Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Reading

Gavin is doing really well with reading. We finally finished the book "teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons." I quickly whipped up this cake to celebrate! I know it looks terrible, but I don't care, Gavin loved it!

He does not, however, love to read. He dreads it. It is such a chore for him. He gets discouraged because he thinks he should be reading as well as I do. Ryan gave him some BIG motivation by telling him that if he reads 100 books he will buy him a DS. We are at number 41, but it is kind of miserable. It's getting better, the more he reads the better he gets. I just don't know why he hates it so much . . .
Any tips, homeschool moms?

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ugh, reading is such a tricky subject because the more moms I talk to the more I'm finding there is an INCREDIBLE amount of variation between kids in every aspect of reading! And it's hard not to compare and think your kid should be doing more or reading at a certain level by a particular age.

All that to say, I think you should keep experimenting with motivational strategies until you find something that works for him. For Chloe we do a reading chart with 50 spaces. For each 5 books she reads, she gets to pick something from either the candy or prize jar. And then when she completes the whole thing she earns a big fun family outing (usually swimming at our gym or a trip to Pump it Up). The chart thing works for her but not as well as I envisioned. I still have to constantly remind her to read and force her to read at least one book a day. For awhile we did "reading time" where she read a book or 2 to Clive in the mornings. That novelty wore off though. :( Something that's really helped us is having LOTS of library books on hand. That helps spark some interest in reading -- maybe you could get him snagged on a particular series? I'd suggest Fancy Nancy but I'm guessing he wouldn't be into that. :)

Happy Reading!