How to Entice a Reluctant Reader

This past weekend I was a speaker at the Teen Book Festival in Rochester, NY. The 27 authors walked into the gym at Nazareth College to screaming fans lining the entrance and giving out high fives. You would have thought it was an NBA game, but it wasn’t. The room was filled with over 3,000 avid, passionate readers cheering their heroes. It blew me away to see so many kids in one room in love with reading. 

In my house, it’s not quite that way. I wish it was. Of my three kids, one loves to read and the other two are a little more reluctant. I was very different. I was the kid who read by the hallway light after my bedtime. When I was a student at New City Elementary School, the library let you borrow books for the summer. I piled those books as high as I could carry them and probably finished them by the first week in July.

As a parent, I couldn’t wait to share my love of books with my children. Bedtime was the best time for that. No matter how chaotic the day, we’d sit together and read all sorts of picture books — from cute rhyming ones to historical fiction, from science to biographies. I assumed that all of this would automatically create enthusiastic readers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.

So, how do you create readers?

There’s probably no simple, automatic formula, but certainly some things to try. Sometimes it starts in the schools. Many of the elementary schools have PARP (Parents As Reading Partners) programs where the children read with their parents every night and also have activities and assemblies in school that are related to the theme or to reading in general. The Cultural Arts committees of the PTA often bring authors to school. Little Tor Elementary’s Librarian, Kristen McInerney, would give my children suggestions of books they might like and they were more apt to take her recommendations than mine.

My son Josh’s seventh grade English teacher, Margaret Weiss, had the students read for 15 minutes during class. Not only did this force Josh to sit down and pick up a book, but the kids would discuss with each other what they were reading. This got Josh curious to pick up The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. He not only raced through that book, but finished the next book in the series, Catching Fire and then bought Mockingjay the day it came out and read it on vacation. So now I’m on the hunt for a book that will engage him like those did. I’ve bought many books with the hope that “this will be the one” but so far I haven’t found the next book to grab him.

When you do get them to read, Patti Zodda recommends asking them about the book. “It shows that you’re interested,” she said. “Even go and see the movie if they have one so you can compare the two."

Sometimes bribing helps. Cynthia Sheridan, chairperson of the English Department for Clarkstown South and mother of twin fifth graders, told of a senior at South who was one of the most avid readers she knew. He said that his parents promised him $100 if he read Harry Potter. He did and was hooked. Growing up, my best friend’s dad used to give her 45 records (yes, I’m dating myself) and her brothers got baseball cards for each book they read. It certainly got them reading.

Some families trade reading time for screen time. If they read for twenty minutes, they can have twenty minutes on the Xbox or computer.

Sheila had great experiences in the Mother/Daughter book club run by Arlene Sandner at the New City Library. “As with my own book club, these clubs force us to move beyond our comfort zone and try new books,” Sheila said. “It is refreshing to attend the meetings. The children get to comment on the books with their peers and I get a glimpse of what my children must be like in class! I think they are great ways to foster reading.” My daughter Lissie and I did this program, too, and it not only gave her some interesting books to read and think about but it gave us something to talk about besides homework and the usual day to day stuff. Sheila’s son and husband also tried the Father/Son program and Sheila attends a club at the West Nyack Library with her younger daughter. Participating in these programs together can show your child how much you value reading. Both the New City and West Nyack Libraries have all kinds of fantastic programs. You can check them out at http://www.newcitylibrary.org/ and http://www.westnyacklib.org/.

Just because kids don’t want to traditional books, doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to get them to read. Cynthia Sheridan suggests, “Send them articles of interest by email. Many teenagers today prefer to read on the computer. Boys like magazines and non-fiction and girls like novels. This is one of the reasons boys get "turned off" to reading: because we tend to emphasize the latter in schools. (After all, most language arts teachers are female.) So, subscribe to magazines for the boys and be on the alert for newspaper articles of interest. Teenagers also like to read articles, books, etc. that raise philosophical questions, so if you do choose a book to read together you might want to focus on the choices the characters make and what your own teen might have chosen to do in the same situation. Lastly, model, model, model. Read books and talk about them. You'd be surprised how much your behavior influences your child's attitude.”

A great story will often pull them in. As Bonnie Weisler said, “We also have a mixed bag of ‘readers’ in our family. One thing everyone LOVES, though, is getting information and hearing a good story - whether they get that info via books, the History Channel, CNN, a newspaper, stories from grandparents and other relatives, does not seem to matter. Let kids seek out info as they wish. Once their interest is piqued, then share with them articles, book and even song lyrics to help them delve into the topic that they just got excited about.”

Reading doesn’t have to be formal, it can be organic. Liz Berg said, “I have one reader and one ‘not so much.’ That being said, the non-reader enjoys reading recipes, directions, cereal boxes, maps, manuals, and magazines as opposed to the more serious reader who devours novels as well as historical fiction, nonfiction, etc. As long as they are both reading, I'm happy and I hope that the love of more ambitious works will come later in life for my non-reader. If your kids aren't reading what you want as frequently as you think they should be, try other types of ‘reading materials’--it's still reading after all, right? A secondary benefit to the love of reading recipes is that I have a very faithful and creative helper in the kitchen!”

Michele Corriel, author of the middle grade novel, Fairview Felines: A Newspaper Mystery, said that it was glorious to see her daughter spend an entire day reading the book Holes by Louis Sachar. Getting our children to read sounds like such a simple goal, but it isn’t always easy. But when it happens—it feels great.

Editor's note: Shari Maurer of New City is author of the novel Change of Heart. She grew up in New City and is now raising her family in New City. She is the discussion leader for New City Patch's new Moms Council.