Anonymous
06/27/2023 20:16
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
My dyslexic kid has always hated to read (though he’s had all the remediation and can read). We’ve been careful not to force or require it. But we read out loud to him until he was about 11, and then we required that he have an audiobook on his phone or iPad at all times, so he at least could read if he wanted. Between 12 and 14 he didn’t read much at all. But then at 15 he started reading (listening) every night before bed. He now (at 16) goes up to bed early and listens to a book for half an hour a night and says he enjoys it and it helps him wind down after his day.
He surprised me. Who they are at 11 or 13 is not who they’ll be at 16 or 18.
He surprised me. Who they are at 11 or 13 is not who they’ll be at 16 or 18.
Anonymous
06/27/2023 19:29
Subject: Re:Force tween/teen to read/study?
Agree that forcing to read could backfire, but limiting screen time is a no brainer and (especially if done at an earlier age) has the same effect.
Reading fiction forces you to develop a longer attention span, to imagine worlds that aren't pictured for you, to take other perspectives. It's wonderful and rewarding--but the less you do it the harder it is, the more you do it, the better it is.
We have limited screen time all along and have voracious readers. The two things are for sure linked. Will all kids with limited screen time become voracious readers? No. But I don't know any voracious readers who chose that path and developed the necessary muscles when they had the easier choice of unlimited screen time. If the kid doesn't end up using the extra time to read, I'm pretty sure it'll motivate him to find some other ways of spending time--making stuff, playing sports or exercising, cooking, getting a job, volunteering, hanging out with friends.
I'm not saying no screens, I'm saying that not limiting them is like giving a young child with impressionable palate unlimited junk food. It may sound like you're giving him freedom, but in fact it will end up limiting his choices because he won't do anything else and won't know how to enjoy anything else or be good at anything else.
Reading fiction forces you to develop a longer attention span, to imagine worlds that aren't pictured for you, to take other perspectives. It's wonderful and rewarding--but the less you do it the harder it is, the more you do it, the better it is.
We have limited screen time all along and have voracious readers. The two things are for sure linked. Will all kids with limited screen time become voracious readers? No. But I don't know any voracious readers who chose that path and developed the necessary muscles when they had the easier choice of unlimited screen time. If the kid doesn't end up using the extra time to read, I'm pretty sure it'll motivate him to find some other ways of spending time--making stuff, playing sports or exercising, cooking, getting a job, volunteering, hanging out with friends.
I'm not saying no screens, I'm saying that not limiting them is like giving a young child with impressionable palate unlimited junk food. It may sound like you're giving him freedom, but in fact it will end up limiting his choices because he won't do anything else and won't know how to enjoy anything else or be good at anything else.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 12:38
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
I had mine sit at the kitchen table and do some work. Same time (ish), every day. An hour. I either had a workbook or expected an hour of reading. I have two kids, they sat together. It also meant I was there, in the same room, to see it happen. That was kind of a pain as I often would have rather been doing something else, myself. Even did it when we were on vacation, somewhere else. Did it matter? IDK. Since I wanted to do it, at the time, I'm glad I did.
There were some summers which required more time/more structure for summer learning. Both kids, for a summer or two, took an academic class. So, the 1 hour at the kitchen table was the minimum - but it was the more usual.
There were some summers which required more time/more structure for summer learning. Both kids, for a summer or two, took an academic class. So, the 1 hour at the kitchen table was the minimum - but it was the more usual.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 11:23
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
My 14 yo really doesn't read much anymore though he was a voracious reader in ES. He's super busy so I didn't really push it during the school year. My 11 yo really likes to read and will pick out all kinds of interesting books and get immersed in them. He even set a new years resolution to read 35 books this year. BUT the lure of the screens so so strong. So yeah, I "make" them turn off screens and "make" them read some each day. I had the older one pick out some library books and I don't care if they are even lower reading level like early middle school, I just want him to read some again.
I've failed in previous summers getting anyone to do any math practice so giving up on that. I work full time and there are only so many battles I fight
The older one does do duolingo for his language a little each day too.
I've failed in previous summers getting anyone to do any math practice so giving up on that. I work full time and there are only so many battles I fight
The older one does do duolingo for his language a little each day too.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 10:47
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
Parent of 14 yo here. We have no limits on screen time or even bed time during the summer. However, DS does continue with math (algebra 2 at this point) tutor 1xweek instead of 2xweek just to keep his skills up since math is his weakest subject. We also do a family "book club", well it is him and I really. We pick some books from reading lists, some personal choice by both of us and some inspired by our vacay destination. DS would not pick up a book for pleasure reading otherwise, but will read for "book club". The discussions that follow are quite illuminating on how his mind works.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 10:45
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You guys, if you have tweens, you need to make them read. Don’t believe the people who tell you it will make your kid hate reading. The reason kids avoid it is because it’s HARD. Reading is hard. Their reading brains are out of practice, and it is indeed a struggle. But it does get easier. They’ve got to push through. I don’t know why parents make their kids do sports, exercise, practice an instrument, enforce chores and yet somehow they give up on reading!
