Adventures in Tutoring Daily Challenge – Day 9

For a little context for this “Adventures in Tutoring Daily Challenge,” feel free to check out the backstory here.

And now, let’s get to Day 9 . . . 

Last week, I indicated that I would follow up with poll responses I received for the question: “What are 3 ways adults can help make reading more enjoyable for children?”

And, we will do just that. But, let me brake a moment to briefly recap what we did in the last blog post.

If you remember (and if you don’t, you can check out last Thursday’s blog post here), we discussed:

3 reasons some children may not want to participate in reading activities.

Why? Well . . . it’s important to get to the root cause of why some children may be reluctant readers so we can help them overcome the hurdles they experience when it comes to reading — whether internally or externally.

So, last week, I shared the top poll results I received for responses to the statement (bolded) above. Again, check out the previous blog post for those results.

Then, I wanted to see what those same individuals who took the first poll question would say are ways in which supportive adults could help make a reluctant reader’s reading experience more enjoyable.

Here are the top responses I received:

1. Read to child or read with child. (Doing reading activities together helps build the
   child’s confidence.)
2. Get child’s favorite types of books to read.
3. Help child write his or her own book and then read it together.
4. Have child write a book/story about what was read.
5. Create a calm and quiet reading environment for the child.
6. Help child find a topic he or she is interested in reading about.
7. Read with expression and feeling when reading to the child.
8. Let child read in short lengths of time instead of longer periods.
9. Let child listen to audiobooks (a form of reading).
10. Encourage child as he or she reads and give kudos to him or her from time to time.
11. As the child reads, stop and ask questions (at certain points) to see if he or she is
    retaining what’s being read (reading comprehension).
12. Reduce the amount of time the child watches TV, movies, and videos or plays video
    games.
13. Repetitively stress the importance of reading and reinforce its importance early on.
14. Give incentives for completing reading activities and meeting reading goals.
15. Make reading interesting by turning stories into movies (act out the stories).

Now, I think all of these are really good suggestions. But, I noticed that most of them are referring to strategies to use in making reading more enjoyable for children, not necessarily addressing what should be done about root causes of a child being reluctant to read.

Operator error, on my part. I didn’t really word the poll question in a way that would solicit suggestions to help a literacy-challenged child, which is a type of reluctant reader, as well.

A child not enjoying reading doesn’t necessarily mean that the child has problems reading. It may just mean the child would much rather be doing something other than reading. (One of my wonderful virtual friends, who I met through the Degrees of Maternity blog, noted this real-life fact in one of his comments. Some children can lose interest in reading over time or just don’t have as much interest in reading as they have in other activities.

And in today’s tech-heavy age, many children prefer to be occupied by other forms of “enjoyable” activities outside of books. Namely, of the electronic variety.

So, as I re-reviewed the poll and how I posed my two questions (the one from the last blog post and the one from this one), I realized that I probably should have worded them a little differently because there are definitely layers to a child’s reluctance to read. Sure, the end result is the same — the child simply doesn’t choose to read of his or her own volition, but with some encouragement from the outside.

But there are differing reasons for this reluctance. All must be addressed. And it’s important to recognize that all reasons are not created equal and can’t be treated the same way.

For example, the way in which to support a child who can read fluently on his or her fifth grade level (or beyond) but just doesn’t like to read because it’s not of interest to him or her is quite different than the way in which you support a child who finds reading difficult and struggles to decode word parts and complete words as a fifth grader.

Obviously, strategies to help reading become more interesting to the first student are what’s needed, but specialized reading intervention and instruction will be needed for the second student to help close reading skills gaps and deficiencies. 

So, I’m thinking about redoing my poll (sometime in the future) by clarifying my questions a little more through providing more context and explanation and allowing for the complex layers of the reluctant reader to be addressed. 

When I get my updated poll questions figured out, you’ll be the first to know. Oh, and participation (by you) would be great, too. Just a heads-up for future purposes.