On reading
I'm not one to ask for a lot of advice concerning our homeschool adventure. I'm pretty confidant in what we're doing. I spend time reseaching and rarely make a bad curriculum decision. Right now, however, I'm wondering what to do about Adam.
Adam is a good reader. He enjoys reading but doesn't spend tons of time doing so. When he finds a book that he really likes, he'll stay up late into the night reading. If it's a series of books, like Temple of the Dragonslayer (Dragonlance: The New Adventures), it's even better because he knows that when he finishes one book there'll be another waiting.
My problem is how to get him to read books that I want him to read that he has no interest in. I have tried to get him to read at least three different Rosemary Sutcliffe book and each time he says they are boring and he doesn't understand them. Just this week I tried to get him to read Adam of the Road and he whined and complained with every word, sentence and paragraph. I explained that sometimes he needs to read books that I've assigned and he went to the bookshelf and picked out The Adventures of Robin Hood. He says he's really enjoying it.
I guess it just doesn't make sense to me to force him to read books that he really doesn't enjoy. I know I could read them to him if I really want him to experience the story. We're currently reading Seamus Heaney's Beowulf: A New Verse Translation which he really likes. I'm sure he'd like Adam of the Road if I read it aloud, too.
He's 10. I don't want to kill his love of reading by forcing him to read books he doesn't enjoy. Afterall, I rarely finish a book that I find boring. I'm just wondering at what point he has to learn that sometimes he needs to read things he doesn't want to.
4 Comments:
What we do - If KJ doesn't like a book, then I read enough of it to him to get him interested in the story. At that point he has to finish it on his on. This does not always work, however. There have been one or two that were so dull that I couldn't stand to read it myself at which point, the book is returned to the library. :-) I'm hoping that by doing this now, he will see that sometimes you just have to give the book a chance.
Rebel
I have 5 kids ages 7-10... two (age 17 & 20) love reading and always have a book in their hands... two (ages 14 and 18) hate reading and its very challenging to interest them in anything... I had to be patient and respect their choices and interests... for the older one, she ended up liking shakespeare, and the vampire chronicles! I am working on my 14 year old now - she had to pick a novel to do a novel study on - I gave her some suggestions but let her pick from a list - and she ended up picking Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"... which is a dark, sci-fi-ish, futuristic quite adult book... it nearly killed her to read the whole thing... but in the end, she actually loved it, and did a great job on her novel study... I am still working on getting my 7 year old to love reading... right now I am showing him movies that have been made from books.. like the CS Lewis books are in dvd now so we are watching them to get him interested...
What Rebel said. My son and I used to call it, "giving a book its voice." Sometimes, books that are a shade (or two) more difficult (in ideas, content, style, etc.) are resisted simply for their differences. Before we could even get into a struggle, I'd offer to read a chapter or two allow to put the book's voice in my son's head. Oh, the worlds of books that opened for him. Perhaps that's all Adam needs.
Or maybe, just maybe, he'll be a student who reads enough --- not perhaps all that a book-loving, classically leaning parent-teacher would like, but enough.
Only you and he can decide what sort of student he is.
StaceyL (who used to post at the WTM boards) once remarked that she had all but abandoned the struggle to get two of her four sons interested in the great books; she was devoting the rest of their education to the good-enough books. There's wisdom in her approach.
Best regards.
MFS
mentalmultivitamin.blogspot.com
I understand what your going through. My wife was pulling her hair out trying to get our daughter to read. I told her that, sooner or later, she'll settle on something and then it will be off to the races. So far I've been right. In your case, you might try exposing your son to a variety of deeper books and see if he reacts to any.
Now I don't want to take him away from his DragonLance books (especially since I wrote "The Dragon Well" the third book in that series). Just let him explore at his own pace and keep him reading. Sooner or later he'll "discover" more classical literature.
Dan Willis
danwillis@mac.com
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