Elementary School Reading Tips
What are some books that might encourage boys to read more?
Boys are tricky when trying to encourage them to read. More girls read, thus more books are written for girls, so this is a hard thing. Boys like to read the gory stuff; they like the R.L. Stine's “Goosebumps” series - the scary stuff. Boys also tend to like movie tie-ins. They'll sometimes like the “Star Wars” books and you can get “Power Ranger” books, too. Boys tend to want to read things that are about movies that they like, and to me, for book reports, we don't give kids books about movies. However, if they're reading for pleasure, then why not? You get a different perspective on it, you get to read the words, you understand what's going on - I think that's fine. Lately they've reissued the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, which a lot of people remember from when they were kids. These books ask you at the end of each page, "Do you go through the door or do you go find the police?" and you make a decision and you turn to a particular page. Sometimes that page leads you to triumph and sometimes you end up dying, depending on the choice that you made. The stories are interesting to read, and they're short. For a lot of kids, especially boys, the thickness of the chapter book is daunting and they never finish anything. Thus, the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books are good, because they want to figure out where they end and they're a little more interactive. I've been recommending those a lot lately for parents who want to encourage their boys to read more.
Is there a danger in kids reading books outside their level?
The main thing I worry about when kids read books that are too difficult for them - that are outside their level - is that they don't understand them and, as such, the conclusion they reach is that reading is boring. If you're reading something and you have no idea what it means, it is going to be boring. I usually try to pull kids back to their own reading level and leaver the other book until later. That was one of my hugest complaints about Harry Potter: everyone was reading Harry Potter and most of them had no idea what was going on because it was too advanced. I thought, 'Your parents are so excited that you're reading, but you're not getting anything from it because you've no idea what you're reading.' Between the difficult content, the British phrasing and the length of the books, it wasn't useful for most of the kids that were reading it. I try to steer them away from Harry Potter, if I can, and back to their own reading level. If they want to read something like Harry Potter, the should read with Mom or Dad, go back and forth and read together. That way you can talk about it. They can still get the content, they can still read it - I wouldn't discourage a kid from reading it - but that stuff they need a little help with because it's outside their own reading level.
