Dear Auntie Leila,
I am reading through your library project posts and wholeheartedly agree with what you write, but am trying to pinpoint where I went wrong. I have saved hundreds of books from library book sales and thrift stores and garage sales. I have used various Catholic homeschooling book lists as my guide (and even tried homeschooling some of my kids at different points), yet my kids ignore or refuse most of them as boring (like Heidi), and constantly come home from the library and from school with cotton candy.
They are enrolled in Catholic school with Catholic teachers in our very solid diocese, yet I am often disappointed. I quietly donate most of the Scholastic books they pick from the treasure box or receive as gifts from their teachers. I refuse to read most of them aloud (once at the most) because they are “not very good” and suggest a different option (either something I checked out or something from our shelves…maybe shelves that need to be purged because I have too many books, maybe books that are not good?).
My 13 and 14yo girls are only interested in fantasy (the teen section is off limits), my 9 and 11yo boys don't like reading, and my 6yo daughter is firmly entrenched in “character” — i.e. Disney books and Dora — books. Two more coming up in the ranks… both boys, an infant and 2 year old. Where am I losing them and how do I get them back?
Thanks for your thoughts,
Reading Mother
Dear Reading Mother,
I think that even in good Catholic schools we really have a problem. People just don't know what good literature is. Let's face it — teachers are from the generation that was raised on Disney. They themselves simply don't know a good book from a bad one, and they also don't know anything about developmental stages in reading.*
It's really hard to get people to understand that simply having “good doctrine” does not equal “building a civilization.” Yes, it's a necessary prerequisite. But it's not sufficient.
And it's not enough to say — as we do, all the time! — “at least X is not bad.”
When it comes to what our children read, everything needs to be excellent. Yes, many children will need lots of books, because they read quickly and are hungry for more. But even the books they read for entertainment need to have a certain standard. And the fact is that before the publishing industry got monetized, there was a standard in even pulp fiction (although there has always been bad literature, no doubt about it — I'm speaking of what made its way into schools).
Now, the issue is that not only are the mores of the content corrupted, even the language is not good quality. Not to say that every book from the past is good. Not at all. A lot of it was silly and ignorant. But a certain process enabled the good to rise to the top and the bad to fall away. Now that process has been interfered with by marketing metrics. When books are dumped on schools because they are cheap to produce or have a proven track record of sales, parents must be vigilant.
Definitely refine your own collection. Get rid of all Disney, and everything that plays into some sort of marketing scheme — for instance, no Disney Winnie-the-Pooh, only E. H. Shepard. It goes without saying that Dora — just, no. Of course, I don't know what you mean by “fantasy” — lots of variations of quality covered by that word! Tolkien, of course. The Golden Compass books, absolutely not.
Boys of the age of yours in general often don't have time for reading, but that doesn't mean they won't when there's nothing else to do. Work into your daily schedule some “down times” when they really have nothing else to do but read — and it can be only 40 minutes a day!
I will say that knowing one has to write a book report can deaden the will to live, never mind to read. Auntie Leila can barely think of it. Maybe just have sympathy for the victim and let him know that the best way to accomplish the task is to simply enjoy the book, the better to be able to recount it later.
Keeping a commonplace book really helps, by the way — not as a burden, but as a great record for the future. Everyone will be excited to get a new notebook in which to record the books read and a few thoughts about what made the book great or disappointing. If they can think of it as a “lifetime log” it might have a lot of appeal. Rosie's Captain P. did this (when he was a kid — he wishes now he had kept it up!), and now he enjoys looking over his entries.
I make a distinction between one's own list and those supposedly motivational “reading club” lists that libraries have. Good books sometimes take a while to read — it's really not about quantity, is it? Nor is it a competition. Deep pleasures like reading must be carefully cultivated without reference to outside rewards. (I am put in mind of a reading challenge in our old town's school one year long ago — the “prize” for the kid who read the most was, wait for it, a Sony Gameboy. Talk about misguided… )
Some other suggestions:
1. Like anything else, bad drives out good, and getting back up to where you need to be takes effort. Because newer books aimed at kids are easy to read and morally not demanding, they drive out the harder ones. The remedy is to read aloud very exciting, somewhat demanding books. If they are up for it, read them more than once. Look at my “read-aloud” category on the blog.
