When/how did you child learn to read?

[Olive Tiger]

This is a big issue in our home right now. My son is 2 months away from turning 9, and still shows NO interest in reading. He CAN read, when forced, basic books...

I don't know whether to be concerned or just let it go or what. Help!

[mamacat]

IME with kids that dont enjoy reading things to try can be audiobooks with or w/o follow along - books about topics he enjoys that are at his level kind of left casually for him to find with lots of pictures and chapter books read to him that he enjoys slightly above his reading level. Does he read well enough to do whatever schoolwork he does? If so wouldnt push other kinds of reading but just try and foster that reading appreciation

[Olive Tiger]

Thanks Mamacat

He is OBSESSED with audiobooks. Classic audiobooks. He is happy to be read to for hours and hours and hours everyday. I'm talking complex, classical language... his language skills are very very high.

I and my husband also read to him, in total, for at least and hour a day (probably more like two hours)... also complex, classical novels and encyclopedias/learning books.

If he had his way, someone would be reading to him all day long while he draws or builds lego creations.

[forty-two]

I would be concerned about a kid who loves listening to books but resists reading himself - that something about the reading process is hard for him, decoding or vision issues or *something*. Because ime it's very unusual for a kid who loves books and is able to read well to *always* resist reading. I would want to rule out reading issues before assuming it's just a personality thing.

What kind of reading instruction has he had, and what age was he when was finished learning to read?

Eta: All the audiobooks and reading aloud is awesome - one of the the best things you can do for a reluctant reader , so that they don't miss out on the benefits of books - especially books at their comprehension level - while they are working on reading skills at a level below their comprehension level.

Eta2: Both of my girls have had a rough road in learning to read - some kids just have more difficulty than others, and need more intensive work to be successful than others, and it has nothing to do with the intelligence of the child or the dedication of their teacher .

[mamacat]

It sounds like he is just very audio and that is his mode for "reading" and you are ding ll the right things

[CelticJourney]

Originally Posted by Olive Tiger

This is a big issue in our home right now. My son is 2 months away from turning 9, and still shows NO interest in reading. He CAN read, when forced, basic books...

I don't know whether to be concerned or just let it go or what. Help!

Well, my husband was in his late thirties. I offered a special grown up incentive if he read a specific book and good ol' positive reinforcement kicked in strong. He just finished the trilogy that included the Three Musketeers (never knew it was a trilogy before that).

[Dandelion]

My second ds was very disinterested in reading on his own until he was 9-10ish. I thought he would never enjoy reading. I enrolled him in a summer reading program at the library and he found some series that were interesting, but still on the easy side, and he took off. He still goes through phases of being less interested in reading, but once he finds a book or series that he likes, he will read a whole book in a day.

[Aerynne]

I would take him to a COVD doctor for a comprehensive eye exam. The regular ones, even by optometrists and ophthalmologists, don't do anything compared to what the COVD doctors do. Even people who see 20/20 sometimes have other vision problems like visual aliasing, strabismus, convergence insufficiency, etc, that can make reading hard. My daughter has eye problems and is in eye therapy right now and I thought she saw fine because she did everything fine but it turned out she wasn't seeing fine. Anyway, if all checks out there then that is good but I would at least get a thorough vision exam.

You can find a doctor at this website

http://www.covd.org/

[milkmommy]

Cecilia was taught in school. She went from a non reader (basic letter and sound recognition) to reading at an advanced third grade level by the end of her kindergarten year... While I was happy she read well they pushed her way to fast and hard and it ended up sucking the joy of reading from her. We still struggle today at age 13 with her reading. She will only do it if forced for the most part. She struggles with writing as well.
Margaret is 6 I've been gently teaching her. We use a variety of sources but her two main programs are the Hooked on Phonics K program and her online Acellus.com first grade reading. The HOP allows her to progress fairly fast and she loves the trophies stickers and video lessons as well as little readers. The Acellus really slows down the phonics and gets then to really hear the sounds which I feel is much nicer for future spelling and reading of longer words. Both together have been great.
She is doing beginner level readers like the Tug and Pup books. as well as site word readers (Dick and Jane readers etc)

[sweetpeas]

