The problem is, it's hard to find a book she feels that way about.

At this point, I have just taken to reading to reading her higher level books every night, and trying to keep her reading - anything. Graphic novels have been useful as she will read those and carry them around because she really likes them.

DS's teacher told me that he's definitely reading at least 2nd grade level and she was surprised to hear that he doesn't like to read. Maybe we just need to find the books that he's really interested in. We were just reading a book about ancient Egypt last night. At the end of the chapter, there is a chart showing the symbols that represented the English alphabets. After reading the chapter, he immediately started writing my DH's name and his name in the symbols. He also made his own chart showing all the alphabets matching the symbols. We probably should find books like this with graphics and things he likes (such as symbols, maps, flags) so he reads the text and have something fun for him to look at as well...

When my child was ready to read chapter books, he refused to pick them up because he was scared by a lot of black and white text and worried that things would be too hard for him because he only wanted to attempt easy things. I got him an e-reader and the e-book of the book that he refused to read because it had "too much text" on it. I taught him to increase the font size so large that each page had only a few lines of text. And that gave him the initial confidence to attempt chapter books. He raced through the whole series on his ebook reader using big fonts. After that experience, he has been reading mostly regular books because he no longer thinks that chapter books are intimidating. So, it could be that your son has a mental block to "too much text" in a page.

Possibly true. He does tend to avoid things that he thinks that are "too hard". He loves reading joke and riddle books because the text is short and they are funny to him. Large fond with graphics books may be the way to go

When my son was K-2nd grade he mostly read non-fiction books. I couldn't really get him to read chapter books. We had (still have) tons of big thick books about dinosaurs, dragons, animals, Ancient Egypt, you name it. The lexile level of these books are are way past "2nd grade' reading.

Keep in mind that most 'early' chapter books aren't great literature. In order to fit the genre they use limited vocabulary intentionally and short chapters. Early chapter books are fairly "new" genre. (Didn't really exist when I was a kid, and early chapter books were things like Frog & Toad.) Kids used to go from reading longer picture books straight to those now labeled for the 8-12 year old range. And while many kids find them a good stepping stone it's really not a requirement to learning how to read. Another good stepping stone for reluctant readers available these days are kids graphic novels.

Excellent point.
There is a series called "Boy vs Beast" that is supposed to be for reluctant boy readers. See if your son likes this one!
http://www.boyvsbeast.com

Thank you ashley. I'll show this to him and see if he's interested.