My fiance isn't active in helping him learn at home, I don't know about his mother but I would be surprised if she was. They're relying on school to teach him. However he's in 2nd grade and he can't read the names of months and days of the week, simple words like apple or foot and can't spell even 3 letter words. I don't think he has a learning disability, just no one ever spent time to teach him.
I'm not involved in his school life and I think his mother wants to keep it that way. All I know is what's going on when he's with me. I've tried to ask him how he's doing in school and what kind of books he's reading and what kind of things his teacher's having him do but he mostly just wants to talk about recess and his friends from class.
What can I do to help him become a better reader and writer? I've been reading him books, but when I ask him what a word is he takes a guess then refuses to answer. I try to help him sound it out but he just seems irritated. I've been trying to play word games with him sort of like scrabble where you just build words off of other words with a whole mountain of letters at his disposal. But he'll just put random letters together and jokingly tries to sound it out like he made up a new word and rarely attempts to spell an actual word. Even when I give him suggestions like cat, map, top etc and show him where he could make a word, he just says he doesn't want to play anymore. He's obviously not having fun and isn't engaged in the way I'm trying to help him.
I'm not sure how to bring it up to his dad. We only have him 3 days a week and he doesn't think anything is out of the ordinary with his son's reading skills. He will "read" books out loud where he'll just look at the pictures and pick out one or two words that he knows then make up his own story to go along with it. His dad hasn't paid attention to what he's reading and just hears him "reading" and keeps making comments about what a good reader he is. All my friends' kids this age are able to read and write at least simple sentences. Most are reading small chapter books. I was obsessed with chapter books at that age. I was reading small words and simple books like Bob Books in preschool. In 3rd grade I loved 200 to 300 page chapter books.
I'm not a parent myself and it probably shows in this post. I've spent a ton of time with my nieces and nephew since they were born (ages 2, 3 and 10). My nephew has always been a great reader. His mom and I read to him every day since birth and he was reading books like Frog & Toad and Henry and Mudge when he was 5 and is now reading chapter books.
I'm not sure what to do here folks! I really need some suggestions on what I can do to keep him engaged and help him learn so he's actually enjoying himself. I don't want reading to become a chore or something he dreads doing.
I would be careful here, that this does not become an issue that is part of what could be disagreed upon between households, as that will only make the child's stress around reading harder at this point. But the school should be being proactive, with RTI and a reading specialist involved perhaps.
His parents will need to ask for this, suggest it to your guy and then he can request this at the school. Then you would take the school's lead in terms of the exact focus (i.e. phonics, sight words, or whole text comprehension). They will know his exact reading level and what is holding progress back. Once you know I would suggest buying or library-ing books right below it for a bit and pointing out things like letter sounds, or trying to predict what will happen on the next page (good when you are reading to him too).
His unwillingness to try--- a good sign of a struggling reader who is aware he is behind other kids. Have him read you whatever is easy for him (BOB books, our pre-1 readers) to you for a while will get him comfortable confident and aware and you can build slowly from there. It is not a big deal, as good schools do know how to teach reading to struggling kids but it is something to be in front of.
I would also try fun interactive reading in daily life (i.e spot the word ice cream and I will stop for one!) Reading at home should really be about developing a love/ joy of reading ---focus your attention there!!!
It sounds like he already has a fair bit of stress about reading. If he enjoys being read to, then maybe you could be his "safe" person who just reads to him without putting any pressure on him to perform. That way you would be actively nurturing his enjoyment of books, which is just as valuable as any skills you could work on with him, and far less likely to cause tension within his family.
Did your fiance attend his son's school conference? Usually, that would have been held by now or will be scheduled very soon. If he didn't attend, could he ask Mom for a copy of son's progress as the teacher sees it? Or if no one attended the conference, he could ask for one (either alone or with Mom). I think fiance and Mom need to see some documentation of son's reading and go from there. Also, I'd encourage your fiance to get a tutor for him.
My daughter struggled to read until we had testing done that identified that she could not keep her eyes focused on something (especially in her near vision) for very long. The standard visual acuity testing did not pick it up because her acuity is fine.
