Encouraging a Reader
Ryan has always loved books. He treasures books, carries books around in his backpack at all times, and has even been known to take a stack of books to bed with him. Since infancy, he has loved to sit and listen to a story, and at age six, this has not changed. He loves to be read to, he loves to listen to books on tape… but, he does not love to read on his own. In fact, he will do whatever it takes to avoid reading aloud.
Ryan mastered his letters and letter sounds at an early age, and yet putting these sounds together to sound out words does not come easily for him. It’s as if when the letters are put together in a sequence to form a word, an unfamiliar word, their meaning becomes confused, h-a-t becomes h-g-l. To compensate, Ryan reads by drawing upon his phenomenal sight word vocabulary and the context in which a word appears. (I have been reading about visual-spatial learners and this is a common struggle and adaptation of children, like Ryan, who learn in this manner).
After unsuccessfully attempting to force phonics to work for him, and watching Ryan become more and more frustrated with reading, we set the phonics lessons aside and moved on to simply reading books, to increasing Ryan’s sight word vocabulary, to proving to him that reading on his own is indeed worth struggling for. But, although he has continued to improve his word reading and can now easily read any number of books, he still exhibits little joy in reading on his own, and continually whines and complains about having to read.
And then one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I happened to mention to Ryan that he was reading one of the books his good friend in Texas had read and really enjoyed. (I had used this friend’s mother’s blog to get some ideas of books for Ryan to read). Ryan paused for a moment and then started with the barrage of questions: How many books has his friend read? What books has he read? Who has read more books? I began to sense a bit of competitiveness. (Not really all that surprising as Ryan can be ultra-competitive; those who know me well will now be laughing – I guess he’s not entirely his father’s son.) Aha, I had unwittingly stumbled upon a way to use Ryan’s competitive drive for a bit of good, a little dose of motivation, a bit of encouragement. Beginning this week, Ryan and his friend will exchange reading lists as well as their thoughts on the various titles they have read during the week. Its’ so simple and yet Ryan has been reading, still not joyously, but with a bit less moaning and groaning. After all, he can’t let his friend read more books than he read this week! Sometimes you just have to do whatever works!
Ryan mastered his letters and letter sounds at an early age, and yet putting these sounds together to sound out words does not come easily for him. It’s as if when the letters are put together in a sequence to form a word, an unfamiliar word, their meaning becomes confused, h-a-t becomes h-g-l. To compensate, Ryan reads by drawing upon his phenomenal sight word vocabulary and the context in which a word appears. (I have been reading about visual-spatial learners and this is a common struggle and adaptation of children, like Ryan, who learn in this manner).
After unsuccessfully attempting to force phonics to work for him, and watching Ryan become more and more frustrated with reading, we set the phonics lessons aside and moved on to simply reading books, to increasing Ryan’s sight word vocabulary, to proving to him that reading on his own is indeed worth struggling for. But, although he has continued to improve his word reading and can now easily read any number of books, he still exhibits little joy in reading on his own, and continually whines and complains about having to read.
And then one afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I happened to mention to Ryan that he was reading one of the books his good friend in Texas had read and really enjoyed. (I had used this friend’s mother’s blog to get some ideas of books for Ryan to read). Ryan paused for a moment and then started with the barrage of questions: How many books has his friend read? What books has he read? Who has read more books? I began to sense a bit of competitiveness. (Not really all that surprising as Ryan can be ultra-competitive; those who know me well will now be laughing – I guess he’s not entirely his father’s son.) Aha, I had unwittingly stumbled upon a way to use Ryan’s competitive drive for a bit of good, a little dose of motivation, a bit of encouragement. Beginning this week, Ryan and his friend will exchange reading lists as well as their thoughts on the various titles they have read during the week. Its’ so simple and yet Ryan has been reading, still not joyously, but with a bit less moaning and groaning. After all, he can’t let his friend read more books than he read this week! Sometimes you just have to do whatever works!