One of my daughters learned to read from ages 5-7 (she started learning, at her request, at age 5, but it didn't "click" until she was 7), mainly because she's a huge perfectionist and th teacher in her class at church (who would be horrified if he knew he caused her any distress, he's the sweetest man!) would casually comment that she (and her sister) couldn't read yet and that drove her batty, so she was determined to learn so he couldn't say that. But she's VERY auditory and will choose to listen over read every time. It's just been in the last year (she just turned 13) that she's voluntarily read more than is required of her, for one thing, she loves researching things, so will look things up online and research it in great detail. Also, last summer I introduced her sister to Harry Potter, with Lexie & I talked about it, Ashlyn wasn't willing to be left out, I actually got the audiobook from the library for her, figuring she wouldn't read that long of a book, but she ended up reading the book rather than listening (not sure why ) and then read through the rest of the series. . . that seemed to be the "springboard" she needed, since then she's been reading Lord of the Rings, she reads MUCH slower than Lexie, but in MUCH greater detail, she'll stop and make "notes" so she remembers who's who, or what the scenery is like. She caught a lot of things in her initial reading of Harry Potter that I didn't catch until it became relevant later in the series.

So I think now, for some things, she likes reading over listening because she can "pause" more easily, and digest what it's saying.

From age 10 or so I required her to read "one chapter per day" of a book of her choice (if it was a book with long chapters we'd divide them in half), and randomly have her read books for history, though most of our history is audiobooks or me reading to them.

[Olive Tiger]

THANK YOU ALL for the replies!

You have all given me much to think about...

I have also booked my son in for an eye exam

[Little Forest]

Originally Posted by Aerynne

I would take him to a COVD doctor for a comprehensive eye exam. The regular ones, even by optometrists and ophthalmologists, don't do anything compared to what the COVD doctors do. Even people who see 20/20 sometimes have other vision problems like visual aliasing, strabismus, convergence insufficiency, etc, that can make reading hard. My daughter has eye problems and is in eye therapy right now and I thought she saw fine because she did everything fine but it turned out she wasn't seeing fine. Anyway, if all checks out there then that is good but I would at least get a thorough vision exam.

You can find a doctor at this website

http://www.covd.org/

Yes! OEPF is a good resource as well. http://oepf.org/page/map

Is the eye exam booked with a COVD OD? Good luck!

[mum2abby]

Some kids don't love to read and that's ok. Audio books, read alouds....they do help. My kids struggled at first but are doing better. They don't love reading and probably never will but that's ok. I'm not a huge fan of reading myself. I obviously read just don't devour novels and the such daily.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ValiantJoy07]

Dd1 is 8 and last year had no (zero) interest in reading or really even being read to. Reading was too much of an extroverted activity for her because of her little sisters, they were clambering to see pictures or interrupting read alouds. So I started getting audio books from the library and I she began to listen to them alone for rest time...outside while she played (they can take the CD player outside).
Then we got the Reading Rainbow App (subscription) and she began spending hours of the week reading (it reads to you) book after book after book.... in that time I was working on phonics and last summer I made a big push with next door neighbor sounds of be sure she knew all the rules (We used Progressive phonics, it's free and funny and we could zoom up the words on our kindle fire). At some point this winter she realized that she could read the words in the Reading rainbow app and she started picking up other books and reading them too. She has read through a few easy reader chapter books and she spends a lot of time curled up with books now. A year ago? No way!

She borrowed a few 4th and 6th grade level books at the library yesterday and was snuggled up with them working her way down the pages. I have no idea what her reading comprehension is, but she's enjoying herself, and she keeps going back for more so I'm not going to mess with it for a good while...

My younger two (6 and 4) are approaching reading in a completely different ways, and I think they may really take off with it at the same time (my 4/year old has had an interest in letters and known their sounds since she was 2).

Audio books and the Reading rainbow app seemed to open up the doors for my dd1, books have cool things in them! She has some vision issues, but seems to work around them okay when reading for now...smaller print is still difficult for her.

[ECingMama]

My daughter has been reading on grade level since K. I used 100 Easy Lessons. Being able to read at grade level doesn't mean much to me though as all the good kiddie books are at 4th-6th grade reading level.

My son is in K now and can read the first 35 lessons of 100 Easy Lessons. He's way behind where his sister was. His personality is such that he'll probably be reading at 4th grade reading level in 1st grade though. We'll see. I'll update in a year.