Need Help Getting My 9 Yr Old Interested in Reading

My daughter is 8 and can read very well but I have her in tutoring for reading. I find that she reads books she is intersted in reading. I fought her on reading books I thought would be interesting, but she has her own ideas. Even if you may think she should be reading intersting books for her age, find out what she likes. My daughter likes animails, bugs, fairy books. I would even go as far as finding animal books that looked cool to me, but she was not interested. She wants to read easy books and I never liked that because of her age. Since I have backed off adn stopped pushing her, she has taken over. She reads all kinds of books. Sometimes kids just want to do the opposite of what you want. Seems when I backed off, she took off. Hope that/this helps.

Does she go with you when you pick out the books? I know I would buy books for my son, and he wouldn't read them. I quit buying them unless he picked them out. Does she have dyslexia? Or some other reading disorder, sometimes they don't like something when they have problems with it. My son is not an A-B student, but his weakness is math and that he is lazy sometimes. When he does his homework and I check it he does great, but if I don't push him then he doesn't do it. It has really helped that the school, I can check his homework/test/late papers online. Maybe getting some reward like going somewhere, are ask her to make a list of treats that she thinks would be fair, something not too outrageous, or maybe earn point for some outing or other reward, activity that she likes to do

I don't necessarily have any great advice, but I can tell you my history with reading. My parents both love to read and always had books laying around the house. My Mom says that when I was a toddler I loved looking at books and having her read to me. She said I'd even stop her if she tried to skip a page. I had memorized the books. This didn't last. When I was in the 4th grade my teacher put me in the reading lab (where they send kids who aren't doing very well). I gradually started to do a little better. But, I still wasn't that interested. The rest of the time in elementary and middle school I coasted by with lower grades in reading. My Mom, like you, ordered books from a book club that she thought I would be interested in. She took me to the library to pick out ones I wanted. She even bought me the books written for the movies that I liked. Not much seemed to help. Then when I went to High School I started out my Freshman year with not so great grades in English and Literature. Faced with the possibility of failing I managed to scrape by. Then something happened; though, I'm not sure what. The next three years in High School I finally found an interest. I'm not sure if it was the stories themselves and wanting to speak intelligently or something else. But, my grades came up and I actually started reading books I wasn't required to read just for the pleasure. When I went on to college later I still continued to do well and even managed a couple 4.0s in literature classes. My point in telling this is that "all is not lost". I'm not sure what happened to change my interests. But, I did eventually develop an interest reading and it still plagues me. Sometimes I can't go to sleep until I've finished a good book. I just get so immersed in it that I have to finish. Maybe there are just times when certain things click for us and your daughter's time for reading hasn't happened yet. I'm not saying let it go totally. She obviously needs to keep up with it in school. But, maybe if she doesn't quite make the honor-roll for reading, it shouldn't be a huge deal. If she's excelling at other things, let her relax a little. Kids already have enough pressure from school.

I can recommend a product/service called Kumon. It offers tutoring for reading & math. There is a cost, but compared to other options like Sylvan, Kumon is much more friendly to your pocketbook. There is also a small time investment - taking your child to a Kumon center 3/4 days a week + 15-20 minutes of packet work at home each day.
www.Kumon.com

We tried Kumon for our daughter AFTER Sylvan and I would greatly recommend it over Sylvan.

Good luck & God Bless.

Everyone has great ideas here to try. I have three children all grown now and the youngest is the one who isn't interested in reading. For college it truly hurts her and even in personal growth. I used to hate to read as well until I as a non traditional student attended college and had to read of course. But I did read a lot of children stories to my children and the ones I worked with. My husband and I read a lot to our now 20 month old grandson. We take him to book stores and make it an adventure for him as we are very selective in the books we buy him.

Some book stores and librarys have story times but I would check to see if it is for her age group. I would take my children to Barnes and Noble because they create such an atmosphere for book interests and she will see the interests of others. Make her a reading knook cozy corner in her bedroom and make it a fun thing to do together. I love to read to children and try to make my words sound so intersting. You might even add the audio books to your collection for her just to stimulate more interests. And in some books ask her to point out things that happened in a book that didn't happen in a movie made from the book. School usually have book clubs that are fun. Talk to her teacher about ideas.

More than most realize reading and helping her to enjoy reading is truly a gift, a door to life you are giving her. Don't get discouraged just keep searching for ideas to help stimulate her interests. She will thank you for it.

I have an 8 yr old and she has problems with reading and writing. So I understand.
Maybe you could get here to write her own stories then read them out loud to you when she is finished.Even though they would be short stories she would be reading and writing. Maybe this would work for you .

If you do find something that works would you please let me know?

Hope you find something that works.

Getting a library card is a great step, and try to make library time a personal time for her alone or just you and her. I dont mean leave her there alone, I mean give her space to pick her own books or even magazines. Keep her away from the computer monitors and video equipment. Use those as rewards but ask her to focus on reading material.Give her space and time to read at her own leisure, but put a time limist too, moms have other things to do too.
She may appreciate the alone time with you nearby and experience a sense of autonomy, self worth, by choosing her own materials.

my SIL had a hard time wanting to read, so my FIL made her earn her TV time by reading books. She says that once she was forced to read she started liking it. I dont know if your daughter likes TV or not, but use whatever she does enjoy as motivation.

HTH!
T.

An idea that worked when my sister and I were little was my mom enrolled us in our favorite tv star's fan club. We'd get newsletters and "letters" from our stars. We's write to them and ask what books they liked and would read those. Nowadays, it's easier to find a fan club as most are probably on-line. Oh, and she enrolled us in some kind of "Book of the Month" club designed especially for preteens. Each month, we'd get a small chapter book in the mail. We knew we had to get it read in a month before the next one came. We liked this a lot and we'd take turns reading to each other at night. My advice would be to appeal to her sense of preteen glam by connecting her with a popular tv person's website/book choices. Maybe get a group of her friends (like 3 or so) together for a mom/daughter book club. You could make it a fun and fancy weekly or biweekly meeting where you provide snacks, share about the reading of a great young-appealing book, and maybe do some kind of bonding, goofy activity related to the story.

I'm not sure if this was mentioned earlier or not but have you tried getting one or two magazine subscriptions for her age group... with my boys (8 & 9) anything they get in the mail is the first thing read... they keep them in the bathroom and all over... it keeps them reading even if it's just in short spurts, rather than sitting with a chapter book! When we are going in the car they love to bring them or pick new ones up at the gas station!