When It Comes to Reading... the More, the Better

It won't surprise any teacher that the more a child reads the better. We have all known it for years. We even know that it doesn't really matter what kids read as long as they are reading. Choice has become a huge buzzword in reading education.

But what do you do when you have a reluctant reader? At home or in the classroom.

This is a problem I never thought I would have - at least at home. You see, when I was a kid I loved to read. Not just a little bit, a lot. I loved to read so much that my parents would (!often!) tell me to put down my book. I was actually grounded from reading when I got in trouble. If you have ever been stopped in the middle of a great book, you know that is cruel and unusual punishment.

Given my proclivity for reading, it never occurred to me that I would have a kid that didn't like to read. I imagined my family sitting around the living room together reading away on a rainy afternoon. Or a sunny afternoon. Or the morning. You get the point.

Well, you can guess what happened next. My oldest daughter, entering third grade in the fall, does not like to read. She avoids it at all costs. She complains, she whines, she negotiates. She does everything she can not to read. What?!

When she was younger I didn't push her to read. I didn't want her to see reading as a chore. I was waiting for her to fall in love with reading the way I did. That plan was working for our family. She didn't have to read, and I could tell myself she would pick it up on her own soon.

Then, second grade hit. Suddenly, my little girl who had always been a good student, was behind in reading. What?! I seriously flipped out. Not at her teacher, of course. Or even at her. But inside I was going crazy. What had happened? 

Obviously my plan had failed. I was a failure.

So, after my mini-meltdown, I thought about what we needed to do. First, my daughter got on Lexia, a phonics computer program that I really like. In fact, I liked it so much I signed up my other children as well. Next, I needed to figure out how to get my kid reading... a lot.

I thought back to a Freakanomics podcast I had heard a few months earlier. It was about bribing kids. The question was, does it work? It turns out that the answer is complicated. Yes, it works, but... I can't remember the exact outline of the podcast, but what I have taken away from everything I have heard, read, etc... about bribing is that it will work at first, but over time the effect wears off. You have to keep increasing the bribe to keep the child's attention.

So, here was my plan. I would bribe my daughter to read. $5 a book. A chapter book. At her reading level. Interesting to her. All that good stuff.

And she totally went for it. She read tons of books and became an amazing reader. Just kidding. She was totally not interested. She liked the idea of getting paid to read, but actually sitting down and reading. Nah.

Then, I thought about what people say about reading with babies. (I also have a toddler, so I read a lot about that as well.) I can't remember where I saw it, but I remember very clearly that one of the most important reasons to read with a toddler is that she will associate reading with love and warmth. Sitting on mom's lap and reading together is a really comforting feeling for the baby, and she carries that good feeling into her reading as a child. (Now, I will just say here that I read a lot with my older daughter when she was a toddler. So, it isn't fool proof.)

My next step was to use what I knew about reading with babies and apply it to my eight year old. One night I invited her to bring her new book into my bed at bedtime. We cuddled up together and she read it to me. She read for a really long time. We were so cozy and happy. 

The next day she asked if we could do it again. My daughter asked to read! Of course, she also told me she was excited to finish the book and get her money. 

We are now on day three of cozy reading before bed. My middle daughter has also picked a book and made her way into the reading fun. It is a very calm way to end the day, and my girls are reading a lot. They don't want to stop. Probably because they don't want to go to bed, but I will take it.

Of course, this most likely won't work forever. In a few days or weeks, I will have to find some new way of getting my kids to read. I am not sure what the next step will be, but I will find it. I just want them to read until they fall in love with reading. I believe with all my heart, that if they read enough they too will fall in love with reading.

My point in sharing this (very long) story is that it doesn't matter what you have to do - just get your kids reading. Reading is not fun for a struggling reader. It just isn't. If I had to read Spanish I could probably muscle through some elementary stuff, but I would hate every minute of it. The catch-22 is that the only way to get better at reading (or reading Spanish) is to keep doing it... a lot. So, whatever you have to do to get your kids to read, do it. Bribe them, cuddle them, or try anything else you can think of. If it doesn't work, try something else. 

Being a strong reader is the key to success in school. Everything in school revolves around reading. A struggling reader is a struggling student. Luckily we know the solution. Read. A lot. 

* One last thing. I didn't talk about possible learning disorders in this post. If you think your child may have a significant problem learning to read or with reading talk to your child's teacher and/or pediatrician.