Reading Refusal Making evenings a nightmare!

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My daughter was reading quite fine a year ago. She was enjoying reading Kinder level books with 5-10 words per page and about 10 pages long.

A year ago she entered public school 1st grade. At that time she started to refuse to read. She wouldn't read books she previously enjoyed reading and even refused to listen to me read books to her at bedtime. This was such a departure from how she previously enjoyed reading and having books read to her.

The public school stated there was no need to worry and told me she read just fine at school.

Fast forward to now. I pulled her out of public school for so many reasons. She was unsupported and they refused to do anything to help her social struggles and anxiety relating to being in school. I now have her in a private school. They are now assigning books for her to read back to the previous Kinder level (even though she is in 2nd grade). My daughter cries if I even mention reading.

The new private school is looking in to whether she has a visual processing problem, however they state she will read somewhat at school. I don't think it is a visual processing problem because she will read math worksheets which she enjoys. So it is just the reading-perhaps comprehension she is having difficulty with.

I just don't know what to do to get back on track with reading. Anyone have any experience with this? We have 30 minutes of meltdown before I can even entice her to try to read a simple book. I am worried that if I persist to push her she will hate reading even more. I've tried getting books she is interested in but she still won't read them.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Apologies....I'm blaming my *new* and quirky internet server for this one. I accidentally double-posted with I added my edit, below. Ack

Last edited by LabPet on 14 Sep 2010, 1:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That seems to be a difficult predicament, especially since she enjoys other readings.....hmm. Maybe there is a visual/sensory component? You could try coloured backgrounds with not black lettering or Irlen lenses (sp?) - still, like you mentioned, she does OK with maths on paper.

But, here's an idea! Many people (including kids) are using a Kindle, which is readily available on amazon. Kindle downloads books, journals, etc. with plenty of features. Of relevant interest to your daughter: Kindle has an audio feature that actually reads aloud the text. Although the ultimate goal is to have your daughter read, and especially to want to read, you could try Kindle's audio feature and even read along with it, following the text with your finger so she gets the idea.

If a Kindle is too pricey or just not feasible, ask at your school's library since, if she's formally diagnosed, there ought to be accommodations to allow for an audio text option.

Since she now associates reading books at night-time with pain and crying, unfortunately, the activity is probably especially unappealing. So you might have to re-invent how it's done - try audio.

EDIT: < I'm back! > Here's the link for Kindle (via amazon) - a very ubiquitous device. I'm considering a Kindle to reduce the quantity of paper I use and carry about. Please know the Kindle is readily available in the USA and other places too. With that audio "read aloud" feature!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/ref=s ... 1284489633

Aw, that`s lousy! Poor kid. I think that checking for any sort of visual processing issues is important, and I was going to suggest just what Labpet did...changing the format to audio books, Leap Pad books, stories on the computer etc. I even think they have books for Nintendo DS`s now, and for itouch`s as well. It might even help to watch television shows or movies that are taken from books and then read the accompanying written material (like the Arthur series for example) or to write some of your own stories together. Anything to change storytime into something different and enjoyable for her.

We are having issues with this and my son is 10 and in 5th grade. He can read very well, so for us this is about the struggle of doing "something stupid" just for the sake of doing it. SOOOOO - I have been able to get the teachers on board with allowing him to look stuff up on the internet. He likes to research different aspects of his special interests. So, for him, it is easy to spend 30 minutes reading text (on the computer) and comprehending what he read.

I am not getting much buy in from DS on "do it 'cause they said so" but he can tell me more than I ever wanted to know about the history of the WWE stars, or how to make a WWE wrestling belt.

Yes, definitely this. My sons did lots of their home reading last year on the Star Wars Wiki!

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! I think a lot of it could be that she doesn't want to sit down and plug into reading a book just because-so I talked to her teacher and she said books on tape or on the computer would be ok. She has no concerns about my daughter's ability to read-she says she is on grade level in reading but will refuse to read or concentrate on reading when told. It may be an attention issue but I will try the suggestions here!

I will think about the Kindle-that would be something I would love to use as well!

I think it is a common Aspie thing to not want to do things "just because"! LOL! My son is only 5, but he goes through phases where he is hooked on things and can't get enough, and then all of a sudden, he wants nothing to do with it. Not sure if this applies to your daughter, but it could have something to do with it.

Give her ten bucks, take her to the local super-book-store, and sit her in the kids' books section? Let her decide what level/style of book she wants to own. Maybe the books she has are too hard or too easy and that bothers her? As one of the posters above mentioned, maybe it's something with her vision (meares-irlen syndrome can make letters dance, or 'ghost images' appear at the edges of the page when concentrating on words. A few people on this site have it - coloured paper is supposed to help, but everyone has a different colour).

I'm assuming you've asked her directly and specifically "why is this book making you upset" and gotten no answer? Keep trying. Think of and ask the question in different ways, until she hears one that makes sense to her. If she used to like reading and being read to, then you DO need to find out what caused the change. Maybe a teacher screamed at her not to read ahead (this happened to me) in class reading time, and it spooked her.

