My son hates to read - he pretends to read when he needs to read or just reads a sentence per page and tries to fool you into thinking he is reading.
Reading is a core problem - it is affecting all of his school work. This summer he will be in a reading program and will also be working with a tutor on reading and math BUT right now encouraging him to read is a battle.
We got him a book that was an easy read, on a topic he would be interested in and read the book first and wrote little questions to help him keep on track with the book.
Still he read a chapter (about 20 sentences long) about a little boy catching a football and kicking it back longer than anyone ever had. Asked his what it was about and he said "someone was throwing a rock at the boy"
I am so frustrated. Suggestions?
Melissa
Has he ever been tested for learning disabilities? My almost ten year old daughter, and she doesn't have ADHD, couldn't read in third grade. It was very frustrating for her and me. She faked it well so it took a sharp teacher to catch it. She was tested and found to have a serious word processing problem. She spends half a day in LD because reading affects every single subject. Her self-esteem skyrocketed and she is now just a little behind her grade level in reading. Her problem was she had trouble putting sounds together. She knew the sounds, but not how to decode them into words. In two years she's gone from non-reader to pretty good reader, which helps her in all her subjects. This year she got all A's and B's on her report card. I highly recommend seeing why reading is so troublesome for him. I doubt it's that he doesn't "like" to read. More likely, he has trouble with it. Perhaps his comprehension is poor. That would make reading VERY tedious. Good luck. OlderMom38875.2684722222Does he like comix? Mine dd do, it helped her with reading a lot. She is 9 and she gets frightened every time I provide her a book, so start with easy poems, comix or similar.
I agree with everything they said. Some kids are really slow to read, but catch up later. Both my kids didn't really become good readers till gr. 3 or 4. Good call getting extra help for him. The more we push as parents sometimes the more they dig there heals in, getting some help from others is a good solution if thats the problem.
My daughter sounds like a carbon copy of your son...She is 10 and hates to read. It really affects her work as she never reads directions and guesses at what she should do in most cases. She's been tested for LD and has ADHD, a listening comprehension LD and a writing LD. She's on an IEP in school, gets tutoring, and does pretty well (has just passed all her end of grade tests), but still reading is difficult and miserable for her so she avoids it like the plague. I also have her signed up for a reading program this summer which she is not happy about at all. I try to get her to read each day out loud for about 20 minutes, depending on her mood. I also find ways to trick her into reading (like menus, etc when we are out). Often we take turns reading out loud w/paragraphs, and even words to make it more fun. Also, sometimes she'd rather do some word problems from work books than read from a book, so I'll give her a few and tell her if she gets them right (ie..she must have read and not pretended) then she doesn't have to read aloud. We have to change up our strategies all the time. The teachers and counselors say to do whatever it takes to make her read, and the practice will make it easier and then she will like it...still waiting for the 'liking' part but she is getting better, Good Luck
Do you have him read aloud to you? It's hard to fake it when you're listening to every word. Or, better yet, read together. With my step son, we take turns reading to each other a paragraph or a page at a time. Before we start reading, we look at the cover and flip through the pictures and "guess" what we think the book will be about. At the end of the book, we talk about whether or not we were right. Sometimes he recites the words from memory of reading the book before, but his mind is somewhere else completely. If I ask a probing question about what he just read, it brings him right back into it and lets him know he can't trick me.
To make reading fun, we set aside one night every other week and go to the library. I go get my books, and he gets to spend time exploring books alone, without the pressure of me waiting for him to pick something. Also, if the book has been made into a movie, we read the book first, then as a reward we watch the movie when we're done.
I also read a lot in my personal time. He sees that reading isn't something you HAVE to do, but something you get to do for pleasure.
Good luck!
Everything OlderMom and Treehuggenwench said plus:
I noticed that your son is having problems both with math and reading? Whenever I hear of a child having difficulties with both subjects, I want to know if the child knows (can say aloud and write) the uppercase and lowercase alphabet by heart (in both cursive and print, depending on the child's age), has difficulty spelling and may write complete nonsense words like "strded", can put sounds to letters, can rhyme words (could do this with ease at the end of kindergarten), and can spell sounds that you say aloud (like "er" and "able"). If your child cannot do these things with ease, then the child needs to be checked for dyslexia. I highly recommend picking only a dyslexia expert to test a child for dyslexia.
We have a similar problem here. Rebecca just finished 3rd gr. At the begining of the 2nd gr. she tested above reading level, the same in 3rd. But it's an ongoing battle at home to get her to read. She says, she hates reading, reading is boring etc. I let her pick her own books from the library, sometimes I pick them. I read just about every night to them before they go to bed, since they were babies. I myself love to read. Some books are so captivating to me that I read book 700 to 800 pages in 2-3 days. I have tried so many suggestions that her teachers gave me, nothing helps. What I really don't understand is, that every one of her teachers told me that she is an exceptional reader, and at home she will not read. On her grade card she had straight A's, only for bookreports she had a C, because won't read enough. What can I do to make reading fun for her?
Im open to suggestions, too.
We are going through a similar problem. My son just turned 8. He can barely read. Last week we went to an audiologist to be tested for auditor processing disorder and they found he has a middle ear hearing loss. We need to see an ear,nose and throat specailist. Righ now we are ruling out all these thing. The next is dyslexia he also had a difficult time learning his alphabet and recognizing them on occasion he also will write and recognize letters and numbers backwords usually the same ones like b and d and the number 5 and 2. Good luck and let me know what happens. Maybe we can be of help to each other.
I handle dyslexia testing in my building under the umbrella of regular education. I would check with your state to see what the guidelines are to identify a child as showing tendancies for dyslexia. You'll fine the state usually puts a ton of restrictions or guidelines. It is almost imposible to identify children that show the tendancies.
Educators are not doctors and we can not diagnose or say a child has dyslexia, we can only say that the child shows some characteristics of dyslexia. In our state it is very hard to identify a child under the special educ. umbrella as well. This is the frustrating part for most parents and educators.
I have found that students are much more likely to get help in the area of dyslexia if they come into the school system with a diagnosis of dyslexia from a medical doctor that specializes in dyslexia. For example, Scottish Rite provides testing.
I agree with Liilian. An expert that has the credentials needs to be the source for help.
How old is your child? How was he taught to read? Many reading programs don't stress phonics enough and teachers are left to try to supplement that in other ways. Whole language and context clues confuse children, IMHO. Many times children with weak vocabularies will have comprehension problems. I would definatley have him evaluated for comprehension problems and start over from the very beginning with phonics. Also, he might be internalizing what he reads and injecting his own thoughts and experiences in the answers, trying to relate to the situations.