Too embarrassing of a question to ask my friends. I think a lot of my son’s struggles in class are tied to his lack of leisure reading. I’m trying to make a more conscious effort to promote family reading in the home, but I’m unsure of a good pace for a teen. How many leisure books do your teens consume in the summer versus during the school year?
Cordially,
Paula
I don’t think there IS such a thing as “normal”. My son never liked reading for leisure until he was an adult. Now he reads for much of his downtime. His sister read all the time for fun. My youngest goes through phases. Right now she’s super busy and not reading much outside of her class requirements. Last spring she had more free time and read quite often.
H and I are avid readers. We just read a lot as we always do, provide books for our D as requested, and the rest sorts itself out. Lots of teen boys are not that into reading, but they eventually find a balance. You can’t force a kid to like reading, but you can model good reading habits, even in this day of technology being the “cooler” thing to do.
FWIW, summers tend to be just as busy for D as the school year, in fact this summer was BUSIER. We don’t separate out summer reading-we just read.
Has your son ever read anything for fun? Comic books? Non-fiction? Fan-fiction?
Is there any evidence that he might have low-level reading skills in general? If so, you should have a meeting with the Resource Team at his school and set up screening for learning differences that cause him to process text more slowly than most other students.
Well said happymomof1. Try to make reading part of your home culture. We did that from very early on. Almost no TV, no games, no tv in the bedroom, books everywhere. We go to used bookstores and book sales often. Every room seems to have books in it somehow. Given all that, only two of our children turned out to be serious readers. They scored the highest. Our third struggles a bit. She is slower and hovers in the low 600s for the SAT reading after a ton of work. Just encourage any way you can. Don’t blame yourself, even if you stack the cards one way, there is always something else that will happen. Hang in there.
About 5 months ago I realized he was moving his lips when he read. He’s several years past that to be appropriate, so I made him stop doing that. Using test scores, I’d bet he’s 2-3 grade levels behind at this point.
He just turned 15.
I have two kids. One is a reader, one isn’t. Both grew up in the same house with the same amount of reading material available. The one that isn’t a reader never reads anything voluntarily. I couldn’t even get him to sit and listen to me read a book when he was little. He had no interest. His school required kids to have a free reading book with them at all times so that they could read whenever there was downtime. Somehow, last year, he made his one free reading book last the entire year. His grades in school are fine, so its not that he can’t read. But given the choice of reading or anything else, he will choose anything else. Because his grades are OK, I haven’t worried too much about it.
If he is moving his lips while reading in order to process it better, I would absolutely have him tested for LD’s. Forcing him to stop won’t help the underlying problem. My sister is mildly dyslexic but it wasn’t discovered until she was in middle school. Until then she muddled through-and back then teachers weren’t as aware of the issues. She was considered “slow” and it wasn’t because we weren’t readers at home.
We read a lot, as I’ve said. But we never banned other forms of entertainment. It sounds like you need to dive into this deeper than just insisting on his reading without moving his lips.
My daughter is like @sseamom’s son. She never read anything voluntarily until her twenties. She had no difficulty with school, and she had higher grades and SAT scores than her brother, an avid reader, did.
On the other hand, if a person is showing signs of trouble with reading, such as moving his lips while reading, he may be avoiding reading because it is difficult. That’s worth investigating further.
I would definitely have him tested. One of my friends who are a family of readers finally found out that their daughter was having trouble focusing even though she tested for 20/20 vision. She did eye exercises, but will never really enjoy reading as much as her siblings, because it tires her out.
My kids both love to read - both read mostly sci fi and fantasy in high school - and read one or two books a week besides what they had to read in school. They are very speedy readers and I am sure are reading much, much more than the average kid. The oldest now reads a lot of graphic novels and the youngest is currently reading tons of military history and theory. I don’t think it matters what you read, so if you can find something that your kid wants to read, that is enormously helpful. He might do better with magazine articles (Sports Illustrated for example if he likes sports.) Our house is overflowing with books and newspaper and we never watched much TV - usually an hour a night as a family.
But first do some testing.
Echoing: there is no such thing as normal. I didn’t really start pleasure reading until late in undergrad because I was so burnt out on academic reading. Now I’m a PhD student and essentially read for a living.
With that said, if you’re concerned I’d get him tested for reasons outlined above.
My D. was reading for leisure before HS. HS just killed it for her. So, from the age of 14 forward (in the past 11 years), she was lacking the reading for leisure in her life. I have to tell you, that it did not hurt her at all. She has many other interests outside of academics. She simply did not have time for reading for leisure after she turned 14 y o and she lost interest in this type of entertainment. Not everybody is cut out to be an avid reader. I am not one of them either, so I understand perfectly those who are not interested in reading for leisure. Well, it affected her vocabulary and her Reading scores in every standardized tests, except for the most important in her life - Medical Board exams. Thank goodness, no more Reading / Verbal section. But it was on the MCAT, and there is a way to overcome the low scores in Verbal section on the tests, one simply makes sure to get very high scores in other sections to compensate for lower Reading / Verbal score. It has worked for my D. Another point is, that the writing skills seem NOT being affected by the lack of leisurely reading at all. D. has always had superior writing skills and in fact, she had the highest section score in the English section of her ACT, which was whooping 7 points higher than her Reading score. Actually, great writing skills are very important and will pull the grades in every subject, and more so at college and Grad. school.
