There are some great suggestions here and I don’t want to repeat.
One thing I’ve noticed with my grandchildren is the difference in response when children live in households where parents have eyes glued to a screen, as opposed to noses in books. If the adults in the household only read on screens, that makes books much less attractive to children, imho. It creates the idea screens are for adults; books are for children. All the children I know want to do what the adults are doing. fwiw.
If that is the issue (and maybe it has nothing to do with her lack of interest), and you don’t limit screen time, maybe get her her own kindle if she doesn’t already have one?
I am not sure how to solve this particular conundrum, but it is an interesting one to me watching the next generation.
If a first grader has a kindle, and you limit screen time, does that make reading on a kindle a more or less attractive an idea? Does this age group generally enjoy reading on screens, or is the lettering too small?
At what age do modern parents get their kids kindles?
Thank you all for these wonderful suggestions. I want to write a longer post later with my thoughts but I wanted to quickly make sure you all know how much I appreciate all your posts.
I second magazines. Do they still make Highlights magazine? And Puzzlemania? I always kept a few copies in the car and brought them into restaurants or on road trips. And I kept them by the dinner table too, especially for nights when I was busy in the kitchen and hubby was away. Anyway, try giving her some fun books to “read”. There are a lot of cool non-story books, such as maze books, comics, factual stuff, etc… Try some of those books featuring “gross” stuff, like where do boogers come from.
My son is dyslexic. He did love it when we read to him, but this got pretty old by the time he was ten, and I knew for sure that he could read, but didn’t want to. So I asked all of my friends which stories their sons loved, and everyone suggested the Alex Ryder series. I read the first two chapters to hook him, then told him he would have to read the rest if he wanted to find out what happened. He did, and six months later, out of the blue, he said he loved reading. Sadly, it hasn’t lasted. He finds reading a chore now and pretty much just reads for school. Girls and video games got in the way! I don’t think you should stress about it though. If I had thought of it, I would have totally made up reading logs too.
First grade, I think you check the basics, then wait and see. You can have a variety of reading level books out. But my brother didn’t like reading or being read to…until, quite young, he discovered schematics, instruction sets, etc. Then he was engaged with anything technical, including books on planes, discoveries, science, etc.
OP didn’t say what kinds of books. But I hope your attempts aren’t limited to girly girl topics, princesses, animals, etc.
My kids loved gothic novels, which were comic book style books with the same plot and vocabulary as the classic novels including Treasure Island, Count of he Monte Cristo, The Hobbit, etc.
They also loved choosing whatever books they loved. D chose by lovely illustrations on the covers or anywhere in the book. She was incensed because her 1st grade teacher decided she couldn’t read chapter books because she had never read picture books which she had NO interest in since she had been in my lap when they were read to her slightly older brother. Sure enough she was fluently reading chapter books by the end of 1st grad having bypassed picturebooks.
S enjoyed reading about magic tricks and playing chess. His teacher said she couldn’t understand what he was writing about in his book reports because she wasn’t a chess player but her BF was and S beat him regularly.
I do agree it’s important to let the kids d take the lead AND have eyes carefully checked out as there ARE eye conditions which make reading more difficult and less enjoyable.
Being a good example by reading a lot — all the adults in the household is great modeling as well.
Highlights is still in production as are several other options through the same company for different ages.
The one thing I would like to mention - while I support like others not forcing reading…I will ask - how much screen time is she having?? Including tv, phone, computer, tablet - it IS a problem if she is remaining sedentary with her head in a screen for a good bit of time each day. Even if she is “reading” something online…some ok, an overabundance, NOT ok.
Too much screen time can effect sleep patterns, vision among other things. Here is a good simple article about the pixel vs. book discussion - even if the screen is a Kindle.
Look at the Geronimo Stilton books. My son hated to read but loved these books. They have text in all different fonts and colors and are historical. He read the entire series! They are full of pictures and a lot of fun.
Perhaps mix up the kind of books you are reading at night? We generally read books to the kids which were more advanced than they were able to read on their own. While I have boys, we read to them all kinds of my childhood favorites, including Little Men, Anne of Green Gables, Swallows and Amazons series, plus some new favorites like The Penderwicks. One of mine loved stories with any kind of anthropomorphic animals – Mismantle series, Wind in the Willows etc. My younger one would be embarrassed to admit how old he was when we finally stopped reading to him at night, it had become such a source of pleasure and relaxation for him. That same kid was never much of an independent reader and we worried about that through middle school. An teacher suggested that he read along with audio books, and that broke his log jam and got hm reading for pleasure.
