Helping a Reluctant Reader to Enjoy Books

I’ve been busy leading a mini-workshop at church for the past couple of weeks.   With Dad gone and our church a bit far from home, the kids have had to tag along and busy themselves while I’m teaching.   A dear member and  friend noticed that the girls occupied themselves with books, and began her lament to the oldest regarding her young son and reading.   According to the oldest, her conversation went something like this:   “I can’t get E______ to sit down and read.   He doesn’t want to listen while I read.   I don’t know about his choices…”  

Admittedly, our son was never a “boy” boy.  I think that, between having a older sister who immediately asserted herself as a third parent, and having a brief stint in traditional school, he started homeschool with an understanding of what sit down and listen means.   If anything, the youngest, without that more formal environment as a part of her educational experience, is more antsy when it comes to sitting for extended periods of time.   But over the years, I’ve discovered a few ideas, even if I don’t have to implement them all, about helping a resistant reader take more interest in books.   These ideas are primarily for younger children, but the same theories work for an older child, if not the exact tactic.

1.  Capture your audience.   I sometimes read to our youngest while she’s in the bathtub.   The water’s soothing, and more importantly if your child is busy, he or she can’t go anywhere!    It’s a great opportunity to slip a book in, whether it’s a few pages or, if your child really loves tub time, a chapter of a longer book.

2. Busy the hands, but quiet the mouth.    When my husband “subs” for me occasionally, he gets offended that the kids are often doing other things while he’s reading.   The oldest is forever drawing her fashions; our son is choreographing a major production (at least that’s what it looks like from where I am).   The youngest is my snuggle buddy, but even she will pull out the Play-doh when she’s in the mood.   Once she made miniature food for her dolls.

The point is, even if the child does not look like they’re listening, but they are.   I picked up that tip from Sally Clarkson when she spoke of her ADD/ADHD son who listened in on a reading of the Trojan War, intended for his older siblings.   Ms. Clarkson was shocked when her son used his blocks, or something similar, to create a fighting scene from the book.   The key is, his mind was absorbing information through his subconscious; he was learning.

3. Narrate shorter passages.    If you test comprehension in some fashion (and not all reading should be tested for comprehension), an easy mistake–and one that discourages a child quickly–is to expect too much too soon.   If you have a child who doesn’t like to read, for whatever reason, and you choose to evaluate how well he/she is listening, consider using shorter passages, and more infrequent narrations.   I shared more thoughts on this in earlier post based upon a customer’s question.

4. Read books that interest the child.   I say this with a caution that we must be the child’s ear and eye gates before that child becomes discerning enough to turn away from some items.   I can remember years ago when a friend of mine shared how much her son loved the Harry Potter series.   You may have your own opinions, but Harry Potter is not on our reading list, and, until then, it wasn’t on hers, either.   What shocked me more than the reading of the books was why she allowed him to read the books.  “There aren’t that many books for adolescent (the term before “tween” entered our vocabulary) boys, you know?”   I’m thinking, so you let your kid read something you don’t approve of because of a lack of perceived options?

If there is one thing a Charlotte Mason approach exposes you to, it must be books–loads and loads of books.   I could list a number of books we’ve read for school, but I thought I’d share more of the “boy” books, which are suitable for girls or boys, that we’ve read as “free” reading or as a group read-aloud.   There are also selections here that our son enjoyed during that little boy and pre-teen stage.   The fact that several of these are series should in no way qualify them as twaddle.  Based on our experience, they are everything that a living book should be:

The Great Brain series by John D. Fitzgerald

The Three Investigators series by Robert Arthur (rewritten from the original Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators)

Goonie Bird Greene by Lois Lowry (a story about an elementary school girl, but hilarious enough for a boy to enjoy without thinking it’s a “sissy” book)

Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan

The Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis

Little Britches, Man of the Family, etc., by Ralph Moody (probably a simplistic misjudgment of his style, but I would equate the Moody books with the male equivalent of Laura Ingalls Wilder)

Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald Sobol

Billy and Blaze books by C.W. Anderson

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron

Henry Reed, Inc. series

The Toothpaste Millionaire by Jean Merrill

5. Use your voice.  One of my favorite Charlotte Mason mentors, LindaFay, states this much more eloquently than I would.   The point is, use different voices for different characters; make your reading slow enough for a child, especially a small child, to capture your words.   Make the book live and breathe for the child.

Once you spark an interest in reading, and it may take time and patience, you can continue to set an environment for reading by placing books all over your home, especially those with attractive covers.   In that way, you potentially steer your child’s interest away from television and other attractions, and more toward books.   Most importantly, role model the fun of reading by reading yourself.   Just 15 minutes a day can change your life.    From EzineArticles.com, ‘the average American reads less than 2 books per year- one and a half to be  exact, with almost two thirds of those going unfinished.  On the whole,  Americans have lost the habit of reading good books…CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies  read, on average, roughly FOUR BOOKS PER WEEK!  That equates to about 200  times the average for the rest of America,…’       Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/845

God bless you!  Happy reading!!

