Our dd1 is 7.5yrs, she has decided she does not need to learn to read! she can read fairly well, but does not see a reason to continue, she would rather look at pictures! ive tried to get her excited about books but she is not interested, if she gets a word wrong she gets very angry with herself, and then wants to give up, she will sometimes read and make a word up to fit in and she thinks it saves her having to read it iyswim. weve taken her to the library to pick books out, but she again gives up, and cant be bothered, its like living with a teenager!!! Ive gone back over basic books to help build her confidence and then she will get cocky with it! As she is our eldest we have nothing to compare this behaviour to, any advise welcome. I really dont want to screw her up or any of the others for that
Well, you can she can read, what do you mean? How well? What are some books she can read with ease? What are some words she cant read? Can she sound out words more than 5 letter? Can she read "motion" "invention" "diction" (tion=shun) can she read "right" "might" "light" "fight"? Also keep in mind that children are like that and go through phases or have a really hard time in the beginning with reading. Not just in ability but in attitude. Its not totally out of the box behaviour that she's resisting. It could just be a phase, but you could get some books and require that she match reading time to TV, video game and/or computer time. If she wants to spend 40 minutes on the PC, she must first read 40 minutes. Or just mandate 30 minutes of reading everyday and coach her through her bad-temperedness. You could start working on Dolch sight words to help her build fluency and try Progressive Phonics websites (both Dolch and ProgressivePhonics are legally and perfectly free on the internet). She may need more direct or advanced phonics instruction or if your DD does well with sight words you could just come up with lists of words to learn by sight that include phonics. Allow her to read as many basic books as possible, to build her confidence. (Coach against cockiness, but allow confidence) If she needs to read every Beginning Reader Book in the library, so be it. Get her some beginning chapter books AND the book on tape, let her read along/skim as the tape reads. (You could try reading a chapter at a time on tape for her if the books arent available in audio format, let her read along as she listens)
I would teach phonics separately from book reading. Try Explode the Code. We did it last year, and my son LOVED it. I plan to use it again with my younger son.
I have a different approach to reading. Take it or leave it, if it's not "for you", that's OK. My goal has always been to teach a LOVE OF READING, rather than reading itself. Yes, my kids know phonics (can't read without a basic understaning of them!), but I've done very little phonic teaching. I'd back off, and just read lots of GOOD BOOKS to her. I mean the long novel kind. Start with "The Secret Garden". Try "Anne of Green Gables" or "The Wind in the Willows". You need to build up the desire to read in her again. She also needs to understand that it's OK to make mistakes.
thank you for your replies when i say she can read fairly well (probably wrong wording! she can read!), i mean she has finished LLATL blue and all those books, she cant read chapter books yet, but we have loads available, she struggles to read books with colour pictures in it, so black and white have been the way forward with her! how much reading per day should i expect? is it reading out loud or on her own? shes up to lesson 75 in teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons. thanks again
I would give her a half-hour of silent reading in her room daily. I wouldn't expect more than that. Let her read what she wants during that time, but tell her that it's NOT an option. Follow that up with you reading a chapter of a good book aloud. And that's all the reading I would do with her at present. As you study other subjects, you can have her read to you about those subjects, or read aloud sitting next to her, and have her follow along.
You just have to find something she will 'have to" read. with my oldest we had to get Captain underpants and the talking toilet.. there are great girls books out there you just have to find the thing that makes her want to read it so much she will get that desire. Mine had said "mom, I am not going t o learn to read because if I do I will have to read all that stuff!"pointing to is school work lol. So I found this wonderful discusting book and he took to it like candy! He ended up researching the author on his own and got every book the guy ever wrote! So, if she is pulling the I dont want to read card I would personally get a book that everyone is reading, Start reading it, and leave off to silently read or just plane get up and go away oonce you have her curiosity going. Do not say -- here you read it now-- that will spoil the fun! Make sure she gets the exciting tid bits , laugh a bit etc. I wish I could say the 7 going on 17 would go away but I now have a 16yr old who for the past ten years has had the teen girl attitude at times.
My advice might be a little different. I would say first finish up with the 100EZ. Take your time. If she doesn't want to read outside of that, that's okay. Or only picture books -- that's okay. In the meantime, just keep having read-aloud cuddle time. After 100EZ, then something like maybe Explode the Code (use the placement test). When he was that age, I got my ds books of the Usborne and DK type - lots of colorful pictures of stuff he was interested in (like bugs or sea creatures), with brief paragraphs and captions packed with information. Just gave them to him, no pressure to read it to me or anything like that. Find something she likes, and place around books on that/those subject(s) with irresistable pictures. If she only wants to look at the pictures for awhile, no problem! Has she had a thorough eye exam? Sometimes an eye problem can escape the notice of others but show itself in a reluctance to read - like my dh when he was that age.
I was also going to suggest getting her eyes checked. My 7 yo was a very reluctant reader until I got him Magic Tree House books and had his eyes checked he's farsighted and had great difficulty seeing the words on the page.
We had her eyes tested 6m ago and she has glasses now, they have helped her greatly Just got to find something which gets her excited! she likes space, the 'kite' bird, magic school bus, etc shes not very girly! Think i need to be harder on her, maybe she has got away with too much recently with a poorly new baby, dh off work and just returning, and my health not being great!
