That’s me.

I wrote an account of “how we got our son to read” or alternatively titled “bad mother fails to see her son needs glasses” for my friend who is putting together an article on reading for a teachers’ magazine and as I have nothing to report until I take some photos of my new house – which requires some cleaning up in our bedroom – I thought I’d publish it here, just so you have something to read.

So here we go:

My son is a bright kid. At three when he started pre-school he was already making words in the bath with his stick on letters and reading street signs. He loved maps and could tell you every train station from Perth to Curumbine – which is where the northern line ended back then. He also knew all the stations to Fremantle, Midland and Armadale. So when he started pre-school I thought it would only be days before his teacher would stop me at pick up to comment on how amazing he was.

She never did. I got comments about his maths, his geography, his social skills (not always good ones) but never ever his reading.

And he would never read fiction books! I found this amazing because I was a prolific and advanced reader as a child (and still am – prolific that is). I naturally thought my son would be the same. I read to him every night. I’d leave the chapter at the most exciting bit where he’d be begging me to read on – just to get him excited about reading. But nothing worked. He would only read non-fiction books. Oh and map books.

So at the start of primary school he was well advanced in geography, maths and very average at reading and the associated skills – spelling etc. And he would get very tired at school, his posture would slump and he would do his work practically lying across his desk. He still wouldn’t read a page of writing. You would think at this point alarm bells might have gone off in my head. But no.

Then we discovered Captain Underpants. Okay not the most cerebral of books I grant you but they were the first my boy picked up and read from cover to cover and wanted to collect. I felt the drought had broken. Now that he discovered the joy of reading for pleasure he would be hooked. But he couldn’t read the good Captain forever – what next?

Well next was a breakthrough. Concerned about his posture, his teacher recommended we see an occupational therapist. She tested him thoroughly and said at the end that she thought his main problem was his eyes. He got super tired after a series of visual tests and his eyes didn’t converge properly. valsonindia.com cialis online They will feel scared, confused, frustrated, rejected and unloved. Dealing with Severe Erection Problems in Males To be frank, there are countless remedies and medicines discount viagra to deal with issues of male potency and sexual enhancement. Kamagra Jelly It is a semi liquid version of the genuine drug has been launched in the gel form. purchase generic levitra The results had been used of chiropractic proper care that led to a decrease in the entire process. on line cialis http://valsonindia.com/100-cotton-yarns-of-all-counts/?lang=af She recommended a developmental optometrist and we booked in for an appointment. My son was eight years old.

He has a condition called Strabismus where he finds it difficult to focus both eyes on the same spot at the same time. This means that it’s very hard to keep the words aligned on the page. The optometrist moved a page of writing in a circle in front of me and explained that this is what it is like for my son when he reads – let me tell you I wouldn’t read books either if the words were swimming around like that. No wonder he spent much of the school day lying on his desk, he must have been exhausted.

So we got glasses. Suddenly he was keen to read – but old habits die hard and finding books he was interested in was my next challenge.

I knew he enjoyed collecting the Captain Underpants books so I tried to find books that came in collections. Then I looked for books which appealed to his interests. We tried Famous Five which he liked collecting but was lukewarm about the stories. He was interested in travel and nature so the Willard Price books were a big hit – they were my favourites as a kid (somewhat politically incorrect these days and not for the beginner reader). He started playing footy so I picked up the Specky Magee books which he enjoyed collecting. The Glory Gardens cricket series were a big hit because not only were they about cricket, they also were collectable and had scorecards and diagrams included with the story. A winner. Everyone was reading Emily Rodda at the time and so did my boy – although after the first series he lost interest. He never really enjoyed Harry Potter (the only kid in the world!) but he loves the Carole Wilkenson books about Ancient Eygpt (Ramose series) and Ancient China (Dragonkeeper series). And last year he absolutely devoured Hover Car Racer by Matthew Reilly. Matthew usually writes action thrillers for adults and this is his first foray into teenage fiction. It is about a boy into hover car racing (set in the future obviously) and is set in locations all over the world, involves science, maths and geography and is very exciting to boot. Matthew also writes in short sentences. Very easy to read. A winner!

Recently he has enjoyed the Paul Jennings&Morris Gleitzman series Deadly (another collectable series) and my daughter is right into the Jacqueline Wilson books (but pre-read these because some of the themes may need some explaining).

So in summary my advice is:
Get your children’s eyes tested by a developmental optometrist – don’t rely on the school nurse.
Choose collectable books. They like collecting stuff and it’s easier on you!
Choose books which feed off their other interests.
Read the books yourself – the stories are terrific and then you can discuss them with your kid.
Ask your friends what their children enjoy for ideas.

Speaking of which… any recommendations?