How to make reading fun for kids who struggle: twelve things that work at 6 to 10, the three that make a reluctant reader worse, and how to choose the book

A child who struggles with reading has usually learned that reading is the thing they are bad at, and no child chooses to spend the evening on that. How to make reading fun for kids who struggle is therefore mostly about removing what made it unpleasant, and then adding the things that make any child want the next chapter. This post gives twelve things that work at 6 to 10, from the children we teach to read and the parents who did the evenings, the three habits that make a reluctant reader worse, how to choose the book, and what to do if it is dyslexia.

The twelve things that work

1. Read to them, long after they can read. A 9-year-old who is read to every night hears stories two levels above what they can read alone, learns that books are where the good stories are, and associates reading with the person they love. This is the single most effective thing on the list and the one parents stop too early.

2. The right level, which is easier than you think. The five-finger rule: open a page, count the words the child cannot read; five or more means the book is for reading together, not alone. Home reading is one level easier than school reading. Fluency comes from easy books read a lot.

3. Let them choose, and mean it. Comics, graphic novels, joke books, the football annual, the Minecraft guide, the same book for the fourth time. All of it counts. A child who chooses reads; a child who is handed the recommended list does not.

4. Find one series. Series remove the hardest part, choosing, and a child who finishes book one wants book two. Buy book two before they finish book one.

5. Audiobook alongside the book. The child follows the text while the narrator reads. It is reading; the eyes are on the words and the ear is doing the decoding. Many reluctant readers become readers this way.

6. Read anything. Menus, cereal boxes, road signs, the subtitles on the film, the recipe, the instructions for the game. Reading that has a purpose is never resented.

7. We read, not you read. Alternate: a page and a sentence, then a page and a paragraph. The child is never alone with the text and never performing.

8. Ten minutes a night, same time, never a test. Not "read for twenty minutes", which is a sentence. Ten minutes with a parent, at the same point in the evening, and no questions afterwards ("what happened?" is a comprehension test in disguise).

9. Never correct every word. Let the mistakes that do not change the meaning go. Correcting each one turns a story into a spelling test; the child learns to read as slowly as possible to avoid errors.

10. Books that are about them. A child who loves dinosaurs, horses, cricket or space will read three levels above their "level" on that subject. Interest beats readability.

11. Screens count, within reason. A child reading a walkthrough of their game, or the chat in a game, or a website about their hobby, is reading. It is not a book; it is still decoding text for a purpose, and it is where many reluctant readers start.

12. Let them see you read. A house where the adults read, with books lying around and a parent visibly enjoying one, produces readers. A house where the only reading is the child's homework does not.

The three things that make it worse

1. Reading aloud on demand. To a parent, a relative, a class. The child who fears reading fears exactly this. Reading aloud is the child's choice, always.
2. Turning it into a test. Questions after every page, the reading record that must be filled in, "sound it out" for every word. The child stops reading for the story and starts reading to survive.
3. The wrong level. A book the school sent that is too hard, read alone, produces twenty minutes of failure a night. Read it together, and choose the easy one for alone.

How to choose the book

Ask the child what they like (not what they should like), find a series in it one level below their school level, check the five-finger rule, buy the first two, and put them where the child sits. Libraries let you do this for free and let a child reject books without cost. Graphic novels are the best bridge for a reluctant reader from 7 to 11: the pictures carry the story while the text is short and the vocabulary is real.

Reading in a second language

For a child in a Dutch, Italian or French school who reads well in English but struggles in the school language, or the other way round, the rules are the same: easy books, read together, the child's choice. The school-language reading gets its own ten minutes; English reading at home keeps the language the child thinks in alive. How the Dutch school tests reading comprehension is in begrijpend lezen.

If it is dyslexia

A child of 7 or 8 who still cannot decode simple words, who reads a word on one line and not on the next, who reverses letters past the age when others have stopped, or who is exhausted by ten minutes of reading may have dyslexia. Ask the school for an assessment. The home rules do not change; the teaching does: a structured, sequenced programme, short and daily, and the school's support once there is a diagnosis. What a 1-on-1 online class looks like for a dyslexic child is in online tutoring for dyslexia.

What we do

Our reading classes for 6 to 10 year olds are built on the rules above: enlarged text on the shared board, the tutor and the child reading alternate lines, the child's chosen book, and comprehension taught by talking about the story, not by testing it. Thirty minutes twice a week, in English, for children in English-medium schools and for children in Dutch, Italian and Indian schools whose English reading needs the hours the school does not have. The free 30-minute class is a story, not a test; bring the child's favourite book.

Questions parents ask

See how we teach this, 1-on-1 online →