Rabid Reader Ramblings: Raising Readers
For those of you who are new to the blog or may not know me very well, I have 3 wonderful children. And I am book obsessed. My kids have always seen me spend a fair portion of the day with my nose in a book, be it in print or ebook. It has been this way for as long as I can conceivably remember. My oldest is the same way. At ten years old, he can say that he has read the entire Harry Potter series, the entire Gregor the Overlander series, he read The Hunger Games Trilogy in a week, and is now reading Kingdom Keepers. He is almost as book obsessed as mom and likes some of the same kinds of books.
My 3 year old loves having stories read to her. She is autistic and has some distractibility issues that they believe will ultimately be diagnosed as ADHD. Having stories read to her is the only non-electronic activity that holds her attention for more than a few minutes. I think she will be another budding reader.
But my 8 year old….not so much. She thinks reading is boring!
(Yes, that is a GIF, in a post here. I know, I didn’t think it would ever happen, either)
I know, shocking, right? I don’t understand it, either. I have tried so many different things. I have let her tell me what books she wants, and bought them for her. I have tried some of my favorites when I was her age. She reads at a 4th grade reading level. And yet she is bringing home picture books from the school library, and even that is like pulling teeth to get her to read. I am at a loss.
She tells me that reading is boring and doesn’t she do enough of that at school? To which I usually counter that books are fun and that I want my children to love reading because to me, reading is an adventure. I tell her about all the wonderful places that I have gotten to visit in books, and how I could never see those places in real life, and all of the adventures I have had. At this point, she usually rolls her eyes at me and asks to play Growtopia on her computer.
So what do I do, my bookish friends? How do I get this little girl to love to read? What are the hot books right now for little girls? She is going into 3rd grade, so technically is into that Middle-Grade range, but she won’t read anything that long or boring, as she puts it.
Do any of you have reluctant readers? How do you get them excited about books? How do you at least get them to willing spend more than 3 pages worth of time in a book?
© 2014, Lisa Pottgen. All rights reserved.
Rabid Reader Ramblings: Raising Readers is a post from: Just Another Rabid Reader
