@bikepedantic hey, give my friend a break, he’s trying hard and it’s been a tough time

@bikepedantic similar with my almost 7 y/o, so don’t sweat it. Kids are all different, but (waves hands wildly) CURRICULUM, however well intentioned is bound to make around half of students/families feel like they are behind on something/everything.

@bikepedantic
Take heart, my niece was an indifferent reader until middle or high school, barely graduated from high school, and today is a middle school principal.

@bikepedantic same for my son at the same age, he reads just fine a year later

@bikepedantic don’t sweat it too much. She’ll get there. I think I was 7 before I started being interested in reading. I recommend turning in subtitles / closed captions while watching shows or movies, and reading out load the text from games. Or making a game of writing HER story, or a story her toys are involved in.

@bikepedantic My daughter seemed allergic to books through the end of first grade last year. She liked being read to, but wouldn't try to read to herself. Then at 7.5, she attended her friend's dragon-themed b-day party, and borrowed a couple of Dragon Master books, followed by others from the library. She doggedly plowed thru that series, then moved on to Wings of Fire (middle-grade reading level -- lots of backstabbing, intrigue, and murder). Over the next six months she read all 15 books in the main series and the standalone companion books, then met the author (Tui Sutherland) at Boskone this February and monopolized her at a panel for two hours. Since then she's read Grace Lin's "When the Mountain Meets the Moon" series.

Meanwhile, my older kid was an early reader; he always had a book in hand, inhaled dozens of classics by the time he was 9, and liked attending book clubs -- but since 5th grade, he's steadily lost interest, and now at age 12 says he doesn't like to read. I'm trying not to take that personally. It's easy to blame this on screens (in the time since he stopped reading anything not required for school, he's written hundreds of scratch programs and made dozens of clever videos), but I don't feel like tech explains it -- he's just not enjoying any narrative work at all now (he's not interested in movies or TV shows either). I expect he'll cycle back to books again, eventually.

@bikepedantic not to be alarmist but it’s probably worth having her tested for dyslexia. We had one of our kids tested for free by a state agency. At least you can rule it out

@bikepedantic Don't sweat it. My kid also started to read less around the same age. We also loosened up requirements (used to be 1:1 exchange for reading min for screen time min) because we didn't want to make reading a hated activity. Be gentle with yourselves. Everyone goes at their own pace. 💞

@bikepedantic middle kid, now 24, hated practicing, trying to read-would have the worst meltdowns. Well into 3rd 4th grade. But if you read something to her, her comprehension was off the charts. FINALLY we took her to an eye specialist and she had binocular dysfunction-the muscle of her eyes didn’t work together. 1/

@bikepedantic They would basically get tired from trying to move across the page at the same time and she would essentially read the words down the middle of the page and it gave her trrrible headaches. She did weekly eye therapy where she did exercises strengthening her eyes muscles her Dr said that this often gets lumped into dyslexia but there’s a lot of other nuances that a lot of drs don’t recognize.

@bikepedantic Happy ending, she finally learned to read in like 5th grade and has been an avid, voracious reader ever since. So give it time, but also worth getting her checked for dyslexia and other related vision disorders. Fixing My Gaze is a great book on the subject. You’re a good dad-give yourself a break.

@bikepedantic My daughter liked being read to but didn’t read herself until 7. Nbd. She is now a straight A student. And the reading stuff is almost all biological I think…

@bikepedantic I had a late reader, who now loves books at grade 7. We had luck with school, extra help, and extra reading time at home.