Teaching a reluctant reader can be very difficult. It can be frustrating not only for the teacher, but also for the child. In my case, my son didn’t take easily to the alphabet or sight words. We had more frustration and tears in the early years of our homeschool journey than I care to remember. Harder still was the fact that I would read so many blogs posts about what other people’s children were doing at the same age that was so much more advanced.
After much trial and error, I finally sought out advice from other moms who had boys with similar issues. What I quickly learned was that my approach, while traditionally appropriate, was not the only option out there. Some very wise friends explained that I should relax and give things more time. “Boys need more time to learn through play,” they had said. So instead of forcing my son to sit at a table and learn to read and write his ABC’s the old-fashioned way we spent more time outside writing our letters in the dirt with tractors and chasing after objects that started with the letters we were working on. Look, there goes a butterfly, that starts with B. You get the idea.
I’d like to say that there were no more tears from that point on, but I would be lying. We still had a lot of struggles ahead. Through each of those struggles we learned a new way not to tackle reading. As Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” While the struggle was real and the road long, my son did master the art of reading. As a matter of fact, not only does he read stories, but he writes them too!
Today I would like to share with you the five things I found to be the most successful along the way.
Be Patient. I know that this probably goes without saying, but in the frustration of the moment it really is important. If you are worried and upset, your child will pick up on it and be the same. The last thing we want to do as parents is make our children think that we are disappointed in them. Every child will learn to read independently in time. For my son, it was around the age of nine. My daughter learned much faster which frustrated my son very much. It was very important that I was patient with him so that he would feel at ease to be patient himself.
Read Aloud. We’ve all read to our children. Dr. Seuss and fairy tales are a constant in most homes. I think there comes a point where as parents we inherently believe that we should stop reading to them and they should read to us. One of the most interesting things I learned from my first homeschool convention was when a speaker explained that reading aloud to children of all ages, teenagers included, was such a great way to foster a love of learning. Not only that, it is a great way to spend time together as a family. He also mentioned that it was okay to allow the children to play quietly or draw while you were reading.
As soon as we came home from that convention, I decided to try that theory out on my son. We read “James and the Giant Peach” with the promise of watching the movie as a treat after. Every night as part of our calm down routine I would read a chapter of the book while my son played with his cars on the floor. He didn’t say much about the book while we were reading it, but when we had finally finished and it was time for the movie night I was shocked at what happened. As the movie progressed he began to ask me about things that were missing from the story. Where was this character, and why aren’t they showing this that happened in the book? I was blown away.
Praise, Praise, Praise. Get excited over the little things! Even just one small sight word memorized should be a reason for celebration. When my son was around five years old I had a little mini party for him at local pizza place for reading 30 small stories. They were very small and took him a long time to get through, but progress is progress. I wanted him to know that the hard work was paying off. Rewarding your child with praise, ice cream, a play date at the park, or whatever they might find exciting is a great way of keeping morale and motivation high.
Don’t Be Too Picky. Ideally, by the time my son was reading on his own I would have much preferred he read books with substance. I have longed to follow the book lists of Charlotte Mason and her followers. The thing of it is that my son would’ve rather read comic books and short comedies than Charlotte’s Web and The Secret Garden.
Instead of requiring my son to only read what I wanted him to, I allowed him to pick and choose what he wanted for individual reading time. Then, when it came to family reading time I chose books that I thought were beefier in content. It’s a good balance that has kept us both happy.
Don’t Push Too Many Extras. I love the idea of lapbooks. If my teacher had given me the chance in third grade to lapbook on everything we did in class I would have been a straight A student. The very idea of cutting and pasting and showing off what I learned sounds awesome. So naturally I had grand plans for my son to spend time lapbooking about our books. That didn’t go over well. There was a lot involved in just reading the book. To add a lot of extra work along the way became stressful and took the fun out of the story.
The purpose of book reports and lapbooks are to build on the important parts and information in the story. As an alternative, consider allowing your child to relay the events in the story verbally to dad or grandparents. Or better yet, encourage them to act it out like a play.
Reading is by far, in my opinion, the most important skill a child will master. As a dear friend of mine once said, “once they learn to read they will teach themselves everything else they need to know.” With even the slightest change to our approach, we can help our children reach their reading goal.
Photo "In a Bind" courtesy of kellinahandbasket of https://www.flickr.com/photos/kellinahandbasket/