How to convince my hubby to read?

[copyrite]

The men in my house (husband and son) are strictly nonfiction readers. Hubby reads the newspaper (yep, the real thing!) daily, and also has a couple of subscription to magazines of interest that he keeps on the kitchen table. I'll occasionally buy him a book I know he'd be interested in; so far the stack has eight hardback titles waiting to be read. The boy (YA really) finds books as subjects appeal to him in the news or as he's exposed to them (trip to Alcatraz afterwards he found every book he could on the subject) and also has a backlog of books to read.

Neither are interested in reading on an eInk or tablet device. Lord knows I have enough old ones of both in the house!

Daughter who is out of the house is a nonstop reader, primarily fiction, like me, and has my dream job: she's an elementary school librarian (well media specialist they call them these days ).

[spindlegirl]

The best reading experiences are when my husband and I read together. It leads and inspires us to individually read books of our own. Also when our children were younger, he would read aloud from a book at the dinner table. We read the "Ramona" books "The Lord of the Rings", all of the "Narnia" books.

All of our children, now grown, like to read.

I wish you the best in encouraging your husband to read. You've had a lot of good input!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by CatherineStewart

I know that reading for him would vastly improve his vocabulary (not that he's lacking but an improvement is always good) and his spelling (cause it's atrocious). AND….I know he would enjoy it!

He may become a reader, but it's unlikely that his spelling will improve.

In my experience with dyslexic relatives, their spelling has to be algorithmic and conscious. For me, an incorrectly spelled word just looks wrong.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

He may become a reader, but it's unlikely that his spelling will improve.

I'm not so sure about that. I *am* 100% sure that many people spell words the wrong way because they are seeing them the wrong way all the time... and often, Google is to blame. Many of my friends use the spellings suggested by Google:

- Go to http://www.google.nl/ncr
- Search for "luidsprekerversterker" (speaker amplifier)

Google will now suggest: "Did you mean: luidspreker versterker". Same with many 'spell checkers' on phones. The one on mine actually splits words up because it doesn't know the compound word, and the closest match are the two separate ones.

In Dutch, that is wrong. I'm 100% sure that seeing words spelled correctly or incorrectly, over and over again, will have a big impact on your spelling.

For me, an incorrectly spelled word just looks wrong.

For me as well, but I think that is because you have seen it spelled correctly hundreds, if not thousands of times.

[CatherineStewart]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

He may become a reader, but it's unlikely that his spelling will improve.

In my experience with dyslexic relatives, their spelling has to be algorithmic and conscious. For me, an incorrectly spelled word just looks wrong.

My husbands spelling is atrocious not due to him being dyslexic (in all reality he has pretty much adapted perfectly to being dyslexic). He works in sales and deals with the written word and numbers all day and does great. But he has this constant label in his head that "I'm dyslexic so that will be too hard for me to do" when it comes to other things i.e.: reading a book, organizing things, sorting, etc (which is complete crap because when he HAS to do it, he does it wonderfully and it takes him no more effort than a non-dyslexic person).

But the spelling. