Book reading

[redbrige]

My DD used to read books on daily basis up to year4
Now as we started preparing for 11+ and after school she hardly sits with me for an hour to work on 11+
Usually book reading is the key to improve vocabulary ( as we know ) where do you all incorporate time for book reading ?
If I ask her to read books she only reads fiction fairy tales and some other stories for a longtime she is not touching the classic books, she says they are boring
Even if I read to her she won't be listening and she pretends she is listening.

Any suggestions pls?

[PettswoodFiona]

Classics are enough to put any child off. As long as they are reading and they are not too basic it doesn't matter too much. By reading I also mean they mark any words they don't understand and you go through those words with them - so they get benefit from the experience. DD would read lots of factual books with bitesized nuggets of information - often whilst in the 'smallest room' she also are up all the Harry Potters and Enid Blytons and although I don't like them much Jacqueline Wilson books. She read just before bedtime, at weekends whole we read the papers, sometimes she wouldn't put a book down. Let them read what they like first and then sneak in one or two more stretching texts when they are back in the flow.

[Daogroupie]

Hopefully she does not have a phone?

Listen to texts on a long car journey and I promise you that she will get absorbed. These great texts are not great and enduring for nothing. They are enthralling. They follow me around long after I get out of the car! Sometimes I am so involved I stay in the car to listen to a bit more.

I feel sad for anyone who has let classic texts pass them by. They are part of our humanity and not just European texts.

Why are so many people watching War and Peace? I wish they would put more non European literature on like the utterly peerless "Things fall apart". Massive kudos to Habs boys for actually doing it as an 11 plus comprehension passage. I often think of Okwondo when I nag my children for being lazy.

Then there is live theatre. Take her to see the Railway children and Peter Pan and A Christmas Carol. Don't give up.

Y4 is easily old enough for Wind in the Willows Peter Pan, The Railway Children, Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Secret Garden, The Little Princess, What Katy did , Pollyanna , Tom Sawyer , Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and many more. DG

[SlighlyStressedMum]

I read to my son at bedtime and we discussed what we were reading and any vocab he didn't understand. We started with Carrie's War, Railway Children, Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows, Treasure Island and finally David Copperfield (however we haven't finished that and he took the exam in September!).

[PurpleDuck]

I have to confess my DS was not interested in classics, either, unless you'd consider 'Famous Five', which I read to him... Maybe take you DD to a library and let her read a page or two from a few books? I'm sure she will find something she likes. Also, perhaps encourage her to read for relaxation, without mentioning having to extend her vocabulary. It may well be that it is the 11+ thing that puts her off. Good luck!

[ToadMum]

I have to confess my DS was not interested in classics, either, unless you'd consider 'Famous Five', which I read to him... Maybe take you DD to a library and let her read a page or two from a few books? I'm sure she will find something she likes. Also, perhaps encourage her to read for relaxation, without mentioning having to extend her vocabulary. It may well be that it is the 11+ thing that puts her off. Good luck!

Surely she is going to the library herself by this age?

You could try encouraging her to look at non-fiction books on the subjects that she enjoys in the realm of fiction. In the case of fairies, you may be looking for something of a 'mockumentary', I suppose - is there a fairy version of 'Dragonology'??. You could find an account of the two girls who mocked up photographs of fairies in their garden back in ?1913.

Roman Mysteries / Series of Unfortunate Events / Five Children and It?

[PurpleDuck]

Surely she is going to the library herself by this age?

It depends on how far the library is and how easy it is to get to it from where she lives, ToadMum I would have never let my DS to go to our nearest (but not so near) library on his own in year 5, or even 6. Unless, of course, we're talking about the library at school, which is a different matter altogether. My idea to go to the library together was for the OP to have an opportunity to suggest gently a few books that might be worth reading; in our school, for example, parents haven no access to the library....

[Yamin151]

Don't think you can force it. My boys have always been voracious readers, and ALL my thanks goes to technology! By which I mean the lack of it! I love reading, but I always default to the tv for the late hour I have after everyone settled, as its eay, passive and I can doze! My boys would be exactly the same. They ARE exactly the same, when computer time is allowed, and computer games definitely take precedence. I agree about phones. My boys don't have smart phones, but if they did they'd then probably never read at all!
As it is, they read in breaks at the weekend when I've kicked them off the computer (they are 12) and always at night before lights out.
We still read to them too, just for pleasure and closeness. We have done some classics, but these days, and especially when so much of their life is 'dutiful' work, we try and read books that we just think they will enjoy. These are usually not typical classics but do tend to be thoughtful, Wolves of Willoughby Chase at the mo, dh reading them Day of the Triffids, I've read them Banjamin Zepphania and so on.
But if you press too much you will find she is put off completely. I would rather work on vocabulary in another way than sacrifice a love of reading by making her feel reading is a boring duty.
Agree on audio books, many a long trip been saved by those. Also, First News, the young persons newspaper, is excellent and often encourages children to read.

But first and foremost? Make books a wonderful occupation, not a duty, and restrict the 'mental chewing gum' of screens, it's not unknown but it's rare for reading to win over those.

[enema]

Little Women hooked my DD. Then Anne of Green Gables. Then the many sequels.

[loobylou]

My experience with my dd was that it depended very much on the classic. To my despair she still does not enjoy Anne of Green Gables (my favourite!) or Jane Austen or Little Women etc - but there were books that we found that she loved - eg Noel Streatfeild (particularly White Boots and Ballet Shoes), The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse, anything by Enid Blyton, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series, What Katie Did, PollyAnna - which would count as classics. Also we borrowed lots of talking books from the library so she read The Hobbit in year 4 or 5 because she'd heard it in the car on a long journey...
But personally I wouldn't get hung up on the classics.
I used to go into an independent bookshop and ask them for ideas. They were great.
The Mysterious Benedict Society series, The Wildwoods series, The Inkheart series, A Face Like Glass, The Dragonfly Pool... all of these are genuinely fantastic well-written books (just as literary in my opinion as any classic and great vocabulary) and, more to the point, they all gripped my daughter to the point where she was trying to read them all the time. (In fact I have loved them all too!)
In terms of the 11+ (dd now in year 8 ), we didn't do any reading specifically for the 11+. She just read all the time anyway and I spent time (and money) buying books that I thought she would like...