2. Entice/trick them. A great strategy for this is to read one chapter out loud — or two — to the targeted kid, just until the action starts. Then say, “Oh, I have to go close up the chickens.” Usually said kid will pick the book up to find out the rest — as long as he doesn't have video games or shows to tempt him away, and if only to avoid having to deal with the chickens himself.
3. Leave good books in the bathroom. Just a few. Leave them right in reach…
4. Put a lamp that has a clamp on the frame of each child's bed. When he goes to bed, let him read if he likes — just tell the children to turn off the light when they are ready for sleep, or perhaps you could ring a discreet little bell or something to signal the end of reading time. It's fine to get 8-11 year-olds to bed a little early so they can read, carefully selecting their material beforehand.
Please make an effort to get an incandescent bulb for the lamp. I know it's not easy, but the light needs to be appealing and soft. One thing I've noticed is that it's hard for families to get good lighting somehow — often I'm not surprised that the children don't read, because honestly, the only light comes from a harsh bulb in a center fixture in the ceiling; and now it's harder than ever, since incandescent bulbs have been banished. You can find them here. The light for a bedside lamp does not need to be bright — you can even use the chandelier bulbs you find in the grocery store (the ones that fit a standard, not extra-small, socket). That way siblings aren't kept awake. Trust me on this one. (At the barest minimum, get an LED lamp with the softest color possible… )
5. Sometimes you have to detoxify the mind — not by trying to eliminate the bad but by only offering the good. Even a week of being in the “deprivation tank” with only good books to read will really set them up. Rotate the books in a crate. Every week choose 10 or 15 that you think will appeal to the different ages. Put them in a prominent place. Rest time is a good time to bring this out, saying, We're going to have a quiet hour, please choose something to read! Let them wander off with a book from the crate, and don't worry about age level — it will all sort itself out.
Detoxifying often means that the middle-schooler who has been reading Judy Blume (how can it be that schools are still pushing Judy Blume?) can't go straight to Johnny Tremain or Swallows and Amazons. He needs a re-set. He needs a stop at the “lower reading level” of Beverly Cleary or Tintin (the movie is cute too) or My Father's Dragon or The Hardy Boys (get an old one). Good books are good, no matter what the age level. When C. S. Lewis took in children escaping the bombing of London during the War and began reading aloud to them, he discovered that Beatrix Potter is a genius!
The best of all is if you can go on vacation somewhere rather rustic where this crate is, other than the outdoors, the only source of entertainment!
6. Find them good friends who love to read. Pray about it, because sometimes it is difficult, I know. The problem with school, I just have to say, is that the peer group (which is indeed so necessary to the older child) is debased. Our children are vulnerable to the influence exuded by a group of children left without mentors, without teachers who are committed to creating a community of virtue and learning. Don't underestimate the power of the peer group to drain all the joy out of reading… but the flip side of that coin is that good friends encourage the lagging to reach for new heights!
7. There has to be some sort of conceptual difference in their minds between the schlocky stuff “out there” and the excellent books you choose for them. You can start talking this up.
Your older girls especially need to start being discerning. You can begin a sort of benign “indoctrination” where you have conversations about books, read lists together, read articles (like this one by William Fahey, president of Thomas More College), maybe watch costume dramas of good books (there are excellent ones of Dickens books, like Our Mutual Friend, and I highly recommend North and South — the BBC version of Mrs. Gaskell's classic, not the TV series featuring Patrick Swaze, which dear Erin, bless her, watched bemusedly for quite a while before she surmised that it was not the series I meant to recommend).
When, eventually, you read Chapter 10 of Little Women together and realize how much more fun life is when you can reference Pickwick and know what you are talking about, why, then you will be in business. Who knows, they may even start a literary club and magazine of their own!
Everyone will enjoy reading E. Nesbit after watching The Railway Children! When you win them over, you won't have a lot of trouble with the boys. Younger children tend to live up to what the elder ones hold as a standard.
This summer, why not start reading Penrod out loud, or Anne of Green Gables, or Kidnapped? Definitely read Betsy-Tacy, Heidi (discussed in this post that gives you confidence to direct your child's reading), Pippi, and Narnia to the six-year-old. Pop some corn, get your cookies and milk, build a bonfire, or otherwise entice the older kids to listen as well. Now is the time to get your older children to develop their taste in books!
See what you think!
