Should I be worried about my nephew's reading?

[Quartz]

My nephew has been baulking over reading 2-3 pages of Harry Potter per day. Standard sized print. He's 9 later this month. At that age, you'd have been hard pushed to stop me reading 2-3 chapters; likewise both his parents.

Is this a normal childish whine, are we expecting too much, or is there something amiss?

[TriPolar]

Some people aren't that good at reading, but I suspect he just has good taste in literature.

[Anaamika]

The books aren't really that interesting reading to me, either, and I love reading. I've always felt that people who "hate reading" just haven't found something they really like to read yet. Why does he have to read HP? Who is making him read it? Does he read anything else, or does he whine about reading everything.


FTR, I know the books are for kids, so they get long-winded and annoying at times, playing up the foibles of teenage kids. Maybe he's just not interested in that stuff at age 9.

[elfkin477]

If it's the first HP book, I feel for the kid. The first few chapters are rough going, even for adult readers; I almost gave up on it and I was 22, not 9. It takes slogging through the first 50 pages before anything interesting actually happens.

[dangermom]

Not every kid loves HP. Boys, in particular, often love non-fiction and would prefer to leave fiction on the shelves. Give him a variety to choose from, and include books about tanks in the pile.

Has he ever had his vision tested? By age 9 he should have had at least one good eye exam (and I do not mean a school one; they often miss huge issues). If he continues to have trouble with reading, it's quite likely to be an eye problem. Irlen lenses (http://irlen.com/index.php) are worth trying out.

[Leaffan]

I could not read fiction as a kid, and I still can't.

In fact I don't really like to read anything that isn't historical or newsworthy. This doesn't mean I don't read, but I have very little interest in fiction. If I'm going to devote time to reading, it had better be informative: all fiction is boring for me.

Maybe he's the same.

[Vihaga]

It could be that he doesn't like reading, or that he doesn't like Harry Potter. Both my siblings HATED to read as kids, but they enjoy it as adults. Interestingly, they both seem to prefer non-fiction.

[The Hamster King]

My nephew has been baulking over reading 2-3 pages of Harry Potter per day.Is this a school assignment? Why on Earth would you push a kid to read light entertainment like Harry Potter?

[Cat Whisperer]

My nephew is 11 and we're hearing the same reports - he just doesn't want to read. They've tried all kinds of different reading material, and what he wants to do is socialize and do other stuff. It happens. It makes me a little sad since his education is all going to be more difficult if he isn't a good reader (and he isn't - because he doesn't practice, he struggles with it), but I don't think there's much you can do.

[Tequila Mockingbird]

When our son was 9 he did not want to read fiction at all. I even bought him comic books, hoping to get him to read that way but he just wasn't interested.

Around that age I bought him The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty and he didn't put that down until he'd read it cover to cover. Then we got him a copy of Ripley's Believe It Or Not and The Guinness Book of World Records and he read those quite happily.

Try some non-fiction and see if he likes that.

[BetsQ]

I've got another non-reading 9 year old boy here. He will occasionally find something that he's willing to read, but not often. He is more likely to read non-fiction on his own, I think, especially biographies. However, he still really likes to be read to. In the past year, I've read all of the How to Train Your Dragon books, Stuart Little, a couple of the Great Brain books, some Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume. He likes the stories, he just doesn't like to read them himself. I've had a few talks with his teachers who assure me that he does read on grade level. It is more than a little frustrating, though, because his father and an I both love to read.

[Quartz]

My nephew is quite the HP fan. I forget which book he's reading, but I don't think it's the first.

[TriPolar]

Aside from the HP book, do you have any other indications of a reading problem? Or are you just mystified by a 9 year old boy who isn't interested in reading?

[Omar Little]

My nephew is quite the HP fan. I forget which book he's reading, but I don't think it's the first.

Fan of the movies?

Some kids just don't like to read. It's not that they don't know how or aren't good readers, they just don't like to read for pleasure.

