Here’s a very quick diagnostic you can use. Ask the boy to read any 200-words from a newspaper; say you want to hear his pronunciation of certain words; follow over his shoulder or (better) on a second copy. If he reads exactly what is on the page, even if slowly, you know he can actually read and just needs to be encouraged. But if he leaves out words, adds word, substitutes words, guesses wildly, or reads words backwards, then you know the boy can’t read. (See more details in “33: How To Help A Non-Reader to Read,” or suggestions for phonics programs in “42: Reading Resources,” both on Improve-Education.org.)
Boys are generally a little less verbal than girls, so unfortunately the push for early reading puts a lot of them at a disadvantage. In addition, girls are more praise-oriented, and will work for approval. Boys don’t care about this as much.
My advice is to read aloud to your kids as much as possible. And for the boys, read to them about things they’re interested in...and then they’ll just get out there and do it.
One of the problems is that a lot of the subject matter that boys might like (adventure books, even old ones, such as the Hornblower stories) is now non-PC and many younger parents either don’t know these books or feel they shouldn’t read them.
I bought this book for my 10 year old nephew for his birthday. It got a lot of laughs at the party “Just the kind of thing you would get”
By the end of the day the boy was deep in the book and he took it to school the next day to read.
It is full of short article of the sort of things described in the article.
I went from phonics, almost straight to the Hardy Boys. I still prefer a systematized approach to languages over word and phrase memorization—no “Learn X in 90 Days” will ever replace a good grammar.