The goal is not to grow your kids into lifelong readers. The goal is to make them literate so they can read documents, manuals, books, contracts, literature and textbooks in all subjects matters through their high school and college years. They will not magically become readers. I promise.
No, reading isn’t hard. Learning to read is hard. Once you learn how to read, it is effortless. If a child is struggling in middle school with the skill of reading, they need remediation. At that point, daily practice isn’t going to magically chamge things, they’re just reinforcing bad habits that they’ve already been practicing for several years.
Some things like contracts and manuals are hard to read, not because we’re accessing them by reading, but because we’re unfamiliar with the content we’re reading. The reason people hire lawyers for important contracts, isn’t because they’re illiterate, it’s because they aren’t experts in contract law. Listening to somebody else reading the contract would not make it easier to understand. Similarly, technical manuals may be difficult to read by those who lack technical expertise, but the limiting factor is content knowledge, not reading ability. Reading novels for 30 minutes a day is not going to make somebody a legal or technical expert.
Ok so you’re obviously clueless and have much to learn, but go ahead and persuade parents that their tweens shouldn’t read over the summer. Hopefully they don’t listen.
Ok so your kids are not very academic and you have much to learn about the variety of intelligence levels, but go ahead and persuade yourself that everyone else's kids have the same struggles as yours.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 10:29
Subject: Re:Force tween/teen to read/study?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:No! That’s not a vacation.
If there’s something specific they need to work on, because of a deficiency, then by all means use this time to catch up. Assuming they work hard during the year, though, they should be able to have a break during their vacation. Can you imagine if your boss sent you with work to do on your vacation, not because it urgently needed to be done, but just so you wouldn’t waste your vacation having the “wrong” kind of fun? Sport camps, clinics, and planned family vacations are great, but they also need sone down time that they control, to relax and recharge in a way that works for them.
Growing up, I loved school. I would start every year excited about the chance to learn. However, by the time Spring rolled around, I felt like I was just holding on by my fingernails, just trying to get through one more day. I needed the summer to relax and even get bored, so that by Fall I was ready and eager for another year.
I spent a LOT of time watching screens, but I also spent a LOT of time reading. Thank goodness my mother let me experience the intrinsic job of reding, rather than turning it into a chore. If somebody forced you to do your favorite activity, how long would it be before you began to resent it? Read to them, read around them, and share cool/funny things you read with them. Take them to libraries and/or used book stores.
Meanwhile, screens are just another form of media. While there is undoubtedly some inappropriate content, most of it is fairly neutral, and some can be very educational/enriching. Set guidelines for content, and maybe encourage (not force) them towards positive content, but it’s not inherently as harmful as DCUM would have you think. You might even join them. You can have movie nights, or introduce them to one of your favorite TV shows. Explore YouTube and gind things that interest you. Yes, there are animal videos, and inane videos of self-important individuals doing inane things, but there are also videos of historical footage, performances, scientific experiments, expert explanations/lectures/debates of every topic imaginable, videos from around the world providing insight into their cultures, documentaries and in-depth reporting, etc. Similarly, while you are fully justified in restricting games with content you find objectionable, gaming is not inherently negative. It often involves strategy and problem solving, and may even have a social element (but of course you need to be wary of interacting with strangers on the internet).
Hoagies has links to enrichment websites for all ages and subjects.
https://www.hoagiesgifted.org/links.htm
They might even like programming. Scratch is a language developed by MIT to teach kids how to program.
https://scratch.mit.edu/parents/
OP here. I don’t think my 14yo has read a book for leisure in over a year. He is a straight A student.
My 12yo is barely above average in reading and needs writing improvement.
Leave them alone. Barely above average means still above average. Forcing either to read isn’t going to help them improve reading.
I haven’t read a book for leisure since middle school. Once high school came, I didn’t enjoy reading books. I got though college and grad school with good grades and have a successful career. I still don’t read books for pleasure.
I spend hours reading DCUM now, if that counts as reading. I’m sure your 14 yo reads on the internet.
This is such a sad argument
Why? Why are you sad some people don’t enjoy reading books? How often do you pick up a sudoku for fun or solve math puzzles? Does it make you sad that many people don’t enjoy those activities?
Again- the reading doesn’t need to be novel-centered. It could be reading through magazines daily. To answer your “why” - kids are not reading as well as they used to, and have much less reading endurance and focus. They also have smaller vocabularies and less writing instruction in schools. There are ramifications to this.