Love and a big hug,
Leila
Do you have any good strategies to give children good reading habits? Please share them in the comments!
*I have many posts on reading, including this series on Teaching Children to Read, so do check them out! Especially, when the topic is the reluctant reader, do read the note at the bottom of this post, and the comments related to it.
sibyl says
Oh, such excellent suggestions! May I say that another aspect of helping reluctant readers who are boys is to make sure they have access to good easy-to-read biographies of guys who did great things. Ernest Shackleton, Jackie Robinson, George Washington, Thomas Edison. The Childhood of Famous Americans has some really good selections. Boys also connect with books of information, so if you can find some old sets of descriptive encyclopedias they will at least be drawn to the illustrations and diagrams. Topics that it seems most boys really find interesting: codes/ciphers, technology (airplanes, computers), paleontology, outer space…
I have to concur with Auntie Leila that you have got to put the nix on the worst of the junk coming home from the library and school ,and insist on kids trying some better things. Remember that reading books is very similar to eating food; we want them to want the nutritious stuff, or at least eat a good daily minimum of it, and their complaints that they’d rather have Doritos for every meal will not be taken seriously.
Finally, I cannot recommend highly enough the practice of reading aloud. Make it easy for the younger ones by allowing them to draw or build Legos (quietly) while listening.
Mrs. Bee says
I agree with your suggestion re: books for boys. My oldest son (11) used to devour anything, but is now in a phase of extreme pickiness when it comes to fiction: on the other hand, he’s very happy with a Landmark book on any subject, or books that reflect his love for cars and buildings (sometimes we even buy the Consumer Reports issue with new cars for him because it has no ads and no silly content to worry about: he loves to memorize all the details of any car. He’s helped Daddy pick new tires for our car and they have great discussions about what our next car should be! But I don’t really consider CR proper reading 🙂 )
Tia says
Ours are the same in terms of their voracious interest in fact-based books … the conundrum for me is that my kiddos can’t yet read and love to hear us read aloud, but if I have to read one more descriptive paragraph about shark fins or dinos or tigers I may lose my mind!!
Before I assumed I’d be reading The Secret Garden, Little Women and Anne of Green Gables with my little ones. But with all boys that seems like an ever-more-remote fantasy.
BTW
Kate says
I think the best way to get kids to read is if they see their father reading. Everything the father does seems to be the linchpin in the family life. I think the saying is “Children love the mother, but they follow the father.” The kids know I always have a couple of books going, but it somehow means more to them that their father doesn’t go anywhere without a book. Of course, I don’t know what one does if the father is not a reader. Maybe, he can be set up as a prop on the living couch, book in hand….
My husband has always read aloud to the children before bed. He has a wonderful reading (and singing) voice Even adults have suggested that he do some recorded books. He’s read everything from Winnie the Pooh to War and Peace to the kids (depending on their ages). I read aloud to the kids during school. I don’t have as good a reading voice as my husband, but I can hold my own making the different animal voices in “Freddy the Pig.” Most of the books I read aloud were related to what we were studying in school. One of my sons had trouble learning to read since he was dyslexic, so I’d read his lesson aloud to him and then ask him to read it to himself. That way, any difficult words he encountered he could guess at in context because he had heard them in context. The Redwall series, Tintin, and Walter Farley’s horse books got him hooked on reading. Now he is an avid reader, especially history. He read through Warren Carrol’s history series a few years ago.
My younger kids have listened to more audio books than my older ones. Sometimes I worry that it’s too easy for them. My youngest often goes to the library and can’t find anything to read whereas my older kids always came home with armloads of books. However, I have noticed that libraries are getting rid of classics in favor of graphic books and lite fair and more movies. A friend says the library’s attitude is that they have to create a “gateway drug” now to get kids addicted to reading. I think it’s misguided, but librarians are perhaps getting desperate to keep their jobs. The heavens opened up for my kids when they realized they could request books from other libraries in our system with their magic library card.
So, I have mixed feeling about audio books. Is it too much ear candy? My current teenager loves to listen to Wodehouse on CD. It’s getting so he’s picking up Bertie-isms. It has spurred him to read Wodehouse because not all Wodehouse is recorded. My youngest decided to read through the Narnia series after hearing some good performances of the series.
