Anyone have a reluctant reader in their house? My first child was a whiz of a reader. He soaked it up like no other and wanted to spend almost ALL his time reading. As a mom, I don’t think I could have been happier. Then comes along child 2 and 3 and the story changed a little bit. It’s not that they HATED to read, it was just difficult for me to capture their attention enough to even read TO them (forget about the actual teaching).
Foster a Love of Reading in a Reluctant Reader
A friend suggested a simple idea to foster their love for reading, she said this was especially helpful with her son—- Read Magazines!
To be honest, I always have thought of magazines as being “fluff”. My shallow celebrity-gossip poolside read….and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just didn’t see how People Magazine would help my kids’ love for reading. Ha. (No, my kids don’t read People. Just to clarify.) . Our in-house book expert, Kristen, says:
“Whether it be picture books, graphic novels, or short stories in a magazine, the goal is to get a child to imagine, to learn, to enjoy or to do something!”
When I started looking into it, I found magazines were indeed, excellent sources for the reluctant reader. A 1992 NAEP survey (Foertsch, 1992, in Allington, 2001) found that “the only group of fourth graders who achieved reading performances above the national average were those who indicated that they regularly read story books, informational books, and magazines”
Reasons Magazines are a Great Way to Help Your Reluctant Reader
So, here are some top, very basic, reasons magazines are a great way to assist your reluctant reader. Many of these reasons can be sourced HERE:
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- Magazines link reading material to the things that interest the students. Most Magazines focus on a specific topic; ie, sports, animals, travel, science etc. If a child has an interest, magazines allow them to focus in and learn every aspect of that topic.
- Magazines provide structure. “Non-fiction text, especially, provides a number of supports for the struggling reader: headings and subheadings, graphics and illustrations, introductions, and summaries.” Basically, it’s a little easier to view all of this variation on a page than just words on a page. Kids respond to this structure well.
- Magazines are shorter. Instead of having to sit and read for an hour straight, kids can read shorter paragraphs of text and quickly jump to a new article or piece. This can assist kids with shorter attention spans as well.
- Magazines offer a sense of accomplishment, Due in part, to the length of magazines, young readers can often finish an entire article. This completion provides such a sense of accomplishment. In addition, readers can quite often retain many of the facts offered by this non-fiction reading. This helps with reading comprehension. So often, after a good magazine, my son will talk for hours to me with sentences that start like this, “Did you know….”
- Magazines lead to a more in-depth reading of specific topics. Real life example. My son read a magazine article about Abraham Lincoln. He was fascinated by this Civil War involved, assassinated president! So much, in fact, he begged me to go to the library and find him more information about Honest Abe. I was so happy!
Check Out This App We Love to Assist You in Helping Your Readers
We want to assist you in helping your reluctant readers! This is an app we use in our own homes and thought it might prove useful for you as well. It’s complete access to 100’s of magazines – perfect for kiddos and special interests (and some for mom’s poolside reading too of course). The app is called TEXTURE and it’s awesome!
I prefer accessing my magazines digitally through Texture because:
1) I don’t have to carry around 430780 paper magazines. Good for the environment AND good for my sanity. It’s easy to carry around reading material on road trips or while waiting at the doctor’s office.
2) It’s cheaper. Buying your magazines in the grocery store or even through subscription can get pricey. We begged Texture to give you a good deal, and they delivered.
You can get 3 months of unlimited access to TONS of titles (like 100’s) for $10.
$10.
That’s what I spend on a Chick-fil-A meal. ONE magazine can EASILY cost close to that in the airport. So yes, this is a FANTASTIC deal.
3. Kids love electronics. If you can USE the appeal of electronics to encourage reading, why not do it?
GET IT HERE
Here are some suggested magazines found via TEXTURE which might interest your kiddos. We encourage each family to vet these magazines before offering to your child. Though the ones we’ve listed we’d consider “clean”, some are NOT targeted for children specifically. I have also included links to Amazon to purchase the paperbacks if that’s more up your alley. Again, we think TEXTURE is great to save paper AND money!
SPECIAL INTEREST:
SIMPLE AND DELICIOUS – Easy recipes that take 30 minutes.
Amazon
DIY Magazine – Lots of projects mom and child can work on together – or alone for an older child – Amazon
Field and Stream – Outdoor lover? This is perfect!
Amazon
We hope this helps some young reluctant readers out there to learn to love reading! And if anything, magazines are fun for mom’s poolside reading, right? 😉
References:
Allington, R. (2001). What really matters for struggling readers: Designing research-based programs. New York: Longman.
Kristin Ammerman says
Great article, Andrea! I couldn’t agree more with the shorter length being a benefit for kids. It builds their self-confidence if they can start and finish a whole story in one or two sittings! This is a great resource for summer reading for kids!
Danielle Hanratty says
Kids reading ANYTHING is great! My reluctant reader now loves reading also. A few years ago I came to the realization that my daughter, in grade 4 at the time, was NOT able to read. I had her tested in school, which took the rest of the school year, and discovered she was far behind the other kids.
The summer she was to go into grade 5, I got out a big plastic container and we made a trip to the dollarstore. My child picked out several items she really wanted. I put them all in the container with a sign on it saying “Mommy Store”. After every single book she read, no matter the size, she had to give me a brief synopsis on it. Then she could pick out any item from the Mommy Store. She couldn’t wait to read the next book. As the year went on (grade 5) I would put things in there that I knew she’d like. Larger items if the book was a chapter book and smaller if it was an early reader. I even put special Archie double digests in there so that her reward for reading a book was another book. By the end of grade 6, my sweet daughter that had slipped through the system and was hardly able to read, began reading “Gone with the Wind”. The pride swelled in my chest. She had asked me what my favorite book was and she wanted to read it. Every once in a while I would read a few pages to her so she could hear how words were pronounced, this helped a lot. It’s a very difficult book and it took her a long time to get through it.
I left the mommy store open for as long as she wanted it, after about 2.5 years she no longer cared it.
Marguerite says
My son is going into 3rd grade and has found very few books that interest him. He is OBSESSED with basketball, so we had him start reading the sports page of our newspaper. The results are nothing short of amazing. I thought it would be too high level for him, but now he can tell me anything & everything about basketball and every other sport. He grabs the paper every morning now!! Find something that interests them, and they will read!!
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Leslie says
I never thought about using magazines to spark interest in reading. My oldest loves to read, but one of the things that really sparked her interest in independent reading was finding graphic novels geared toward young kids. I think a lot of the same principles apply. They’re shorter, have lots of images, stops and starts, etc. In the end, reading is reading, right? Thanks for the great tip!
Adam says
I would like to add one other way to make reading interesting for kids that is with an ebook reader. E readers allow to read anytime, anywhere without carrying a lot of books.