[Unintentionally Blank]

I have twin boys, 8 years old. One is a VORACIOUS reader, the other has been in constant additional instruction to get him up to an acceptable level.

Different kids are different.

[overlyverbose]

How does he behave when asked to do other things he doesn't like to do? And does he only seem to have trouble reading when one person asks him to do it, or is it hard for anyone to get him to do it?

My son is only 5, but if his dad asks him to read something, he shuts down. He pretends he doesn't even know his letters. Yet when I ask him to read a word or two, he is more than capable of reading simple, three-letter words and recognizing larger words by letters and context.

Is it possible that reading has become a control issue for him?

Also, how good is he at reading? My son hates writing. He's not good at it, largely because he's the only leftie in his classroom and always has been. His teacher in his previous classroom used to get really impatient with him because he was struggling to write and it was just very physically uncomfortable for him, so he basically just shut down. If he doesn't feel like he's good at something and isn't given the time to do it as well as he thinks he should, he simply drags his heels as much as possible because he hates it. We've been working on it and he's getting so much better. Perhaps you can try something similar with your son?

[Zsofia]

Is this a school assignment? Why on Earth would you push a kid to read light entertainment like Harry Potter?
Reading is a skill that needs to be practiced. My nephew is 13 but delayed and it is a pain in the ass and a half to make him sit down for his required fifteen minutes of reading (it's homework, he has to have us sign off on it.) He can read anything, and he enjoys it while he's doing it, I swear! But he whines about having to leave the computer screen to do it and when fifteen minutes are up that is absolutely it.

[overlyverbose]

Oops – I remembered only after I posted that the kid in question is your nephew. Still, the reading problem could be a control issue or just a confidence issue. It might benefit you to ask his parents some questions if you don’t have much insight into his home life.

[The Hamster King]

Reading is a skill that needs to be practiced. ... But he whines about having to leave the computer screen to do it and when fifteen minutes are up that is absolutely it.I can't think of a better way to kill the fun of reading than being forced to do it. Harry Potter is light entertainment -- if you're not having fun with it, then there are thousands of other books you'd be better off reading. For several years my son's primary reading practice was videogame magazines and strategy guides. But he was reading them because they were interesting to him, not because we were standing over him with a stopwatch.

[Drunky Smurf]

I didn't get into reading for fun until high school. I just didn't care about reading. Now I read all the time.

[SeamusMcCool]

Maybe your nephew is allergic to stories that abuse the adverb the way a low rent pimp abuses his $10 crack whore???

Try him on other stories. The love of reading, in my experience, is more likely to take hold of a child if he/she has been read too and encouraged to read since they were toddlers. If mom and dad are just starting now, they have a bit of an uphill battle and they mind as well back off and let him eventually find stories that interest him. Probably in High School, hopefully sooner. I say back off, because they don't want to turn him off reading completely by forcing the activity on him.

[aruvqan]

My nephew is 11 and we're hearing the same reports - he just doesn't want to read. They've tried all kinds of different reading material, and what he wants to do is socialize and do other stuff. It happens. It makes me a little sad since his education is all going to be more difficult if he isn't a good reader (and he isn't - because he doesn't practice, he struggles with it), but I don't think there's much you can do.

My brother and I are both dyslexic. I loved reading and taught myself to compensate. He has always struggled to read because he preferred to be outside playing and doing stuff.

But then again, I spent a lot of time sick as a kid and really never got into extreme outside activity. I liked swimming, sailing and walking in the woods. He liked scrounging up a bunch of cousins and playing baseball or football.

[Rhiannon8404]

When my son was nine he loved HP, too. Watched the movies, played the video games, dressed up and play acted with friends, etc. He also had no interested whatsoever in reading the books. All he wanted to read at that age were DK Eyewitness Books. (http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=book+dk+eyewitness+books&tag=googhydr-20&index=stripbooks&hvadid=4241761177&ref=pd_sl_982mbmp2b0_b) So that's what I let him read. He learned so much about a lot of subjects. He just wasn't into reading fiction.