Tia says
Books on tape are for sure better than letting kids watch TV, which is our other alternative — I don’t see books on tape replacing actual read-aloud time. At least, for ours, they don’t seem so wild and feral after an hour of listening to a book on tape, as they do after an hour of watching even good quality shows.
Dixie says
What a great question and what a great post! I would add the suggestion of making your own reading-for-pleasure a priority in the presence of the children, and not just when they are gone or asleep (maybe you already do). Of course, you have a zillion things to do, but just for half an hour.
The younger ones, at least, will find this modelling very attractive over time. They want to do what you do.
The key: responding to their efforts to thwart you by saying, “No, I am reading my book now. You may sit next to me and look at your own book, or you may find something else to do,” and sticking to it.
Sarah says
I adore this post. Thank you!! The stopping-right-when-it-gets-good trick has worked extremely well for us. Also severe limits on screen time. And – and this is very much in line with what I’ve learned from you – we talk about our family’s beliefs about good books. Since my daughter was quite young, “disney” has been a negative adjective – used to describe a certain cartoony quality in everything from books to toys (whether they are from Disney or not). Finally, we get excited about what we read around here – so my daughter gets lots of positive attention related to the classics she’s reading (as in Betsy-Tacy, Understood Betsy, the Noel Streatfeild books…). Not praise – just really fun discussions about characters and plots. I was just talking to a friend about how meaningful it is to me to be able to share the world of British childhood with my daughter – that she gets references that are meaningless to many of my peers. It’s like a secret family code.
Mona says
Thank you so much, Leila. We’ve read all the books you mentioned in your great post. I think that reading can’t compete with TV and video games. I see so many little ones (less than age 2!) just mesmerized by their parents’ phones and iPads. We were lucky when our little ones were growing up and had no TV and only got a computer in the house when they were older. Little children can read really hard books if they want to, we don’t need all these “easy readers”. By the time my youngest son was 10 he had read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy, and he isn’t in any way a genius. We read aloud for hours a day too. I enjoyed it as much as they did.
BridgetAnn says
Mine are littles now, but I was thinking if the “trick” factor in #2 could be in #4 as well. “It’s bedtime (even if it’s earlier than actual bedtime) but *if you want to stay up late* you can read.” 🙂 I’m not sure when my toddler would have picked up a tomato on his on accord, let alone told me how much he liked it, if he had not been with me during dinner prep time.
Moni says
What do you do when you feel as though you are the only one who has these standards? My husband’s family is huge on gifts and books are often included. They usually aren’t quality reading and certainly aren’t books I enjoy reading aloud either. My husband tells me I can just get rid of them but my mother-in-law usually likes to read some of them when she visits. She also loves for everyone to sign the books and when they gifted it to us which also makes me feel a little bad for getting rid of them. They will get things that we request but it usually comes with something else they have seen and had to get. I don’t want to be too militant about it but in our house the bad books are starting to outweigh the good! My husband is more of the “they aren’t bad why stress” school. I do feel sort of like a snob in this department but I grew up reading aloud with my mom, things like poetry and Oliver Twist and have no desire to read Thomas the Train or the like.
Leila says
Moni, although your husband is not stressed about the low quality of the gifts, he is okay with you getting rid of them! So do!
Just let your MIL read some of the good books!
Soon she will get the message.
We have to put first things first…
Christine says
Yep, this happens to us too. I quietly dispose of the Berenstain Bears after a few weeks when the novelty of a new book wears off…
Catie H says
I can’t agree more that books have a hard time competing with screens. I think deep down every child loves a story or a game, so if there are no screens available to them, they’ll get creative with either a book or their imagination.
Melisa says
Great discussion! My oldest 4 (of 8) are voracious readers. I think what helped make this happen was a combination of seeing me read (and enjoy) books to myself and reading aloud to them. I recall when we read aloud the Narnia books and I’d have to stop to tend to something else, my then independent readers would take the current read aloud and go read in the trees in the backyard. (This has happened with other books, too.) Another thing I’ve done with my older girls is recommend they read Pride and Prejudice and then we watch – together – the BBC version. Always fun (though sometimes disappointing) to see a story played out on screen.
If we’ve fallen out of reading aloud (as it sometimes happens), I find wintertime, with a nice roaring fire – and snow falling outside when one can stay home – is a good time to rekindle this habit. Or, late at night, when it’s technically bedtime, a child will want to hear a read-aloud. Or, when a child is sick it can be a good time to ‘catch’ them with a good story. Just watching and waiting for openness on the child’s part seems to work.
