How do you motivate a 6 year old boy to actually try when doing his school work?

Question

My 6 year old is totally capable of doing well in school but when he reads he just guesses at the words instead of actually sounding it out. He knows all he letter sounds...he is just being lazy. My husband tells me this is a boy thing but I want him to reach his potential. Any advice?

Answer 1

Set up a reward system. Kids are motivated by rewards at 6 years old. Then as he begins to do it consistantly well,  up the work he has to do to get the reward. This along with a lot of praise will do the trick.  

Answer 2

Find a book that he would really be interested in like a book about a cartoon he likes like Caillou as an example. Sound out the words with him and tell him all the good things about reading and hopefully he'll understand and pay close attention. I'm 13 and i did this with my 5 year old cousin and it worked fine. Good luck!

Answer 3

maybe have him work up 2 a certain goal to earn some kind of prize you know

Answer 4

You could try and set it up to where if he does his homework and gets good grades on his report card, you'll reward him. It's bribing, but it's kind of like working at job when the boss gives you a raise or even treats you to dinner, and you keep going at your full potential. Maybe reward your son with things like a $20 giftcard to a video game store, or a toy store, allow him to stay up a little later [maybe a half hour], or not do chores for a week.

That's my thought on it - check out the website. It's the complete opposite of my response.

Answer 5

it's kinda hard, when kids are young. most of them wants to play all the time, so don't let him/her play until homework is done?

Answer 6

Youre husband is slacking his responsiblity by making excuses for him.  Im glad youre not.

Its not a boy thing.  Its a reading correctly thing.

When he is reading and is stumped on a word and tries guessing---

Tell him " I dont want you to guess." Sound it out for me.  I know you can do it. "  

Then tell him " good job  and have some signal , like a thumbs up.

Then soon, when he's reading you can see him guessing ..

Put your thumb in neutral between thumbs up and down.. until he sounds it out.. give him the thumbs up and a big yeah !    Like a small reward.

He'll start associating correct reading with approval, and guessing with disapproval. Kids ( most ) love to please their parents ( at that age anyway..wait til later LOL)

Answer 7

Tell him that he will be behind of all the other children if he does not end his laziness.  Only use rewards as a last resort.  A child shouldn't be rewarded for doing something they should have done in the first place.

Answer 8

There's also the fact that he's 6 - most 6yo boys not only don't care about reading (they honestly don't), but they don't develop the linguistic skills to really be fluent at it until around age 8 or 9.  (Some boys do, but most don't.)

It really may not make a whole lot of sense to him right now; he's not necessarily being lazy, he just doesn't really "get it".  Boys and girls develop at VERY different rates in this area; I would really say to not push him.  Read TO him and WITH him, and let him gain the desire to do it himself.  If you push him, however, it's likely that he'll never develop a love for reading.  Not only will he not get it, but he'll flat out hate it.

It really could be a boy thing, I promise.  My son was the same way at that age, as were many boys that I've taught.  Around the time my son turned 9, he went from reading the equivalent of Amelia Bedelia and Junie B. Jones to picking up a copy of The Hobbit and devouring the thing.  I didn't push him, but I kept him involved in literature by reading it with him and getting him audio books.  When he was ready, he picked the thing up and took off.

At 6, there's not much you can do to actually motivate him.  You can threaten him, scare him, and take away everything he holds dear; none of this will actually motivate him.  Rather, let him see you enjoy learning and work with him all you can.  Eventually, he'll catch on to the fact that learning and discovering is fun, and you won't be able to hold him back.

Answer 9

Not that I want it to be true, but have you had him tested for Dyslexia?? My son hates to read, still does because his dyslexia wasn't discovered until the end of last school year, but now that we know that there is a reason behind him not liking to read hopefully it will get better. My son guesses at words also and will want to read one book consistently so he can memorize the words. BTW my son is 7. Good luck!!

Answer 10

As a teacher I would focus on appealing to his likes. That is, find material he gets excited about. If he loves planes get him a new plane book, cars let him read about that. I use comic books with my struggling readers. They put forth a greater effort if they really want to know what the cool superhero is saying or doing. Boys take a lot of persuasion when it comes to reading. Reading lacks the excitement they crave. So you must find books that get them excited. Also don't stop reading to him. I would suggest reading 2 pages to his one. The more he sees proper decoding the more he will catch on. A big part of reading is "sight words" in fact over 75% of reading uses these words. Make sure he knows his sight words well. This will give him confidence when reading and encourage him to read more.

Answer 11

Mayy ways would work, but make sure he doesn't have dyslexia. I messed up bad with mine because he had a very high IQ but couldn't read very well. I tried everything but to no avail. Then I found out about dyslexia and had himtested and he was severe. We even had teachers call him dumb and stupid. We threatened to sue the school and they got a special teacher and he did much better.

I was slack in school until I got in competition with the smarter kids and I did much better because I wanted t be the best in class. Hope this helps or gives you some ideas.