I explained to 6yo that Learning to Read was NOT optional! Period. No ifs ands or buts about it. Reading was required for 1 very good reason: "Because I said So!" We covered that before we took the first step into formal reading of anything. I promised to make it as painless as possible and we'd do a LITTLE bit everyday, if he promised to do his best each time. We approached reading as a team though towards the end I did have to 'pull rank' on him a bit and around lesson 15 he tried to really blow me off but I got on him hard for a few days and set him straight. Learning to Read was our primary summer goal so we could afford to not do Reading and Math every single day. If you're doing other subjects, you can probably allow reading to take a lull for a while, but if reading is all your doing, you should put your foot down about it. Try and finish 100EZ on up, maybe take a week off from formal anything and then make a plan together. Let her earn something she really, really, really wants by doing 1 lesson a day, for 25 days and finishing off the book. Pick 1 or 2 days a week where TV, Gadget and PC use is prohibited! The only media she can do is read and in the evenings listen to radio/cds. The problem may lie in the fact that she's "Getting away" with a lot more and now just pushing boundaries for the sake of manipulating you and her dad. 6yo and I have just finished The Reading Lesson, a book thats like a simplified version of 100EZ, its all black and white and it was a GREAT Fit for 6yo! 4yo refused to do 100EZ, he only wants to do TRL.
My 2nd child really hated 100 Easy Lessons, so we stopped that. She is also 7 and a half and not a huge reader. She wouldn't pick up a book without a fight and when she saw the Weather Fairy Books, she got excited and would read those. I require 1/2 hour every day, but I backed off on pressuring her. She was informed of our new rule of 1/2 hour and there was no room for argument. I set a timer, she reads until she hears it and then she is done. If she fights, there is a consequence, but she doesn't really get angry about it anymore. Not feeling the constant pressure from me to "READ, READ, READ!" has helped tremendously.
Comic books or graphic novels. Yep - pictures and words. Alexis had read a TON of them - we grab them at the library and she loves them. All different sorts. She also reads regular books now...but she still prefers the graphic novels.
Thank you Ladies for all your replies We are going to start using a lot of the ideas, I have just received the clp grade 2 books, reading to learn series Helping Hands and Happy Hearts, both of which she is very excited about, so fingers crossed they will work
Her not wanting to read could have nothing to do with reading....you may have hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the new baby! She is probably getting more attention in putting up a fight about reading that if she would just go quietly read like she should. Give her time, don't sweat it for a couple more weeks. Ask her to help you read things when your hands are full....my son always was proud to be such a big helper!
We had issues like this as well, Around lesson 75 in 100EZ lessons my daughter would actually start crying when it was time for her to read. I just about stopped using the book but hubby stepped in and said "finish". LOL. So we pressed on. My daughter finally stopped crying when she saw she wasn't getting out of reading her lesson. She did get a major attitude though. For those she got to visit the corner until she thought she could come back and finish her lesson without being ugly. She is now on lesson 93. She gets excited when she sees how much of the book she has finished and how close she is to getting done with it all together. It's been a LONG journey. To keep her motivated, We reward her for every 5 lessons she completes. I made her a file folder with two pockets inside. One for her reading chart, the other for her prizes. I use small charts and reward tickets from dollar tree. She puts a sticker on her chart. When she gets five, she pulls out a reward ticket and I stamp it. Then we take off to get her prize. Her first reward was the most expensive,a $3 book she was allowed to pick out. She was THRILLED with the fact that she could use her new skills to decode the words by herself! After that, we changed it to little things like an ice cream cone, or snow cone. When she finishes the book we are going to get in the car and SHE is going to donate it to the library. Our way of bidding 100 EZ lessons good riddence. LOL. She's excited about that as well. I love homeschooling. My point, Don't give up!! You and your daughter will get through this.
I LOVE the idea of letting them donate a book that they "had" to "triumph" over! Thats a great idea! I'll keep it for later, lol.
My son has always been a fantastic reader, but up until 5th grade he HATED to read. There was no reason to read when you have TV! My solution was to purchase both a fun book that he would, like as well as the audio book to go with it and have him read along to the audio book. Our first book was Call of the Wild in 6th grade and when he finished he looked at me and said "That was the best book ever!' Of course when he finished "Where the Red Fern Grows" he said the same thing, only with tears in his eyes. He even REFUSED to watch the movie because he said it would never be as good as the book. Now my son really likes to read, although he won't do it outside of school. I don't care. He knows the joy of reading a good book and any time he wants to he can know that joy again. So for us the love of reading came in the form of audiobook read-alongs.
My son (6.5) isn't into reading either. Sounds just like your DD. I'm not pushing at all, cause I don't want him to learn to hate reading. This year we're working on phonics. He likes his phonics program(s) (we were using readingeggs.com now we've switched to clicknkids.com) so he'll have a good phonics base when he is ready to read. It's totally normal for some kids not to learn to read well or show interest in learning to read for themselves until much later than 5 or 6 (one of my problems with the PS system) as late as 8-12. And when these "late readers" do learn to read-they tend to catch up to "grade level" rather quickly (a few months). It's much more important to me for my son to learn at his pace and love reading than force him to do it now and him hate to read for the rest of his life. It took some time for this to sink in for me LOL I went to PS, it's all I knew, but after reading about child development and different educational philosophies, it just makes way better sense to me than forcing every child to learn to read at 5-6 years old and all be on the same level and progress at the same rate....
