Remember how I read more than 1,000 books to my kids before they started kindergarten? I was feeling pretty proud of myself, to be honest. My kids love hearing me read to them, picking out books at lunchtime and bedtime, and listening to audiobooks in the car (though only for short distances).
Since I have boy/girl twins, it’s easy to compare them to each other or assume they’ll be working at the same pace in school. When my son brought home a letter last week from school about a remedial reading class they suggested he go to, I felt like I’d swallowed a handful of rocks.
My daughter loves to read and was reading entire books to herself before she even started school. She looked over my shoulder and read an email subject line the other day, which shocked me. She spends afternoons pawing through books and sounding out most words without any help.
My son, on the other hand, is not interested in reading. I know he knows his letters and can sound them out and put words together, but he quickly gets frustrated if he doesn’t know a word and wants to give up after just a few pages. It’s hard for me as a parent, too, because I want him to love reading and excel at it, and he isn’t ready yet.
I know all kids are different, and boys and girls develop at different ages. I also know my son is going to get there at his own pace, and I shouldn’t be too worried just a month into kindergarten. The remedial class is starting next week, but here are some other steps we’re taking to help both kids read:
Implementing a reward system
Our kids LOVE the pink frosted sugar cookies from Swig (a local drink and dessert shop), so we told them they could each get a small cookie if they read every day this week. If they read every day for a month, they get to pick out a small toy from Walmart or Target.
We’re only a few days into the challenge, but so far reminders about cookies and toys have spurred our kids into reading and doing handwriting homework.
Setting a 15-minute timer
While my daughter loves reading and often sits in her room looking at books, it’s harder to get my son to sit with a book for a while. We have an Amazon Echo in the living room, so we’ll just ask Alexa to set a timer to make sure we’re keeping track of our time. You could obviously do this on your phone or watch, use a clock, or even use a kid-friendly timer that visually shows how much time is left.
I’m hoping to increase this time to 20 or 30 minutes eventually, but for now, 15 minutes is a great place to start.
Sitting with kids one-on-one and in different rooms
Parents with kids of different ages are probably better at this, but I’ve found that I often do things with my kids together since they’re twins. I don’t spend a lot of time individually reading to them, because we usually sit on the couch together and plow through our library stack. Since my daughter is currently reading at a first-grade level and also likes to point out words my son doesn’t know, it’s really important for them to read to us on their own (though I still read TO them together).
Right now, my husband and I are taking one kid and going into separate rooms (usually the living room and a bedroom) for 15 minutes while they read to us. This also keeps distractions to a minimum and doesn’t frustrate my son because he’s at a different level. While reading with my daughter, I’ve also realized that she doesn’t always sound out words and assumes she knows them, so we’re working on that, too.
Finding books that hold kids’ interests
My son is really into truck, tractor, and train books, so I’ve been checking out all the picture books along these themes I can find to get him interested in reading. While he can’t read them to himself yet, he LOVES hearing me read to him, and I point to the words as I read them so he’ll start memorizing them.
For my daughter, I’ve checked out a bunch of Mo Willems’ Elephant and Piggie books, and she reads through them and loves them. My mom just bought her a new big book with five E&P stories in it, so she likes to read through that one. Parents, these are also fun to read aloud, so I read them to both kids when my daughter is finished.
Praising hard work
Ever since I read the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success a few years ago, I have been really conscious about how I praise my kids and how I approach learning. If you haven’t read it (you should!), the author talks about a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. People who have a fixed mindset believe talent is what gets them places. People with a growth mindset believe hard work is how you achieve success.
While it’s obviously a little of both, since you have to have talent or aptitude to be interested in something long enough to do it repeatedly (like becoming a pro basketball player), I completely believe that a growth mindset helps kids learn to keep going. I try not to say “Good job” to my kids (a compliment with judgment in it) but to say instead “You wrote the letter D just like the example!” or “You read that entire book by yourself!” I think praise is so important for encouraging kids to read, but it needs to be specific praise that shows you recognize their hard work.
I hope these suggestions help someone else who’s got kids with totally different interests! What tips do you have for helping a kindergartner become more interested in reading?
