Welcome to
Talk to a Teacher and Reading Help Live
Question & Answer Library
Question and Answer Library
Mary from Pennsylvania asks about...
Mission Impossible? 8-year old boys and
independent reading:Tips and Tricks
"My youngest son (of 5) is now 8. I am having lots of
trouble getting him to read independently! He is so much 'slower'
than his older brother's.........in the words of Andrew Pudewea,
'he'd rather be outside building forts!'
We work on phonics every day, and are plowing through
basic readers. He seems to forget every phonics rule we teach
him and is 'insulted' by simpler 'Cat-in-the-hat' type books.
How do I know if he has a problem? Thanks much!
Thank you for writing, Mary. That's a great question and is something I see frequently... a student who has been receiving reading instruction, but reading books on their own remains something they don’t really enjoy. You also mentioned your son’s struggle to remember phonic rules as well. Let’s take a look at both of those issues. Also, for a formal evaluation to see if he has a problem, I usually recommend checking with your local home school association for references. A trained professional should be able to tell you if your son’s reading ability is similar to others of his age, if there are specific problems, how to remediate them. But informally, let’s take a look at some diagnostic issues.First, when an 8 year-old isn’t very interested in reading independently, I pull away from that request for a while, and instead make his reading time a shared time with you. If you are homeschooling, I recommend a specific time for reading instruction, and then a separate time for relaxed reading enjoyment, and with your son, make this a time together rather than reading independently. The purpose of this time is simply to enjoy a book together. Book selections for this time can be anything... from books are you may feel are too easy but he likes to read because he’s mastered them (letting children read “easy” books is always a great idea, for it builds fluency and confidence); and books that are a bit too hard but are on a topic he enjoys (in this case, you can “buddy read” taking turns page-per-page, or paragraph-by-paragraph). At this time of the day, if your child gets stuck on a word, only let him try to work it out for a moment or two. Then reassure him that it’s a hard word, tell him the word, and keep going with the story. 