Reading was her passion when she was young. When others had dolls, my daughter carried around and slept with books. She pretended to read them. Throughout Kinder she became more and more "proud" of her reading skills. She went from struggling to make out words to "guessing" (mostly right) even quite difficult words. She memorized words so that if she saw it once on a billboard or in a book, she remembered what the word "looked like". She was always very good at recognizing and memorizing patterns.

Once first grade began, a lot of things changed with her. She began watching tv (where she had never had an interest before), became far more socially isolated, had mood swings, was anxious a lot, and became quite secretive. It was as though she was tired of books and nothing I did enticed her to read or want to read. When she began reading and there were few words on a page she did fine. But when there became a paragraph on a page she would become extremely agitated and has told me numerous times "it's too much". As though that many words on the page is overload and she becomes instantly frustrated at the thought of tackling it. She does have a very low frustration tolerance.

The school has fashioned a paper with a window that highlights a line of text at a time and she is doing better with that. When she cannot see the whole paragraph she will attempt to read and not get overwhelmed. However, I've noticed when I read to her, she does not seem to listen to the meaning of the words-and even when she was young it wasn't the story that attracted her to books, it was almost the cadence of my voice reading them. Now that she is older and knows meanings of words the words all sound like "mumbo jumbo". She complains about this when people talk as well. It's almost as though she can't translate the words into ideas in her head and therefore just hears a barrage of words that becomes frustrating.

She is a very finite factual person. Numbers are her passion. Words can be quite confusing for her, even though she has a quite large vocabulary. It is strange and confusing for me because I don't understand exactly how her brain is working and processing. That's why I come here for advice. I can sort of understand her frustration: 1 is always 1, but with words it can be won, or one, or ?? and so all of that becomes confusing I guess.

My daughter will read at school because she has to, she is behind in her reading level and she loves the thought of reading chapter books and often carrys 1 in her school bag and has 1 next to her bed, i am pretty sure i know what the problem is with my daughter and there realy is no way to solve it, she finds reading boring and this is because when she reads, she reads in a monotone way i have listened to her reading many times and she finds it frustrating, i have let her pick out her own books and she gets very excited and says she cant wait to read them, but she never gets more than a few pages read before she gets bored with it, she loves to have me read to her and will sit for that, Imagine sitting and watching a movie where everything was spoken in monotone we would soon get very bored and frustrated with it, this may not be the same for everyones kids but it might be worth looking into...

What are her special intrests? Maybe she would like to read those. I couldn't consentrate on long books and chapter books frustrated me.

Books with plenty of pictures too. Or simply picture books - for now, anyway.

If she's become secretive maybe she also wants to be secretive about what she reads? I don't know. I've never had a problem with not reading, it is my strength. But I do know I get frustrated when someone asks me what I'm reading in real life because I don't want to get frustrated having to explain, and it seems private to me. What you're describing with reading mirrors my exact frustrations with speaking.

It's interesting that people have different reading methods. Not everyone reads silently with the words being read as if someone were reading it out loud. Some people can see the words and not say the words in their head. I think people are mostly limited to the former (including me) because of the way they teach children to read-- phonetically instead of words as a whole.

Since she is only in 2nd grade, and I assume has some kind of ASD, she may be unable to verbalize to you why she can't/doesn't want to read. I think it is important to figure it out. It does not sound like a behavior or preference issue to me, I think there is something else going on. I think you should have her vision checked out by a developmental optometrist to properly assess her vision. Sometimes children with vision problems who are unable to express the problems, can be mistaken to have ADHD or behavior disorders. This is due to them not being able to read because of line or word jumping, or their eyes hurting while trying to concentrate. It can get worse as they get older. A regular eye exam may not catch this type of vision problem, which is why I am suggesting a developmental optometrist. I would also pursue the visual processing testing that was suggested. I really don't think you should blow it off as behavior or preference, figure it out for her because she can't tell you what is going on.

My daughter got a little behind at the beginning of first grade (the first time around in first grade). She could read flash cards pretty good, but had problems with reading books. I thought perhaps it was a tracking problem or something ADHD related (before the Aspie dx). What helped was I found a free download that was this program that used common sight words and it would show the word for her to say and then she could click a button and the program would say the word so she could see that she got it right. I also found this site that had stories online that would read them to her as she looked at the words ( http://storynory.com/ ) I also got her a Scholastic set of computer games which included Clifford Phonics. I also bought her and paid for a subscription to JumpStart World. All of this she enjoyed and would work on reading herself. I think the fact that she could do it by herself helped greatly. She has always loved computers since she was 3-4 years old so for her the key to helping her was to find fun, educational computer games she could play herself. Sometimes when I was able to get her to read we would be silly and when she got a word wrong I would make a silly noise at her so she knew to try it again - she was more receptive to the humorous approach.

Also, she went on to be diagnosed with Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome and we also found out the she was far sighted and one eye was weaker than the other. I'm surprised she could read as well as she could in light of those issues. These days, she reads at a 4th grade level and is above and beyond where she needs to be! Hopefully you can find what works for your daughter, too.