[rekkah]

My nephew is quite the HP fan. I forget which book he's reading, but I don't think it's the first.

Was it the 5th or 6th book? I'm an avid reader who enjoyed Harry Potter and I thought they dragged something terrible - I think she must have either got rid of her editor or the editor must have been too intimidated to edit properly...

Also, is he expected to read alone? He might enjoy it more reading with his parents/you/other people. I had good results with a reluctant reader by taking turns reading a page each. The child doesn't need to concentrate for a long period and they get the interaction of another person enjoying and responding to the story.

[Ruken]

If he strongly dislikes all reading (and not just HP) it may be due to eye problems that are worth looking into. Unfortunately, most eye docs do a shit job when it comes to anything beyond basic vision correction. See if you can find someone who uses some sort of electronic eye-tracking equipment (like a Visagraph). Some educational diagnosticians will do this.

It's hard to read when you're eyes don't work together properly. This is easier to fix at a younger age, but at 9 it may not be too late.

[Rushgeekgirl]

The thing about only reading what he likes is that all through school he'll be forced to read what he doesn't like. He needs tips on how to read for comprehension when it comes to genres he doesn't appreciate. My daughter wouldn't have touched HP at nine. She was ALL about Shakespeare though (which I loathe and do not understand her affection). A few years later she would be more interested in non-fiction. But in her later teens she was all about HP and that damned Twilight saga.

I've noticed if something is assigned there usually is a bigger struggle. I homeschooled so I had to find the balance between reading for pleasure and the required reading. Not just literature either. World history was a breeze but she could barely make it through two pages when it came to American History or anything science related.

[BobArrgh]

I was a voracious reader as a child, and I read everything I could get my hands on. I love fiction, but I also loved stuff like Ripley's Believe it or Not, Guinness Book of World Records, and the Book of Lists, as Tequila mentioned. I also read several encyclopedias (Brittanica and World Book) from one end to the other.

Is 9 too young for the Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester? I didn't read those until I was in my late 20s, but would have loved them as a kid.

The Encyclopedia Brown stuff was fascinating, too.

What I really loved was knowing things other people didn't. (Yes, I worked hard at being a know-it-all.) That was why I loved Ripley's, Book of World Records, Book of Lists, and any other sources of what might be called "trivia".

Expose the guy to a range of stuff.

My wife and older daughter are big readers, but my youngest daughter wasn't really into it. In her mid-to-late teens, she discovered Stephen King, and I believe has read everything he has ever written.

It could be something he'll grow into.

[elfkin477]

My nephew is quite the HP fan. I forget which book he's reading, but I don't think it's the first. If he's already seen the movies, it might feel a bit pointless to him to read the books too considering that he already knows what's going to happen.

[Broomstick]

Some people just aren't enthused about reading. My spouse, for example, never reads for enjoyment because he doesn't enjoy reading. For him, at best, it's a tool. He'll read technical stuff, including some very advanced stuff, but never a novel.

Your nephew needs to be able to read and comprehend age/class level appropriate material, even if he's not particularly fast at it. So really, that would be my concern in your shoes: what's his reading level, not his reading speed or reading quantity.

[Cat Whisperer]

I reading a book right now that has me wondering if reading novels for pleasure will go the way of cursive writing (Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains" (http://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393072223)). I'm just starting it, but he mentions that he and a a bunch of other smart, well-educated people find that they aren't reading the same way that they used to. What used to be deep, linear reading is turning into gestalt, scattered reading for just the nuggets of information that you're interested in or looking for.

It isn't hard to imagine that kids raised on the internet, tv, and movies won't have the same affinity for sitting and reading novels that those of us raised before computers have (or had - it sounds like we're losing it, too). They don't *need* to read novels - they just need to download the movie.

[rekkah]

If he's already seen the movies, it might feel a bit pointless to him to read the books too considering that he already knows what's going to happen.

