Motivating book for 11 year old male reluctant reader

I’m not sure if you’re looking for suggestions or not but I find nothing wrong with someone preferring non-fiction to fiction. I do myself. Rarely does even the best work of fiction hold my attention - I always have the feeling I’m reading something that’s contrived and I’d rather be reading something very real.

Nevertheless, I’d sugggest Holes by L. Sacchar as a possible book for your son. My students love this book more than any other. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen and its sequels might also work for him as those books are about the survival of a boy in a wilderness setting.

Thanks, Sara

We’ve already done those, along with several other Gary Paulsen books. All the Harry Potter (on tape - I make him read along the first time through). We’ve got “Island,” “Tucket’s Gold,” etc. sitting around waiting for him to read. :-) He did love “The Cay.” He also likes the Lemony Snickett series.

BUT the books above are the first two things he has read without being prompted, and he’s been delighted. So, I was just throwing it out there. :-) (I grew up with two brothers, no sisters, and have an older step-son whom I raised. Young men just seem to love this kind of stuff!)

Lil

When he’s ready for a challenge, Artemis Fowl has a lot of silly adolescent stuff like that. There are fouir books in the series, and they’re probably longer than what he’s been reading, but … it’s about a brilliant boy constantly avoiding things like school and creating inventions and super computer programs, who finds out what is really going on underground in the faery world … including giant mole-like critters who eat dirt but fart frequently and use it as a weapon…

Thanks, Sue - he’s done those, too. I just forgot to list them! :-)

Lil

My son loves the Kathryn Lasky, Guardians of Ga’Hoole series. There is a lot of rich vocabulary that he can learn. This is fantasy but the kids learn a lot of facts about various owls mixed in with the story.

Also, the Henry Winkler “Hank Zipzer” series have been great for easy and meaningful reading for a dyslexic boy.

Lil,
My son is very similar. He generally won’t read any type of book without prompting as well, but there have been a couple that he has picked up and actually read on his own. One was a joke book and the other “The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales” by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith. It’s quite off-the-wall with lots of silly humor.

Also, those PS2 strategy magazines. In the past I’ve seen him studying them and it does give him reading practice. Recently, he told me he had read a book at recess (Wow! Athough it was because he had no one to play with). He told me it was about leaches. I’ve noticed that some of these boys are motivated to read non-fiction books about strange or poisonous insects, ocean creatures and other similar things.

My dyslexic son also really enjoyed the Hank Zipzer series by Henry Winkler. He likes the Zack Files series too, but these may be too low level if your son can read Louis Sachar easily.

Hi,

We are two moms serving as aides at our sons’ school. The school uses Wilson, but the teachers are new to it and very busy. One of us attended the first round of wilson training and the other viewed all the wilson videotapes at the school. We’d like to find an active Wilson-trained tutor that we could pay to observe either a real or a mock wilson session in action before we inflict ourselves on the children as classroom aides. We are in central florida, but are willing to travel pretty much from Jacksonville to Palm Beach if necessary.