This past November we celebrated Kenny’s first year of reading. When we started he was definitely a reluctant reader. Watching him go from only reading his ONE required book a day, to reading a stack of books in a day, was a fun and amazing journey to watch!
From reading one easy-level book a day (which required just a few minutes) he began gaining confidence and speed with his reading. During the summer we joined Summer Reading Program at our library, and soon he was reading several easy reader books a day. Now he loves to read! Every child’s learning journey will be their own, so I’m not setting his number of books up as an example, just simply sharing how things went for him, and some tips that might be helpful to someone else here. 🙂
At his one year anniversary of reading he had just turned 6 years old and had read 502 books! We documented it in picture form to celebrate his accomplishment. In order to get the pictures in this post, we had to check out 200 books from the library, and we used 4 different library cards to do it!
{Real quick, I just want to highlight the method we used to learn reading which I posted about here: “Teaching Your Child the Alphabet Before Kindergarten” and Step 2 here: “Step 2: Teaching Your Child to Read Before Kindergarten”.}
Here are some ideas for you to use with your little reader!
Start with a book a day.
Pick books that are right in their current reading level whether that means one-word-per-page, or beginning chapter books. Let them know that as part of their daily responsibilities they are to read one book (or 1 chapter) each day. That’s all that is required. If they want to read more they may, but they are required to read one.
Let them read books that feel “easy” to them.
After Kenny had leveled up to a 2nd grade reading level, he still wanted to pick the Kindergarten level books at the library. Why work hard when you can you breeze through something, right? At first I was encouraging him to pick more challenging books, but he wasn’t interested. He just wanted something with few words and lots of pictures. And do you know what I realized? Reading is reading. Easy readers still made him a better, faster reader, even if he could have handled something a bit harder. With a reluctant reader, it doesn’t matter what they’re reading, so long as they ARE reading every day.
{As a quick side note, when your kids are just venturing into reading and they start looking at words around them, casually leave things for them to read. If they’re looking over your shoulder while you write your grocery list and sounding out words, it doesn’t matter if you only needed eggs, milk, and butter, keep writing out grocery store items until your list is long, just so they keep reading. Leave them little notes “Kenny, you’re doing great at reading!” “Addie, do you want to go to the park today?”, etc.
Sometimes I will grab a piece of paper and write a really easy word like “pop” or “big” or “dot” and say, “Betcha can’t read THIS word.” They will quickly sound out the word to prove they CAN read it, then I write another, “What about this word? This word is probably too hard for you.” And the game keeps going as I add more and more words to my paper.
Different things work with different personalities, so if they don’t jump in on your little game play, don’t worry–just move onto something else. The idea here is just to get them reading outside of books. Any reading will build their confidence and speed. Constantly reading the words around us did create an interesting story when Kenny was younger. We were in a public restroom and he said, “Mom, what’s a Taaamp-on?” sounding it out nice and clear for everyone to hear. Oh boy!}
Allow them to pick out their own books…
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(…but stash a few that you think they’ll love in your library bag too!)
My kids loooove to pick out their own books at the library, so I let them. But I also hunt around and choose a few to bring home that I think they’ll enjoy. Something that will make them laugh, or something that’s about a subject they love.
The books I choose are usually a big hit with them after they’ve looked through the books they picked out. 😉
Celebrate each book they read.
This does not have to be excessive or overdone, but help them know how proud you are of their accomplishment. Make a list of the books they’ve read as they read them. You can jot them down on a paper if you want, but I like to keep track of them in lists on my computer. I’ll say to Rick sometimes (in front of the kids) “Did you know Addie has read 52 books now?!”
Sometimes I let them type out the titles themselves, and they always love this too. Little children are quite simple and get joy out of things that are ordinary to adults. Take the time to let them do small things like this and they will begin to engage with the idea of reading being an achievement and something they can be proud of!
Seek out what they show interest in.
If they find a series of books or a certain subject they like, go out of your way to find more, even if you have to go to a different library or order a few books online. My kids got on a big Curious George kick where all they wanted to get at the library was Curious George. We quickly got through the 10-12 titles that our library had, so we went to a second library to find more. Thriftbooks.com also has lots of books for great prices, so we buy a lot of used books that way as well.
Reward reading with… MORE reading.
So here’s the thing, the same child that might grumble and complain a little every time you pull out their reading books, could have a complete change of heart when you hand them a set of their very own books! When we did Bob Books with Kenny (at age 4) he went through a phase where he would only read his one required book, and that was it. He didn’t want to do any more than that, and he made that quite clear. But the day he finished his first Bob Book Series and I rewarded him with his own small set of Bob books (a series he didn’t have yet)– he sat and read right through several in a row, and he carried that little box of books he had earned all around the house with him. You would think he loved reading! But he really just liked the idea of owning his own books. 😉
Save certain books for “reading time” only.
Put some books up high in a “special” spot instead of on the shelf with all the other books. Don’t let them look through these books ahead of time. If they haven’t already flipped through the pages a half a dozen times they are much more likely to be interested in the book. We do this with our Usborne Phonics Readers. The Usborne series is what we graduate the kids to when they complete all the Bob Books, so we keep it out of reach until they are ready to go through that set and read it themselves. It’s like having brand new books to read!
All of this can be summed up like this. To help your reluctant reader you need to…
Create a positive experience!
Creating a positive experience means that your reading journey with your child needs to be as stress-free as possible. If you pile a mountain of high standards and goals in front of your reluctant reader this will backfire and they will likely burn out and dislike reading even more. So take a deep breath, make it as fun as possible, don’t say things like “He doesn’t like reading” in front of your child— give them easy-to-accomplish steps that move them toward the end goal—And as always, don’t compare your child to other children. A few minutes of reading practice a day is all it takes to move in the right direction!
Teaching kids to read well at young age is so rewarding and very beneficial in many ways. Some people strongly believe you should wait until children are older to teach reading. However, I believe (and have experienced with three of my own children now), that if you keep the experience positive, there is simply no reason you have to wait until they are the “right age” for reading! To put this in perspective…at the time we took these pictures, had we followed the traditional school age ideals of when kids should start things, he would have just been beginning to sound out one-vowel words in school. Instead, (because easy steps lead to huge accomplishments) he was already 502 books strong into reading, and flying through 1st grade! Again, this is not a point of pride, but simply a plea to not hold your child back based on what is considered the “right age.”
You can do this, and they can too!! 🙂
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