This is a really good point. My biggest breakthrough with my reluctant reader came when we got to a really crucial bit of the plot as our allotted reading time finished. She was very annoyed when I wouldn't read the rest to her, so much so that she carried on reading voluntarily by herself (for possibly the first time ever in her life) because she HAD to know what happened next.

[Death of Rats]

If he was taught to read with Whole Word, he may not be able to read. My wife started read those books with my nephew at the time the first movie came out. In doing so, she discovered that the school system had left him functionally illiterate. He could read a few hundred words that he had memorized, could guess at a few hundred more and would skip over anything else. As a result he hated to read. My wife taught him phonics and he just took off with reading.

It may be something else to look into.

[Erdosain]

I reading a book right now that has me wondering if reading novels for pleasure will go the way of cursive writing (Nicholas Carr's "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains" (http://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393072223)). I'm just starting it, but he mentions that he and a a bunch of other smart, well-educated people find that they aren't reading the same way that they used to. What used to be deep, linear reading is turning into gestalt, scattered reading for just the nuggets of information that you're interested in or looking for.

It isn't hard to imagine that kids raised on the internet, tv, and movies won't have the same affinity for sitting and reading novels that those of us raised before computers have (or had - it sounds like we're losing it, too). They don't *need* to read novels - they just need to download the movie.

I tried reading that book, but I got bored after 15 minutes and checked my email.

[Dangerosa]

My son is almost thirteen. He reads at above his grade level, but getting him to read (he has to read 1000 pages a trimester) is like pulling teeth. And always has been.

First question - is the HP book he is reading age appropriate. Granted all Dopers and most Doper kids could have read them all by four ;) - but Harry Potter is actually kind of challenging for a lot of nine year olds.

Second question - are you concerned about his reading at grade level - what are his test scores like on reading and reading comprehension? Is this a "he can't read well" or "he doesn't enjoy reading."

Third question - does he enjoy reading other material? My daughter reads fantasy extensively - and doesn't like the HP books. My son barely reads fiction at all - and doesn't like the HP books (he read one in the middle because it was almost 900 pages - then he just needed to read a slim 100 page book to meet his page quota).

[hogarth]

My son is almost thirteen. He reads at above his grade level, but getting him to read (he has to read 1000 pages a trimester) is like pulling teeth. And always has been.
Have you tried "Letters to Penthouse"? That might get him reading. In short bursts, anyways.

[Dangerosa]

Have you tried "Letters to Penthouse"? That might get him reading. In short bursts, anyways.

Actually, it doesn't. Not specifically letters to Penthouse, but we have a "don't censor" policy to reading....he still is at "girls are yucky."

[Quartz]

Thanks for the reassurance, guys.

[Nava]

As well as the point about "I already watched the movie, d'uh!", I've told before the story of how He Who Would Not Read used to perceive books as the enemy (many times he'd come up to siblings or parents saying "I'm bored, entertain me" and we'd reply "I'm doing homework/cooking/reading, entertain yourself") and how he could read just fine but never, ever read anything which was not a school assignment. Not even the blurbs on comics: he'd look at the pictures only and then say "I don't understand why so-and-so did that" "did you read the blurbs?" "no!" "so-OOOOO!"

His first novel was The Hobbit, the summer he was 14; reading it was triggered by many times of being told, while playing pen'n'paper RPGs "I'm not telling you, you can read the freaking book". Next went Neverending Story and LotR, both of which fall squarely into the "thick enough to count as blunt weapons, even as softcover" category. Two years latter, him and a friend used stone, paper, scissors to determine which one would lend The Hobbit to their Lit teacher, who hadn't read it (or anything from the "Fantasy/SciFi" shelves, for that matter). He's yet another one who's more likely to have his nose in a political essay than a novel, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with his reading.