If your child is a teenager and an excellent reader who happens not to like fiction that is completely different than a struggling middle school reader who avoids reading because it is difficult. So please, use some nuance.
I also noticed you mischaracterized my use of “sad.” I meant to imply that it’s sad adults, like yourself, go to great lengths to rationalize the dramatic drop in reading among children.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 09:07
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:You guys, if you have tweens, you need to make them read. Don’t believe the people who tell you it will make your kid hate reading. The reason kids avoid it is because it’s HARD. Reading is hard. Their reading brains are out of practice, and it is indeed a struggle. But it does get easier. They’ve got to push through. I don’t know why parents make their kids do sports, exercise, practice an instrument, enforce chores and yet somehow they give up on reading!
The goal is not to grow your kids into lifelong readers. The goal is to make them literate so they can read documents, manuals, books, contracts, literature and textbooks in all subjects matters through their high school and college years. They will not magically become readers. I promise.
No, reading isn’t hard. Learning to read is hard. Once you learn how to read, it is effortless. If a child is struggling in middle school with the skill of reading, they need remediation. At that point, daily practice isn’t going to magically chamge things, they’re just reinforcing bad habits that they’ve already been practicing for several years.
Some things like contracts and manuals are hard to read, not because we’re accessing them by reading, but because we’re unfamiliar with the content we’re reading. The reason people hire lawyers for important contracts, isn’t because they’re illiterate, it’s because they aren’t experts in contract law. Listening to somebody else reading the contract would not make it easier to understand. Similarly, technical manuals may be difficult to read by those who lack technical expertise, but the limiting factor is content knowledge, not reading ability. Reading novels for 30 minutes a day is not going to make somebody a legal or technical expert.
Ok so you’re obviously clueless and have much to learn, but go ahead and persuade parents that their tweens shouldn’t read over the summer. Hopefully they don’t listen.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 08:47
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
Anonymous wrote:You guys, if you have tweens, you need to make them read. Don’t believe the people who tell you it will make your kid hate reading. The reason kids avoid it is because it’s HARD. Reading is hard. Their reading brains are out of practice, and it is indeed a struggle. But it does get easier. They’ve got to push through. I don’t know why parents make their kids do sports, exercise, practice an instrument, enforce chores and yet somehow they give up on reading!
The goal is not to grow your kids into lifelong readers. The goal is to make them literate so they can read documents, manuals, books, contracts, literature and textbooks in all subjects matters through their high school and college years. They will not magically become readers. I promise.
No, reading isn’t hard. Learning to read is hard. Once you learn how to read, it is effortless. If a child is struggling in middle school with the skill of reading, they need remediation. At that point, daily practice isn’t going to magically chamge things, they’re just reinforcing bad habits that they’ve already been practicing for several years.
Some things like contracts and manuals are hard to read, not because we’re accessing them by reading, but because we’re unfamiliar with the content we’re reading. The reason people hire lawyers for important contracts, isn’t because they’re illiterate, it’s because they aren’t experts in contract law. Listening to somebody else reading the contract would not make it easier to understand. Similarly, technical manuals may be difficult to read by those who lack technical expertise, but the limiting factor is content knowledge, not reading ability. Reading novels for 30 minutes a day is not going to make somebody a legal or technical expert.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 03:42
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
You guys, if you have tweens, you need to make them read. Don’t believe the people who tell you it will make your kid hate reading. The reason kids avoid it is because it’s HARD. Reading is hard. Their reading brains are out of practice, and it is indeed a struggle. But it does get easier. They’ve got to push through. I don’t know why parents make their kids do sports, exercise, practice an instrument, enforce chores and yet somehow they give up on reading!
The goal is not to grow your kids into lifelong readers. The goal is to make them literate so they can read documents, manuals, books, contracts, literature and textbooks in all subjects matters through their high school and college years. They will not magically become readers. I promise.
The goal is not to grow your kids into lifelong readers. The goal is to make them literate so they can read documents, manuals, books, contracts, literature and textbooks in all subjects matters through their high school and college years. They will not magically become readers. I promise.
Anonymous
06/26/2023 03:36
Subject: Force tween/teen to read/study?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:My 12 and 14yo boys are registered for some sports camps and clinics this summer. We have a few vacations planned. If I let them be, they would be on screens ALL day. I have gotten them a stack of books from various summer reading lists.
Would you force tweens/teens to read and do some summer work?
This feels so painful to do. I have probably asked my 14yo to read a book at least 10x in the past 2 weeks and he has read zero. My 12 yo still listens to me a little and I have been able to kick him off screens and he has read one book this summer.
I hear you…. You posted exactly my issue. DS does not want to read or picks up books that he read on the 2nd grade. Just to get a check mark that he read for the day.
It’s painful.
I have to adjust expectations and just let him be. Else, the household has turned into power struggles filled with negative energy.
Can he read well??