Are you concerned about your reluctant reader? Afraid they will fall even further behind this summer? Here are some tried and true, experience-proven, successful tips to help your reluctant reader fall in love with books. These suggestions will motivate your reluctant reader and be a delight for you to implement as well.
We had a reluctant reader in our family- our son, Grant. He was just too busy playing ball, climbing trees, shooting off rockets he had built, and inventing things to be bothered with sitting down and reading.
One summer when he was young, I started with One Goal – that child would love to read. I’m a big fan of prayer – so I started specifically praying, “Lord, how do we develop the love of reading in this child?”
After two weeks of diligently praying that prayer, we went to the library one day. There, standing up on the card catalog cabinet was a book entitled, Taking Books to Heart: How to Develop the Love of Reading in Your Child. I know Paul Copperman had written it and Da Capo Press had published it, but I was convinced the Lord had dropped it there just for us.
Of course, we checked that book out and started in on Mr. Copperman’s suggestions right away. I never could have imagined the delightful summer (and years ahead) of reading that we enjoyed together as a result.
As Sarah Mackenzie shares in The Read-Aloud Family, it was simply a matter of becoming a “Literary Matchmaker,” fitting the book to the child. We first discovered the Frog and Toad Book Series by Arnold Lobel, then later found “breakthrough books” like Andrew Henry’s Meadow by Doris Burn. And please see Grant’s other favorites listed below.
Key Ways to help the Reluctant Reader:
- Read for fun/not as a requirement or “it’s on the list”
- Start with wordless books – Grant’s favorite – A Boy, a Dog and a Frog by Mercer Mayer but Google Search will give you lots of wordless book recommendations as well as in the anthologies I have listed below
- Read simple books together – where you do most of the reading and they fill in the “fun words” – Dr. Seuss books are great for this
- Read aloud with them – as we talked about in the last two weeks’ blogposts (“Do You Want a Guaranteed Way to Deeply Connect With a Child? Read Aloud!” and “Summer Fun #1: The Pleasure of a Shared Adventure – Let’s Read a Story Together!” This way, the child gets to enjoy the story without the effort of reading it themselves; usually a child’s “listening level” will be higher than their reading level; keep this habit even after they love reading themselves
- Read books for fun – joke books, children’s cookbooks (then cook together), comic books
- Match books with their level of reading
- Match books with their high interest subjects
- Expose them to nonfiction about their high interest subjects – there will be lots of reading levels to choose from
- Pick a few books that would work well for them, and let them choose which one to read
- Get them hooked on a book series – Grant’s favorites: books by Gary Paulsen: The Hatchet Series – Hatchet, Brian’s Winter, The River, Brian’s Hunt, Brian’s Return and books by Brian Jacques: The Redwall Series (there are 22 books in all!)
- Use technology – read aloud on an I-pad, listen to an audiobook
- Have the child read books in their home language; they will learn the process and feel more comfortable
- Remember – the goal is to have the child fall in love with reading books, regardless of who is doing the actual reading
If you need specific book recommendations, please check out these books’ anthologies:
- Honey for a Child’s Heart by Gladys Hunt
- Jim Trelease’s Read-Aloud Handbook, Edited and Revised by Cyndi Giorgis
- The Read-Aloud Family by Sarah Mackenzie
- Taking Books to Heart by Paul Copperman
If you would like more ideas to help with this goal of helping your child fall in love with reading, please:
(Also please note that the links for the books I mention are affiliate links. If you click on one, it takes you to that book’s page on Amazon. If you buy something through one of the links, I receive a small compensation.)
QUESTION: What kinds of things have you done to help your child fall in love with reading? I’d love to hear your thoughts and observations. Please share in the comment section below.
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