I just realized if the LotR movies had existed back then, he might never have read those books... but yeah, you don't get degrees in Business Management and Politics while being unable to read.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Reading is a skill that needs to be practiced. My nephew is 13 but delayed and it is a pain in the ass and a half to make him sit down for his required fifteen minutes of reading (it's homework, he has to have us sign off on it.) He can read anything, and he enjoys it while he's doing it, I swear! But he whines about having to leave the computer screen to do it and when fifteen minutes are up that is absolutely it.
I wonder if the problem isn't a hate of reading, but a love of computing. It may be worth limiting computer (and other screen) time to, say, an hour a day.

[Broomstick]

Either that, or make him do his reading on the computer screen - of course, you'd have to supervise him to make sure he's doing what he's supposed to.

[Quartz]

Subject to parental review he's going to be getting an illustrated copy of the complete Narnia. The book is illustrated and the print is larger.

[Chefguy]

Only one of my four was an avid reader. Stop hovering: it does no good, and in fact is probably counter-productive.

[potatoequeen]

Maybe take him one day to a library or at least a bookshop that he can choose...

[Boyo Jim]

Let's be clear here. Is your nephew balking at Harry Potter, or ANY reading? Now he's going to get "Narnia"?

Have you considered bringing him to a library or bookstore and allowing him to make some of his own reading choices?


You'd have to pay me to read Harry Potter.

[Quartz]

Let's be clear here. Is your nephew balking at Harry Potter, or ANY reading?

It was the amount of reading, not the subject matter. He was objecting to having to read 2-3 pages per day. BTW it's the school holidays here.

[Boyo Jim]

How do you know it's the amount and not the subject? I would object to reading a specific amount of a subject that I don't like.

Also, again I ask, do you let him make any of his own reading choices? You should try that and see if he objects in that case.

[Quartz]

How do you know it's the amount and not the subject? I would object to reading a specific amount of a subject that I don't like.

Because he's very much a Harry Potter fan. And he specifically complained about the amount.

Also, again I ask, do you let him make any of his own reading choices?

Yes. He has plenty of books.

[Butterscotch]

Just chipping in as a school librarian! Taking a general look at the Harry Potter books, they are really intended to be read independently by children in 5th grade and up, so unless your nephew has an above grade level reading age you may expect it to be tricky. As some people have pointed out, not all kids like Harry Potter either.

I am not sure Narnia is the way to go, and if you don't mind would make a couple of suggestions which have helped me a lot in getting (and keeping) 9 year old boys reading. Firstly to try graphic novels, Asterix, Tin Tin, or The Diary of a Wimpy Kid for example.
Secondly the series called The Time Warp Trio, a humorous historical/science fiction series that the boys seem to love.
Thirdly to echo what the others have said about non-ficiton. The most popular series at my school is the "Ten True Tales."

Good luck!

[Lamia]

Just chipping in as a school librarian! Taking a general look at the Harry Potter books, they are really intended to be read independently by children in 5th grade and up, so unless your nephew has an above grade level reading age you may expect it to be tricky.Butterscotch is right. The earlier books in the series are recommended by School Library Journal for kids as young as the 3rd or 4th grade, but the last couple are recommended for grades 5/6 and up. While plenty of younger children have read these books, if the OP's 8 year old nephew is of average reading ability then they may very well be too difficult for him.

It also remains unclear why the nephew is expected to read 2-3 pages of a book per day. If he had both the ability and the desire to read a particular book, he'd be willing to read a lot more than 2-3 pages at once. If he doesn't have the ability or desire to read a particular book, 2-3 pages a day is unlikely to teach him much or inspire a love of reading. I can't imagine enjoying a novel in 2-3 page increments -- it would be difficult to even remember what was going on. If the point is to just get him to practice his reading then I'd think he'd be better off reading something he could actually finish in the few minutes he was willing to spend on the task, like newspaper/magazine articles or very short stories.

[Quartz]

I'm bumping this because he's cracked it all on his own. He's not speed-reading, but he now reads at a decent pace. We'e all very proud of him.