Reluctant Readers - Children Who Avoid Reading Like the Plague

I have worked with several families recently who have a reluctant reader. The child seems to have no interest in books or reading, and when the parent asks the child to work on reading skills--from letter sounds to attempting to read aloud--the child responds negatively.

The parents are at a loss as to what to do, and certainly, their child senses the anxiety and frustration the parents feel, leading the family into a vicious cycle--the parents know the child needs reading help, but all attempts make the child even more distant and less interested in reading.

What should a parent do? Well, first, try preventative measures when your child is an infant. Yes, an infant. While I am not promoting teaching phonics to your 3-week old child, setting the stage for a positive family reading environment is critical for a child's long-term success and it is fairly easy to do.

1. Read to your child daily. Don't just read before bedtime, as some children will create a negative association with reading because they do not want to go to bed, so when the books come out, a child will reason, "It must be bedtime and I DON'T want to do that!" Reading at various times of the day shows your child that reading is an integral part of daily life, and not just something we do at the end of the day.
2. Choose age-appropriate books. Your infant won't even be able to discern pictures in a book, but she will love hearing your voice and enjoy the special snuggle time with you. Toddlers may need shorter books, like board books and picture books with limited text because they have limited attention spans. If you notice your child losing interest in a book, it is okay to make up the story or cut out lengthy text. The point is that your child is being exposed to a wide variety of high-quality literature.
3. Take your child to the library. Give your child both structured and unstructured time at the library. Structured time includes Story Time (usually offered for free), book selection, and sitting down to read a book with your child. Unstructured time allows your child to wander freely in a designated area, to explore the books and activities that the library offers, and to be able to self-select books.
4. Establish a daily silent reading time. Turn off radios, TVs, computers, and video games. Allow your child to choose her books and then sit down, for at least 20 minutes each day and read. Children who do not yet read independently can do quite well "reading" picture books and stories that you have read over and over.
5. Tell stories. When you are driving from point A to B, or are on a long car trip, tell stories to your child and have her create her own.

While these ideas may be fantastic if you are just starting out or your child is still in preschool, what do you do when your child is entering first grade and she really seems to dislike anything related to reading?

Repair the "holes" in your family reading patterns first. This means that if you currently are not doing any of the above suggestions, you need to start, and not all at once. Begin by getting your child excited about the idea of having her very own library card - then take her to the library and explain that she can choose any five books that she wants and you will read aloud each one of them to her. No strings attached. Do not interfere if she chooses magazines, board books, or books all by the same author. Also, if she prefers only science-related non-fiction books, then those are the ones you borrow.

After you have created a reading environment in your home, then you can begin helping your child learn to love reading.

Here are some tips for helping your child learn to LOVE reading:

• Set up a reading center in your home. Purchase a CD player with headphones and borrow or buy "books on tape" for your child to listen to at his leisure; include a child-size book case in which your child can choose books to read at any time throughout the day. Put a small table and chairs, a bean bag, or pillows in the reading area to make it special and appealing to your child. Encourage as much input about the reading space as possible from your child.
• Subscribe to a children's magazine or get them for a discount at your library. Your child will delight in the idea that each month he gets something new, especially for him!
• Buy books as gifts and anytime you feel inclined. In our home, books are like food - they are vital for life, so anytime we are shopping, if my son asks for me to buy him a book, I will. I certainly have parameters, namely that it has to be high-quality literature or really aligned to his interests, but sky's the limit with books.
• Encourage your child to select books he reads. If he is a reluctant reader, don't put parameters on the kinds of books he is "allowed" to read - not just yet. If he wants to read a book version of a recent children's movie over and over again, go for it. The idea is to help your child establish a positive relationship with books and reading.
• Create a reading chart that lists a monthly reading goal. In the beginning, the goal should not be about quantity; rather, it should be about variety. For example, the goal for month 1 might be to read all of the Marc Brown books you can find. Or, the goal may be to find books about butterflies - from fiction tales to nonfiction science books. On poster paper, write the title of each book you and your child read together (i.e., you read aloud to him), and after you finish each one (remember, you can shorten the text, cut out lengthy sections, or even just look at the pictures and read the captions), have your child draw a picture below the title that represents what the book is mainly about. Aha, now you are doing comprehension activities with your child!
• Make a puppet theater out of cardboard scraps. You and your child can paint or decorate it in any manner you wish. I used old fabric for our theater curtains, and my child helped me hang them, set up the cardboard, and then, make puppets out of paper bags, old socks, and whatever fun treasures we could find. Retell familiar stories with the puppet theater, modeling for your child, how stories have a beginning, middle, and end, a problem and solution, a main character, and sometimes an antagonist. (Sometimes the antagonist is not a person, but rather a problem for the main character to solve.) Put on a show for other family members.
• Make reading cool. Invite friends over to hang out in your reading center or create puppet shows on the fly. No need to be formal - just make it special and fun!

If these suggestions still do not work, you may have a child who has a deep fear of reading - perhaps because she perceives it as too difficult, or she has had experiences in which she felt ashamed or inadequate compared to others. It is important for you to get at the heart of her emotions and determine why reading is so frustrating for her. Sometimes, children are reluctant to perform for their parents for fear of being corrected, criticized, or because they are not given any opportunities to make decisions about their learning. Initially, you may elect to have a close family member, like a grandparent, a friend, or even a reading tutor help break through to your child. Once she gets on board with reading, you can slowly integrate yourself into the reading relationship with the child.

Other tips for turning reluctant readers into passionate ones!

• Reduce or completely eliminate the amount of time your child watches TV and plays video games. Think about how much time could be shifted from these passive activities to more constructive, creative ones such as reading, free play, craft-making, etc.
• Go outdoors! Get your kids moving. They need at least 1 hour of active play each day - and ideally, it should be ill-structured, meaning that your child is creating the play. While sports teams, ballet classes, and the like are great for overall fitness, they don't help children learn to create their own structure. Recent research shows that children who are not connected to nature and who do not participate in ill-structured play have a higher incidence of ADHD, depression, learning disabilities, and you guessed it, obesity. Check out Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
• Play sound and word games. You can make your own at home, or buy them at a teacher supply store (or online). Games that develop phonemic awareness, phonological awareness, and vocabulary development are ideal. We started with picture cards with our son - before he was a year old, he would sit in my lap and I would place 3 picture cards in front of him. I would ask him to "Point to the picture of the bike" or ask him to do something like "Can you put the picture of the ball on top of the picture of the cat?" Once he started talking, I created cards that would help him develop language for things he needed, such as his blanket, a sippy with milk, his toothbrush, or his ball. As his interests changed and his language grew, we added more and more cards and continued to change the games we played with the cards. He reached a point where he would sit for hours going through the picture cards and naming them aloud to himself - if we tried to join or intervene, he would push us away, so we quickly learned that children often need to solidify their understandings on their own, and we needed to respect his space.

Is your child still not interested in reading at all? Might be time to seek out a reading specialist or child psychologist to rule out other factors that may be influencing his interest and abilities in reading.

And most of all....have fun!