“My daughter is like @sseamom’s son. She never read anything voluntarily until her twenties. She had no difficulty with school, and she had higher grades and SAT scores than her brother, an avid reader, did.”
-Yes, my D. had much higher scores and was more advanced writer than one of her friends who happened to be an avid reader who easily would finish a book of 700 pages in one day. My D. also happened to have much wider interests than most of her friends and pursued each of them with great passion. Well, reading just happened not to be one of them. The difference is that my D. lost her interest at about 14 when many of her non-academic activities started taking much more time and she added few others and continue to be greatly involved in everything imaginable and beyond at college.
Reading does not seem to be paving a road for great academic success. Wide range of un-related interests worked for my kid who was not an avid reader.
All may children walk around with books. Both Ds (now college grads) and the 14 year old boy. We did force it a little bit on him (not necessary with the girls) by making sure there were no games in the car and only books during trips. He reads a mix of manga and science fiction/fantasy. I agree there is no normal.
My DS is dyslexic. If your son seems very smart but struggles with schoolwork, then he could have a Learning Disability. My son was very late to talk and his speech was not clear, couldn’t learn the alphabet song, and had tremendous difficulty with writing. With hindsight, I realized these are all markers for dyslexia.
My DS also has ADHD. Dyslexia and ADHD are often co-morbid. My personal (not necessarily proven) thought is that his brain doesn’t process sounds very well (hearing is fine but he can’t “hear” when there is a noisy background and he couldn’t “hear” the nuances of speech). Paying attention in a classroom requires tremendous effort and is exhausting for him. He is taking a heavy course load this year, and I am worried that it is too much. I never had the same concerns with my older son.
So if your son seems to be in another world some of the time, is very creative and a global thinker but has certain educational deficits like reading, learning rote material (like times tables) and has terrible handwriting, I would have him tested for dyslexia. (My public school system is well intentioned but diagnosing a very bright child with dyslexia was not something they could do.) Remediation and special provisions through a 504 Plan help, but the biggest benefit of a diagnosis for my son is that he understands why he struggles at times, and he no longer talks about how dumb he is. There are many successful people who are dyslexic. I have come full circle and think my son’s dyslexia may be a blessing as he is a tremendously creative and intuitive person. Good luck. You are doing the right thing in questioning your son’s struggles with reading.
1-2 books a week is typical for us, more during the summer. They started with Harry Potter way back, then similar books, then to more “serious” books in high school.
I have one kid who has finished at least one leisure book a week since she was 5. My other kid, I haven’t seen him voluntarily pick up a BOOK in, well, maybe ever. Not even in the picture book stage. We found out early elementary that he was mildly dyslexic and not so mildly dysgraphic. His 2nd grade teacher came to us when she couldn’t reconcile the student he was orally and the student he was on paper. Our focus had been on his host of sensory issues and because he WAS reading, we didn’t catch that anything was holding him back and frustrating him. He’s compensated well over the years and doesn’t need the accommodations he had in the beginning. He’s become an excellent student and doesn’t seem to have any issue reading a full book when required. I still think it’s more work than fun though. I will say that in the last year-and-a-half, he’s really taken to graphic novels, science/tech magazines and online articles (mostly on science.) In that way, he reads a good deal every day. Maybe this is a good direction for your son?.. less expectation on novels and more on multiple short pieces on his particular interests?
I agree with others. Get your son tested. Leisure reading will improve his ability just by shear repetition but certainly, at 15, if he’s struggling, there is likely something else going on.
How about audio books. I know someone whose son also disliked reading til they started borrowing audio books from the library for him.There are tons of great YA audio books out there. (Harry Potter is a great place to start if he hasn’t read it, and you are never too old for Harry)
With my friends son, he really grew to love books and ended up reading some on his own because the audio version was too slow. You can also listen to them in the car.
1-2 books a week is the answer at hand.
The simple plan is to read extensively to your kid, starting early and then get them to transition to reading on their own. A variety of things, including good literature is preferable, but it’s most important that they just read. Lifelong readers are more likely to have strong academic success.
I also agree to get your son tested. If my child had difficulty reading, I’d probably insist that they spend half an hour a day or so reading for extra practice.
I don’t think there is a “normal” amount for kids to read. My kids love to read and probably read about a book a week, depending on time available. Most of their friends do read a lot, but I think this is just because they are more likely to be friends with kids who share their interest in reading. My impression is that most kids read very little for leisure–maybe a few of the popular books the kids are talking about per year. Some of their friends who are honors students don’t read at all, or very little, for leisure and seem to do well enough in school, although I suspect it would bring down their standardized test scores a bit.
Simple for some, not others.
With my first kid, reading books together was one of our favorite things to do. And one day when he was four, I noticed that he could read on his own. (“Mom, you forgot to put cookies on the shopping list” was a dead giveaway.)
My second kid cried at every attempt to read to her. So much for that.
My 2 Ds are quite abnormal in reading, particularly D2. They both love reading since early grade schools. In summer, we usually pick up one large recycled shopping bag of books from the library every week. D1 started to do less leisure reading since grade 10 or so. D2 will be 10th grade and she would read around 5 books (1-2 inches thick each) a week in the summer. We have to force her to stop reading. In the reading assessment in middle school, D2 was far ahead of her level. The school did not do reading assessment in 9th grade so we don’t know how is her current standing.
One funny thing is our district library has a summer reading program. Young readers after reading 10 books or teen readers after 5 books will get a book as gift and $5 late penalty waiver. My Ds always finish reading and turn in the forms within a week.