Since we homeschool, and I’ve such a wide range of ages/interests, we read aloud a wide variety – the Hobbit, Little House on the Prairie, Carry on, Mr. Bowditch, anything by Beatrix Potter, fairytales, poetry, Scripture, good quality picture books, etc.
With the littler ones, it’s fun to imitate the voices of characters in the books. I do a pretty fair imitation of Samuel Whiskers, Cousin Ribby, Tabitha Twitchit, et. al in Beatrix Potter’s Roly Poly Pudding. (Oh, and there is a charming series of animated stories of Beatrix Potter’s books by the BBC on DVD.)
Sometimes, if I just sit down and start reading aloud, I find I soon have an audience. Read it, and they will come…
Mrs. Bee says
“Uh… Uh… Annamaria! Make me…a kitten dumpling… roly-poly pudding for my dinnAH!”
We love Sam Whiskers from the BBC series!
Kelsey says
I have to laugh… My two and three year-olds have been acting out this story together for the greater part of the last 48 hours. It’s pretty hilarious listening to them lisp such refined and British vocabulary with such dramatic flair!
Claire says
Great post and great comments! I am working on the grandchildren in the hope of getting them out of the junk and into good and great liturature. It is not easy and takes a lot of strategy. They come over once a week for library club and when each one reads 10 books selected by grandma they will earn a trip to the local amusement park at the end of summer. It is working with some, but others have never tasted the joy of really good books and want to stay with the easy cotton candy, stuff. I will use many of the wonderful suggestions offered by you and your dear readers. Thanks so much for all you share Auntie Leila!
Tia says
BTW
I notice that when I navigated to the page, the last person to leave a comment (or someone else’s) name and email address seem to be auto-filled in the name and email address fields.
Leila says
Thanks, Tia — our hosting site has been having some issues and this is the latest one! We’ll try to resolve it quickly.
Laura Ayars says
My mother is a substitute at their local public school and she is appalled at the poor selections of books the kids have or are encouraged to read. She is constantly snagging thrift store finds so she has something good to read out loud to them when regular work is done. I have seen so many excellent books (THE STRAWBERRY GIRL!! UNDERSTOOD BETSY!! LITTLE HOUSE SERIES!!) on the book sale shelves at the local library marked with “discard”. Is this a conspiracy?
Suzette says
We literally stopped going to our local library because they threw out everything old. I couldn’t find anything. Now we drive half an hour to an engaging story time (although literature isn’t usually great, to be honest) and then really really good book selection. Not ideal but we couldn’t find much more than berenstain bears and easy readers “disney” “dora” and the like.
Also, i did find once i started culling library selections the children have started to have a bit of an eye for good books – you can usually even tell just by picture book illustrations..these new books are often so ugly. Anyway, my husband really really enjoys reading good story books to the children and can spot those cruddy ones so quickly.
Laura Ayars says
I am something of a book hoarder. I grew up loving the books my mother directed me to and have done the best I can to pass those interests onto my kids… I think snagging older kids helps, b/c the younger often mimic the older. I have been reading books out loud to them since they were quite young. I read Narnia books out loud when my oldest was about 7 and though he couldn’t read them yet, the stories enthralled him. I often also read funny portions out loud of books I am reading. I recently read the chapter in Anne of Windy Poplars about the dinner at Cyrus Taylor’s house and Miss Shirley’s outcome of starting the pickles… it’s hilarious. And my mom (who was visiting), my hubs, and all the kids were cracking up. Often, if you can pull the funny parts, that opens them up to receive the other parts too. I really like C.S. Lewis’s descriptions of things when he is dealing with elements of popular culture form the time. His descriptions of Experiment House or of Harold and Alberta. We listen to loyalbooks.com a lot, for free audio-book classics. I do read aloud quite a bit at home, and try to do voices, or at least put appropriate tone and emotion into what I am reading. Sometimes, it helps if their hands are busy. Doing a puzzle, knitting, whittling, coloring, etc. Like others said, too, read these books yourself. Enjoy them. Be absorbed in them. For all practical purposes, do a media fast as a family for a month. No cell phones, ipads or anything. Do a clean sweep of twaddle. But also look into other hands on things. Sew, knit. My kids and I made a cardboard doll’s house for a gift for a little friend’s birthday party–but we did it up fancy and decoupaged the walls smooth and painted it fun colors and crocheted rugs for the floor and made tiny cardboard furniture. At the party, there were more expensive gifts, but most of the little girls, LOVED looking into the door at the tiny furnishings and were enthralled. Great books are sort of like that.