I agree, it's very possible he has some sort of problem that's inhibiting his reading. Learning disabilities like dyslexia aren't always obvious, and neither are vision problems that could inhibit reading.
I really hope that his school is handling this, they should be very concerned- but it's possible that he's acting out and they're assuming he has behavior problems rather than reading issues. I'm worried about his parents' attitude towards this...
There isn't a whole lot you can do.
He may not be okay with you offering to read to him. You can give it a shot, but don't push it if he isn't interested. It sounds like he's very creative, though. I'm assuming he can't write well either- but could you maybe offer to write down the stories he makes up when he 'reads' books, so that he has his own stories in writing? You could also encourage him to make up other stories where he can draw the pictures and you'll write down the story. That could help him- it'll help him feel like he's worthy, because his stories are good enough for you to take the time to write him down, and also help him be interested in reading and writing.
Kids who have a hard time reading are really at risk of giving up on themselves and deciding they're stupid. Not being able to read and write makes it really hard in pretty much all areas of school- so finding a way to boost his intellectual self-esteem would be a good idea, too.
My fiance isn't active in helping him learn at home, I don't know about his mother but I would be surprised if she was. They're relying on school to teach him. However he's in 2nd grade and he can't read the names of months and days of the week, simple words like apple or foot and can't spell even 3 letter words. I don't think he has a learning disability, just no one ever spent time to teach him.
I'm not involved in his school life and I think his mother wants to keep it that way. All I know is what's going on when he's with me. I've tried to ask him how he's doing in school and what kind of books he's reading and what kind of things his teacher's having him do but he mostly just wants to talk about recess and his friends from class.
What can I do to help him become a better reader and writer? I've been reading him books, but when I ask him what a word is he takes a guess then refuses to answer. I try to help him sound it out but he just seems irritated. I've been trying to play word games with him sort of like scrabble where you just build words off of other words with a whole mountain of letters at his disposal. But he'll just put random letters together and jokingly tries to sound it out like he made up a new word and rarely attempts to spell an actual word. Even when I give him suggestions like cat, map, top etc and show him where he could make a word, he just says he doesn't want to play anymore. He's obviously not having fun and isn't engaged in the way I'm trying to help him.
I'm not sure how to bring it up to his dad. We only have him 3 days a week and he doesn't think anything is out of the ordinary with his son's reading skills. He will "read" books out loud where he'll just look at the pictures and pick out one or two words that he knows then make up his own story to go along with it. His dad hasn't paid attention to what he's reading and just hears him "reading" and keeps making comments about what a good reader he is. All my friends' kids this age are able to read and write at least simple sentences. Most are reading small chapter books. I was obsessed with chapter books at that age. I was reading small words and simple books like Bob Books in preschool. In 3rd grade I loved 200 to 300 page chapter books.
I'm not a parent myself and it probably shows in this post. I've spent a ton of time with my nieces and nephew since they were born (ages 2, 3 and 10). My nephew has always been a great reader. His mom and I read to him every day since birth and he was reading books like Frog & Toad and Henry and Mudge when he was 5 and is now reading chapter books.
I'm not sure what to do here folks! I really need some suggestions on what I can do to keep him engaged and help him learn so he's actually enjoying himself. I don't want reading to become a chore or something he dreads doing.
You can consult a child counselor. I'm sure they will be able to help him. Plus, you can make the kid join hobby classes or some after-school club. It can assist him with in studies.
Can a step-parent who has no legal authority over the child do this? If not, then the OP can't and it sounds like this poor kid's parents wouldn't be willing to accept reality long enough to do it. :/
I think you should let him have a serious medical checkup, or seeing a consultant or even a psychiatrist in order to figure out the possible solutions for this problem.
There's indeed some deep reasons inside causing him dislike reading that we obviously cannot see..
I would focus on having an good relationship and fun, and not push the reading myself. There is a great series: games for learning, games for reading, games for writing, etc. They are short fun games that you can play in a grocery store line-up. Like "I'm thinking of an animal the starts with the letter P. It is pink and lives on a farm". While waiting these games can be fun, and they build language skills too. As a step parent, it might be easier to play games than teach reading.
Also, I would let him see you enjoying reading (as well as continue reading fun stories without any pressure to read the words)
Good luck!
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