By Nichole Smith
For two years, my son struggled with reading. His struggle stretched beyond the classroom and into the home. Nightly reading was a chore and at one point he let me know just how much he hated to read (it ranged from boring to hard to frustrating). By the time summer rolled around it was pretty clear that he wasn’t going to willingly joining the summer reading program at the local library.
I felt heartbroken and wanted my little reluctant reader to have a great summer reading experience, so I made it my mission to make summertime reading a success.
Change the Attitude
I wanted my son to have a positive attitude about reading. Whether he knew it or not, reading was in everything he did. To demonstrate, I brought him into the kitchen with me and made him an active participant in cooking and grocery shopping. I let him read the recipes and create the grocery lists. When we went shopping, he would read the lists. Reading in this manner didn’t seem like work to him and I was setting the stage to make reading fun.
Get Gaming
Once I had established all the different ways we read, we tried gaming. My son loves video games. A couple of his favorites are Animal Crossing and Skylanders; both of which have a fair amount of reading involved. He was able to read the storylines on his own rather than the game reciting the passages to him. He was still gaming at his best, but now he is reading at his best, too.
Fancy the Favorites
It didn’t take long for my son to catch on to what I was up to. That’s when it was time for me to pull out all the stops. I began reading time with his favorite book characters, the Elephant and Piggie book series by Mo Willems and SkippyJon Jones books by Judy Schachner.
Change of Scenery
There are many times when my son would go to his room to read. A trip to the library was a different place to read but I wanted him to soak up some sunshine. His older brother would often climb one of our cherry trees with a book and spend the afternoon reading and snacking. His older sister would grab a blanket and spread out under our backyard trees with her books and art supplies and I fancy the back deck in my chair. We’ve done everything from creating forts from old sheets spread over the picnic table to pitching tents for a little summer reading ambiance.
Ditch the Clock
Clock watching is a hard habit to break. So much of the school year was spent on timing how long he was reading that I threw the time tracking that comes with summer reading programs out the window. It didn’t matter to me how long he was reading, the most important thing is to enjoy it. There is so much joy in losing yourself in another world and sometimes that’s difficult to do when you’re focused on how soon you can be done.
Helping my son find the joy in summer reading wasn’t easy but it was well worth it. Today my son reads two grades above his current grade level. He loves large chapter books, graphic novels, and traditional comics.
Nichole Smith is a freelance writer and blogger for Northeast Ohio Parent magazine. She lives in rural Northeast Ohio with her husband and four kids.