Rachel says
This is a timely (and great!) post. I feel like my 8.5 yr son is slipping through my fingers in regards to what he reads. We were having a difficult time transitioning from emerging reader to chapter books last year, and he ended up with a J.Blume book in his hands, which he devoured. I managed to replace those with B. Clearly’s Henry series, and he loved them. But now Calvin and Hobbes have worked their way into our home and the way he carries them around, you would think they were his most treasured position. My husband doesn’t see any harm in them, however, C&H have made it more difficult for him to enjoy any literature I ask him to read independently. (He’ll listen to me read aloud for hours.) I guess my question is, is there any place for lighter reading? The thought of taking C&H away from him, knowing how much he enjoys them, makes my heart break a little!
Keary says
I think there is definitely a place for lighter reading. I have always liked the analogy of food when it comes to reading. Lighter, even silly books, are like sweets, while the deeper, richer books are the more substantive, nutritious but still delicious fare– say steak and mashed potatoes and fresh green beans. A parent would never allow their child to subsist on a steady diet of candy and cupcakes, so neither should that parent allow their child to subsist on a steady reading diet of light and silly stuff. But just as there is nothing wrong with the occasional candy bar or cupcake, I see nothing wrong with the occasional silly novel or comic book– as long as it doesn’t crowd out the good things. Needless to say, none of what a child reads should be immoral or blasphemous– if silly novels are junk food then immoral ones are poisoned apples.
However, if Calvin and Hobbes bothers you (and I can understand why– my own daughter is reading C&H right now with her daddy as their special thing, and I have my own qualms about it, especially Calvin’s attitude towards his parents), or you worry that it is crowding out the good stuff, then it might be useful to try and figure out WHY he likes it so much. Is it the humor (it can be very funny, especially for children)? Or is it perhaps Calvin himself? I have a suspicion that the reason so many children, especially boys, like (and have always liked) this series is because Watterson so perfectly captured the smart, imaginative, active boy in his depiction of Calvin. I know that’s a big part of why my daughter likes it so much– she can totally relate to him. Or it might be as simple as the format– the comic strip format might be easier for him than chapter books. Once you think you know why C&H appeals, try to find some books at his level that have the same sort of qualities or appeal. If it is the humor, try to find some books that have the same zany goofy sense of humor (while of course avoiding the gross-out toilet humor books). Given what you said about him liking the Henry books, I strongly suspect part C&H’s appeal comes from your son being able to relate to Calvin– so finding some books with main characters that are boys who are active, smart, and imaginative might prove to be a winning strategy. I am sure Auntie Leila and her readers would have loads of suggestions!
Leila says
Rachel, Calvin and Hobbes was always a great favorite here — especially with the boys! I think it’s a great comic. It’s normal for kids to binge on something, which is why it’s so important for us to be sure that even their lighter fare has *something* to recommend it and isn’t actively terrible! C&H certainly fills that bill, as would Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys — type things.
At some point you can sort of relegate the comic books to a particular time/space so that they don’t take over the place that should be given to better reading. In a few weeks you will figure out that that time has come 🙂 And then you can employ the methods suggested in this post. 🙂
Molly Brown says
This is a timely post for me as well. My 14 year old daughter who loved to read for years has become a reluctant reader and has started to choose books that are not the cream of the crop. This summer I started a girls home school book club in my home to try to get her enthusiastic about reading good literature again. Do you have any more suggestions for books that would be appropriate for girls ages 10-14 that are not used to reading good literature, that are conducive to great discussions, and will capture their hearts and interests?
Rachel says
Oh I love this idea! Can you share some details on the format of the book club?
Leila says
Molly, start with this post about Anne of Green Gables http://likemotherlikedaughter.org/2015/02/anne-of-green-gables-in-the-library-project/
and take a look at the comments as well.
Consider Little Women, Betsy-Tacy, Little House on the Prairie– these books all have sequels that follow the girl in question as she grows older (of course, Little Women starts later in Jo’s life than the others). The great thing is that these girls love reading!