Quality, not Quantity, in Reading

‘And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham’d of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school, I took Cocker’s book of Arithmetick, and went through the whole by myself with great ease.    I also read Seller’s and Shermy’s books of Navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they contain…While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English grammar (I think it was Greenwood’s), at the end of which there were two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon after I procur’d Xenophon’s Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there are many instances of the same method.   I was charm’d with it, adopted it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put on the humble inquirer and doubter.’

Benjamin Franklin, from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

 

 

‘Being well-read isn’t as much about how many books you read but is [about] the quality of your reading.’

 

M_____ Bullard, from a written narration of How to Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler

Summer Reading

Do you “school” all year around?    We do.   We never cover all of the classes, but the kids are required to complete math on 3 days/ week, and to read for 1 hour each day.   In the summer, that reading time looks totally different than during our regular school year.   I had taken shots of the kids during and after the hour’s reading period, and thought these were worth sharing.

Even the dog thought this one was different.

Six weeks left until we get off to a more formal start.   I wonder if they like this way better?!  

The Do-Nothing Summer

This post could have just as easily have been entitled “Second Week of Summer,” but my heart is not to document how we spend each week of what I anticipate to be a 10-week break from our school routine.   But this was a week of “ah-has,” as we called them in my corporate days–the point at which I had to heed to the teachable moment.

It happened quickly, as teachable moments often do, and I was left to marinate what the moment meant to me for days afterward.    After picking up the oldest from her volunteer work, I had to run inside a grocery store.   I had all three children with me when we ran into a friend from church.   She immediately recognized the oldest’s volunteer jacket, and they had a brief dialogue about how much the oldest was enjoying her opportunity.    Then our friend asked our son, “And what are you doing this summer?”    With all the honesty and candor of a child, he replied, “Nothing.”    She played it off well, saying that “nothing can be good sometimes, too,” and I smiled in agreement, but inside I was crushed.   (Gasp!!)   My child saying that he was doing nothing this summer?!!

 Of course, he is not actually doing nothing.    We’re completing a minimal amount of school.   He and his dad are set for a record to see every superhero movie out this summer, and he’ll attend a dance workshop later in the summer.   However, given that I normally have camps planned and at least one trip in the works, hearing him tell someone that he’s doing nothing was awkward.   It’s like when someone asked your homeschooled kid, who might have a 7th grade science book, a 6th grade math text, a 5th grade English workbook, and read on a 10th grade level, what grade he/ she is in.    When the kid replies, “I don’t know,” it’s just not a good look.

While this short scene marinated in my mind, it occurred to me that I’d been so psychologically preoccupied with getting the oldest’s plans and activities in order until I let everything else go.   Moreover, her daily activities are taking over our summer such that I have a hard time sitting to think  and accomplish other tasks.   To begin with, during our more formalized school time, I normally wake up when my husband awakens, but I don’t get up until around 7:30.   This gives me–in theory–at least an hour by myself before I awaken the kids to meditate on the Lord, have my own worship time, get a headstart on breakfast, or catch up on some last-minute project from the night before.   Summer was supposed to be more-laid back and relaxed.  Instead, I now have to get up every morning by 7 a.m. at the latest so that the oldest can get to school on time.    Even on Fridays when she has no class, she’s taken on extra volunteer opportunities, and so I’m still up early to have her in place.   And almost all the flexibility that homeschooling allows into our schedule is gone as we adjust ourselves to having to meet others’ time and deadlines.   

 

So our younger two are left to their own devices this summer–at least, so far, and I’m having to learn re-learn a few things, too.   1st lesson: it’s okay at times to have nothing to do, aka Miss Mason’s “masterly inactivity.”    I love seeing the kids turn off the television on their own.   Our son, a huge fan of author Rick Riordan (of “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” fame), has taken on the task of an avid reader–to read what his favorite authors read, and thereby to gain more insight into their perspective.   So, there are long periods of the day when we don’t see him, but I pass by to be sure that he’s still breathing.    I often find him on his futon with his head in a book.

 

The youngest could come up with a brand new project, complete with its brand new mess, about once per hour, if I let her.   But, with her time, she created a family restaurant out of all the chairs and tv trays in the house (and she accidentally deleted my picture of it), where we decided to eat and have dinner once per month.   She’s learned basic sewing stitches well enough to make purses for her and her dolls.     Today, she made a tent of quilts and chairs where she and the dogs could nap, in case she actually takes a nap, which would be enough reason to take a picture.

 

 

 

I can be taught, too.   I can learn that I don’t have full control of my schedule as I accustomed to having, and that’s okay.   I can sew.  I can read.   I can plan.    I can work.    I can even take a mid-day nap.   Wow, this do-nothing summer might just work out after all.