Movitvating boys to read

How severe are their reading issues? If severe, it’s very hard to motivate children this young. If they’re in 3rd grade but reading at a level much lower than that - primer? - it’s virtually impossible to find “interesting material to them”. What did you use? Primer books tend not to be very interesting - especially to 3rd grade boys.

I’d keep reading out loud to them. Try reading some Goosebumps - 3rd and 4th grade boys love that.

I have to doubt whether you can use the “interesting material to them” strategy at this age effectively as there is no interesting primer material. If any of them can read 1st, try Balto The Sled Dog book.

If they are going to get motivated they are going to have to have some success first. Your job as a teacher (if you are the teacher:) is to structure situations where they can both experience success and recognize it. Reading is complicated stuff and they have been failures at it for long enough that the intrinsic motivation is gone- and they likely don’t believe they are ever going to get it. You need to teach them differently. I think it becomes more of a mental thing for the teacher- my headset is always:

I can teach you to read in a way that you can learn. That is my job.

You will learn it. That is your job.

I will never ask you to be responsible for something I haven’t specifically taught you or checked out with you. That is fair.

You will be responsible for what you have been taught. That is also fair. If you can’t remember it- then I need to find a better way to teach it.

We will celebrate your learning together.

It sounds really harsh- but you know they have to believe that I can do my job if they are going to get on board with doing theirs.

Robin

Robin,

As a mom I am with you 100% not all kids learn the same and a good teacher, like you, recognizes this and teaches to the child.

My son is making wonderful progress with his tutor a reading specialist. His whole attitude has changed, his confidence has grown, he takes pride in his reading and even has begun reading on his own. None of this would have happened had I not gotten him a tutor that motivates him and just let him stumble along with reading at school.

Reading is not fun if it is always hard and impossible and makes a kid just want to cry.

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I’m not sure what is available in your city/town library, but how about looking to see if there are books-on-tape available for book at their interest level? Eventually, as their reading levels increase, you can also encourage them to get thne actual books and read along with them.

I can sympathize with your plight, though. I have 7th grade students who also refuse to read. I have suggested at all.team meetings that parents encourage their children to go to the library and borrow books-on-tape.

Marilyn

My experience also is that making sure I’m actually *teaching* them, and in a way so that they can see that they are learning, is the key. Giving them all the “fun and interesting” reading to read…. if they don’t have the skills to read it… isn’t that motivating, and only adds to the frustration.
What have you been doing with these interesting materials, as far as teaching them to read it?

My son is LD and in third grade. He now is close to grade level but last year was reading at a first grade level. I found that he liked the animal stories in the old basil readers. They were easy to read but not babyish like many easy readers.

He graduated from the second grade readers (after doing the first) to Nate the Great.
I would guess if the boys don’t “want to work at it” then the books are too hard.

I think that maybe it isn’t that they aren’t motivated, they just have no desire to try to do something that they feel they will fail at. Would you be motiviated to do something that you couldn’t do? If someone gave you a book to read written in Russian and you didn’t know how to read it, would you be motivated to keep trying?

My 3rd grade son is reading at the ‘1st grade, 9month ’ level. His LD resource teacher has provided him with books he doesn’t mind reading. They are available through www.AcademicTherapy.com. They are in the catalog under the listing, “Hi/Lo books for reluctant readers.” He is currently reading the ‘Tom amd Ricky Mystery Series”—a set of 5 books that cost $19.00. Chapters are only 4 or 5 pages long. There are 6 sets in this series. The catalog lists similar series up to a 3rd grade reading level.

Jokes and riddles are fun. They are short, and allow the student to quickly feel like he or she has accomplished something.