I Don't Like To Read!!!!

Sometimes we (parents) know how important is reading to our kids and we try our best on helping them, but they still don’t like to read. This is not always the case, but yes it happens. I for one have experienced this situation. I have an 8 year-old that loves when I read aloud to him but did NOT like to read. I was getting a little desperate because, even thou, he read well he did not like it. Like I said before there are many reasons why this can happen. One of those can be that the child is not ready to read yet (this is in younger children) another one is that the child has not found a book that really gets his attention. Remember a book may look great to you, but it does not mean your child shares the same feeling.



So I decided to ask my husband for help. My husband loves to read, he is always reading in his spare time, this is something that amazes me. I ask my husband what did he use when he was a kid to read more. For my surprise he said “I started reading comic books and that make me want to read more”. WOW! That was the answer I was looking for, my boy is a huge fan of Sonic The Hedgehog and I decided to start with Sonic comics books. Ba-bam! not only did my son like the idea but now when we go to the comic book store he can’t wait to get home to read it. We told him every time you finish reading a comic book we will ask you questions about the story and we will buy a new comic book. This way we were sure he read the book. Take an advantage of your child’s interests, i.e. if he like trains look for books about trains. Reward him, for example every time he finishes reading a book he gets a special reward (stickers, ice-cream, more playtime, etc).

In my case my kids prefer that I read then aloud than them reading by themselves. So, I kind of negotiate with them. I will read a book but then each one of them will read me a story aloud or at least all they could read for 30 minutes. For the oldest when we have to do book reports we do them in lapbooks so is easier for him (and me) and it takes a few days to finish but he does his job. The important thing is to look for a way to make reading fun for the kids, which is not an easy task LOL!