Be sure to check out the booklists in this post: http://likemotherlikedaughter.org/indispensable-book-lists/
Rebecca Romanchuk says
To the OP –
Re: Leila’s #6: Can you stop or alter the flow at its source…? Maybe seek out like-minded parents who share your desire for better literature, and together try speaking to the teachers at your Catholic School and suggesting they ramp up their literary offerings to the students. I know- they’re able to check off their list that they’re sending kids home with books to read, but little attention goes into the quality of those offerings. All those books do is exploit the schools as a profit-making machine for the mass-market bookselling industry. So your parental input should matter, especially if it reinforces the mission and goals of the school to inspire minds and hearts with the best content.
Adele says
We have worked really hard to make reading a joy. We firmly believe in mild bribery. We have tea and scones with alot of our read alouds. We listen to audio books at lunch or dinner. We have had mini celebrations when the girls finish their first chapter book (we bake cookies and have a picnic). We talk about what each of us is reading. My husband can’t read because he has very little time to sit with a book but he can listen to books. I read a book while he listens to it and we talk about it at dinner. My mother also employed the trap method with my sister who really didn’t like reading. Anytime she would drive anywhere with her she would put on a book on tape, eventually my sister would steal the tapes or find the book in the house and finish it herself. Finding a way to have fun (the whole family) is so important.
Sarah says
We use headlamps for night reading because of shared bedrooms with different age siblings who need to stay asleep and go to bed early! ;-). My 15 year old son just read Oliver Twist this past week because he has read everything on the book shelf- except that one I said! He was surprised how much he has liked it. Last summer it was The Count of Monte Cristo. I nudged him into them- not giving them other choices (like buying or library trip helps!)
To get your boys more interested in stories, may I recommend the read aloud By the Great Horn Spoon, Treasure Island and The King’s Fifth.
I have a 10 yr old boy and 12 year old who aren’t strong readers and have gotten pulled right into these read alouds- pleading for one more chapter!
Emily Beier says
This post answered the very question we’ve been having around here regarding the twaddle that has crept in from grandparents and the library’s summer reading “reward” box. Inspired by this post, my husband had the genius idea to offer the kids a trade in on each “junk” book they would let go of. First, he took them through the shelves and gently showed them the kind of books he thought were not terribly good or valuable (with some counter examples of good/great books). At that point, he told them that for every book they turned in, they could choose a good book in exchange, or just trade it in for a fun thing to do like go out for ice cream. It worked beautifully! We were able to put in several orders, using John Senior’s 1,000 Good Books as a starting point (I used this version: http://www.classical-homeschooling.org/celoop/1000.html), and we removed quite a bit of twaddle from our shelves. We also have an ice cream date for tomorrow evening 🙂
Our daughter came to me this morning and said she found another set of books she wanted to trade in. I was a bit surprised, because she had just bought them with her own money at the thrift store and they were here favorite genre (mystery), so I asked her why she wanted to trade them in. She said, “Well, they’re okay, but they’re not GREAT books.” Parenting win!
Rosie says
I love these ideas!
Logan says
I sometimes will pay my kids to read a book I really want them to tackle. My dad did this for me when I was seven and it was an excellent motivator. I’m sure some people would think this is a weird suggestion, but it really just helps get you through something you don’t want to do. I wouldn’t suggest it for all the time, but used with discretion. In my own case it only happened once for me and then I got out of my reluctance to read since I actually pushed through to the end of a difficult (for me at the time) book which gave me confidence to read on my own. I never needed another push after that.
Ashley says
When do you recommend teaching children to read? My oldest (a girl) is four and I’m not sure how to approach reading and writing. I know if she were in a Montessori school they’d be working on that sort of thing but I know Charlotte Mason waits until children are older. I’ve kind of been waiting for her to show an interest. She likes to “practice” Japanese with me (we’re living in Japan and I’m trying to learn to read/write Japanese) which consists of her making marks in a notebook. Where do you place learning to write in the grand scheme of things? Is there a book that might help?
As always thank you for your help.
Leila says
Ashley, I have a whole series on this!
It starts here:
http://likemotherlikedaughter.org/2011/06/are-you-making-reading-too-complicated/
continue until you’ve read all the posts!