My older two have struggled to become readers. And, once they can read, they have struggled to read fluently.
I have written before about the time my oldest asked my husband if he liked to read. She told him that she didn’t have the “patience” for it. If you can’t read fluently, chances are you don’t enjoy it and you aren’t reading for pleasure.
My second child would frequently complain about my oldest always having her nose in a book. She was so mad (and a bit jealous, I think) that she wasn’t getting play time because oldest was too busy reading.
Finally, after a summer spent voluntarily reading picture books to her younger siblings and listening to probably a hundred audiobooks, dd#2 took the plunge into loving reading in a big way.
Near the end of the summer, DD#2 purchased a book at the library called “Magykal Papers.” She enjoyed the cover and picked through the contents slowly. She wanted to know more and said there looked like there were more books in the series.
When I picked up the first book of the series, Magyk
, for her, I knew it was too hard & too long for her to read.
I’ll give her credit — she tried to read it. But, she soon dropped it. She just wasn’t ready.
I was able to find it on audio CD at the Big City library. DD#2 loved the story & wanted the next one. But the Big City library didn’t have the next one available. So, I turned to Audible.
DD#2 enjoyed listening to Flyte & Physik. But I made her wait on book #4, Queste, because I knew Sage’s seventh & final book of the series, Fyre, wouldn’t be out until Spring, 2013. I was trying to stretch out the series until closer to the final book’s release.
DD#2 decided she couldn’t wait on me. She picked up the hardcopy of Queste at the local library and started in. It took a couple of weeks, but she read the whole thing. (She also told the story at the dinner table over the course of those two weeks. So, older sister had to pick up the series starting at Book 1. Younger sister started listening to Magyk on my mp3 player whenever she could sneak some time with it.)
She’s on Book 6, Darke, now. While she will finish the available books well before the next one is out, this gives her time to read more books by Angie Sage and to go back and read the first three on her own.
A lover of reading was born (or borne, as Angie Sage would put it)!
Learning As I Go 