How many kids are reluctant readers? There are a lot of kids who hate to read. Well, they hate to read books, but still, tend to read a great deal. Reading books is not the only way to read. There is a whole world out there, ready to be read and believe it or not, all forms of reading are excellent forms of reading.
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Get your child’s eyes checked
A child’s eyes can have many problems. Glasses help some children and therapy may help others.
For example, my youngest daughter has always had difficulty reading. So, I took her to the eye doctor to have her eyes checked. He realized right away that she had a problem with her eyes called Convergence Insufficiency or CI for short.
Convergence Insufficiency is a condition where your eyes have trouble focusing on objects close to you. This issue can usually be corrected with vision therapy, traditionally performed in an ophthalmologist’s office and at home exercises.
For more information on Convergence Insufficiency, you can go to the National Eye Institute’s web page about the condition.
Meet with a Learning Disabilities Specialist
Learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, can cause many problems when reading.
My youngest daughter also lives with Random Automatic Naming Dyslexia, one of four types of dyslexia, as explained by Everyday Health.
This means that it takes her longer to read because she doesn’t recognize letters right away, and it takes her a bit for the letters to take form in her brain.
Dyslexia and other learning disorders can be debilitating, but reading can become more comfortable with the right treatment and therapy.
Read to your child
No matter how old your child is, a round of family reading time helps boost your child’s interest in reading. Choose a book or series that will be interesting for the whole family.
Some of my favorite Young Adult titles are (links are to my reviews):
Introduce your child to graphic novels or comic books
Sometimes, looking at the gorgeous illustrations in these books is enough to get reluctant readers interested enough to read the words on the pictures. Even if your child never reads the words on the page, they are still using their imaginations, and that is as good as reading for growing their minds. Your child may even write their own stories, and that is creative as well.
Play Board Games that Encourage Reluctant Readers
This can be a sneaky way of getting your child to read more, but a lot more fun for mom and dad because the kiddo won’t even recognize it as a form of reading encouragement. They will be having too much fun playing to think about learning.
We play a lot of board games at our house, but none of them really encourage reading. Luckily for me, I have a cousin and a lot of friends who are board gamers, and they have a lot of suggestions for you.
- Code Names Duet – Ages 11+
- Tsuro – Ages 8+
- Go Nuts for Donuts – Ages 8+
- Mice & Mystics – Ages 7+
- Stuffed Fables – Ages 7+
- Legacy of Dragonholt – Ages 14+
- Above & Below – 13+
- Near & Far – 13+
Try Introducing How-to Books
Examples of books in this genre are cookbooks and crafting books. Ask your child to help out in the kitchen and have them read a recipe and help bake a cake or even lasagna. Kids love to help and enjoy learning new things.
Try offering your child a book on how to knit, and not only will they read a pattern, but they will learn a type of shorthand that non-knitters will never know. It can give them a superpower!
My good friend offers a great selection of Usborne brand books that can help a reluctant reader. In the Academy series from Kane Miller is everything from being an architect to becoming a scientist. There is a great one about becoming a chef, which is perfect for those reluctant readers who want to eat what they read.
Introduce Your Child to Fun Books
Fun books are books like joke and riddle books where reluctant readers might pick up some great skills as a joke master. Or maybe magic books where your kid could become the next Houdini.
Maybe your child wants to be an athlete when they grow up. Why not interest them in a sports almanac where they can track the stats and history of different sports.
For younger readers, you might introduce write-on/wipe-off activity books. Usborne has some of those too.
In Summary
As you can see, there are many ways to read that don’t include sitting down with a traditional book. There are as many reasons to hate reading as there are kids. Make sure that there are no physiological reasons why your child doesn’t like to read, then hit up the fun stuff.
Anyone can learn to love to read. Remember, just because your child doesn’t like to read now, it doesn’t mean they never will. They may come around to reading differently, and that is okay.