Maybe she just hasn’t found books she likes yet. Try different stuff - graphic novels, non-fiction, etc. You often hear about kids who hate to read and then discover comic books which they love. Don’t label any reading as bad (which some parents say about comic books or magazines) and encourage her to try reading different stuff.
I’m also going to plead guilty to fudging reading logs. All of them. Forever. Two kids. Years.
I couldn’t figure out a graceful way to say “we totally opt out cause it’s a waste of time” and not sound like a bad parent. I should’ve just put it in a program to automatically print with random results every Sunday.
You could have a kid like my D who loves to write her own stories but didn’t like reading other people’s stories. Her EC reading was centered on research during teen years–if “clouds” was a feature in her story then she’d read everything about clouds and climate.
I got into reading a ton of classics through “Classics Illustrated” comic books. (Older than age six of course).
Always lied about reading logs. I don’t feel guilty because I figured out early on that if I just signed off on whatever time the girls wrote, they would actually read more than was requested of them.
What books have you tried?
We always went to the library, once a week or at least twice a month, and I would get myself a pile of books and the girls would get themselves piles as well.
One of my kids didn’t really read books until the end of third grade, when Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing rocked his world and sent him into a happy, reading life. However, a book he absolutely loved in first grade was William Steig’s picture book, C-D-B.
“C-D-B. D-B S A B-Z B.”
He was six. Adored the puzzle of it. Kid grew up and went to Harvard. No kidding. If vision and other problems can be ruled out, try to take it easy.
If you have pets, I’d suggest finding books that correspond with the species i.e if you have a goldfish = Finding Nemo, a monkey = Curious George, dog = Clifford The Big Red Dog etc., and have you child read a bedtime story to the pet
i.e. middle of the day when the dog is napping etc. It doesn’t matter if she’s really reading it, or making up the words as she goes along,the idea is to get a book in her hands!
As for reading out loud…I loved every minute …
My mom gathering all of us onto her bed to read poetry.
A third grade teacher who would take time after lunch to read the class chapters from different books.
An eighth grade Algebra teacher who would have a Friday “bubblegum and story time” hour. Man, he was great–I think our class read more novels because of him than the English teacher ever got us to. The end was always…".and if you want more–go get it and read it"
An eleventh grade teacher who taught Shakespeare and since Shakespeare wrote plays–we played parts. Including some epic sword fights that almost ended the fun!
I hate being read to so much that it makes me want to scream. I know I’m not the only one. I felt like people were really not respectful of this when I was growing up (cough coug, talking to you Grandma…) and made me endure “story time” even though I always said “I’d really rather read this myself.”
Even as a toddler in the high chair my son hated to be read to or to read. It did turn out that he was dyslexic. The other issue he was later able to verbalize to me - why would I want to read about something someone else made up when my own thoughts are so much more interesting? He ended up liking non-fiction. He liked to read up and research things - nuclear power, trains, black smithing - he had a notebook he worked on for years trying to figure out how to make a perpetual motion machine. It made for some interesting Christmas present requests.
I don’t think pushing it with him would have done anything. He has an enormous vocabulary and an active imagination and being forced to read Little House on the Prairie or other such novels didn’t do a thing towards making him into reading.
I want to thank everyone again for the great suggestions and support. I am really grateful to all the people who have given me “permission” to fake the reading logs. I have been feeling more and more uneasy about turning something that should be pleasant into a chore and at worst, a fight. I’m going to stop that today.
You verbalized something that I have been only suspecting. It isn’t respectful of her feelings to force her to try to enjoy something just because I always thought of it as a rite of childhood. I will only read to her if she wants it and if not, I will find other quite time activities to share with her that she does like.
I have been bringing her to the library and allowing her to choose books. I have definitely not been limiting her to girly topics and I would be very happy to have her read any subject and any medium. I’m going to look into the magazines you suggested. I also think comics might be a great idea since she responds to art. Can you suggest any comic books that might appeal to a 1st grader?
Going back to your original post. As others suggest, don’t read from a book. Make up your own stories. Your own characters. My dad had a whole cast of characters and he’d get himself in some awful fixes–some of which I’m not sure he ever got out of. Sometimes he’d just laugh and say “got to wait til tomorrow for that one!”
My own stories were about a clan of beavers that were ALWAYS in trouble of one type or another!
The main thing is the bonding time. DON’T make reading a struggle.
