All year I have been working with this one child.
A good reader. Bright. Funny. And yet he hates reading. Tells me there are no good books despite me bringing all my tricks. Book recommendations, book excitement, cheerleading and all of that.
And then I realized something.
It’s an ingrained habit now. A quick dismissal. Because if there are no good books then the work stops. The responsibility doesn’t sit with him. It sits with the circumstances surrounding him. There are no good books. What can you do?
So how do we break that pattern of dismissal?
Not with more recommendations. I’ve tried that. Not with more excitement or more cheerleading. I’ve tried that too.
I think we break it by handing the ownership back. Slowly. With small moves that ask something of the child rather than offering something to them. Moves that say I believe you can find your own way to a book. Let me show you what that might look like.
I put together a free conferring tool with 7 ideas for what to try. Not scripts. Not book lists. Just moves worth trying when you hear those words and I shared them on Instagram. I thought they would be worth sharing here too.
Link: When a Child Says There Are No Good Books — 7 Ideas to Try Now
The goal was never for them to need us to find the book.
It was for them to trust themselves enough to find it.
Pernille Ripp 