What is the best way to teach an eight-year-old boy to read better?

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My sister is resource teacher for an elementry school and she has been talking about this 7 year old girl who is in her class. Appearantly the 7 year old came into the resource class not knowing the diffrence of the letters A and B and now she is head of her class and might be skipping ahead a grade!! My sister said that the problem with younger children is that they think that a book is just a bunch of words that make no sense unless a parent/adult reads them aloud. Try getting your eight year old to write down letters of alphabet. Explain that each letter has it's own sound and is diffrent from all the other letters. Once he has understood what letters make what sounds try getting him to write words, then move onto sentences. After he's been working sentnces for a while ask him to tell you a story. Write down the story he tells you then show it to him. Explain to him that he was the one who came up with that story. Then ask him to read the story. After he is comfterable reading his story aloud ask him to write storys down on paper, then get him to read the storys aloud. Once he gets use to reading his own stories then he should be able to read any story that is for his age level!

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What does he like to do or watch? Many popular children's cartoons come in book form. You can also try comic books. You can both take a trip to a local comic book store and let him choose something he likes to read (Make sure it's age appropriate).

Throw out your TV. A week without television has been shown to improve reading and attention span. Without a TV he will turn to books for the stories and stimulation he got from TV and movies. Reading improves with practice. As his reading improves you might consider bringing it back. But, you might find that your life is better without it. Set a good example and read every day yourself, read for fun.

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If it's at all a question of motivation, I would strongly recommend buying the first Harry Potter book, reading the first few chapters to him, then stopping just as it gets interesting and leaving the book in his room, saying you'll continue reading in a couple of days.

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I would sit with the boy,I myself have tought children how to read.Sit with him and make it fun.Take your time.When he gets frustrated,say,"sweetheart it's ok,your doing your best and everyone knows it." Tell him you love him.Let him pick out a book he likes and read a chapter to him every night and let him read right afterwords. Im only 17,i turtor children ages 4-9.

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try getting a tape recorder and have him read a book aloud being taped and then play the tape back to himself while reading the book of his choice.

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I found that the good old PHONICS books helped me, as I was a poor reader. Once you get the sounds and spellings under your belt, just encourage reading without pressure and negative reinforcement. Keep it simple with a lot of praise for doing well (not "good job") if it's not. Don't be negative but also don't "overpraise" for non-performance. Make it fun. I teach mathmatics while having a great time bowling~! They do great and don't even realize they are learning math ( as well as turn-taking, sportsmanship etc...)

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Here in Britain it has just been suggestred that teaching reading should go back to phonics.

I have 2 boys who at the age of 11 were both about 3 years behind in their reading.

Over the next two years both found a subject in which they were intensely interested and by the time they were 13 they were 2 years ahead.

Incidentally I also have a daughter who at the age of 11 had a reading age of 13 so it is not that we are a family which cannot read.

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I'd like to add my voice to those who have suggested phonic methods. English spelling, despite its oddities, is nothing like as chaotic as may appear. Just one note of caution, though. Methods should NEVER be used with dogmatic rigidity. In the early stages in particular, phonic methods are most effective if supplemented by some 'word recognition on sight' for words that don't fit in with the phomic pattern, for example, 'the', 'there', 'here'.

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Years ago, I was a pregnant single mother with two toddlers and very few financial resources. However, I always made it clear to my children that I would buy them any book they wanted if there were something they were interested in reading about. If you make reading important and enjoyable, your children will do the same. Some tips that were useful for me were: 1. Read to him every night, preferably at the same time (Just before bed worked well for me) and keep it relatively short so he won't get bored. 2. Stop the story or the book at an interesting part, so that he'll look forward to the next night's story time. 3. Let him choose books on subjects that he is interested in and pick one day out of the week where he gets to read whatever he wants to you! 4. Make a trip to the bookstore fun and exciting...stop at the park first or get a treat afterwards. And it doesn't have to be Barnes & Noble...the book sections in thrift stores or the local Goodwill are wonderful sources. 5. Sports magazines are great resources to get a child interested in reading. 6. Let him look at the pages as you read. My youngest son was very interested in spiders, snakes and bugs around eight years of age and became something of an expert on reptiles because of all the reading he did. Your question indicates that you are aware of the importance of being a good reader so, you're halfway there already!!

First answer by Natasha Butler. Last edit by Lilydrives. Contributor trust: 265 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 220 [recommend question]

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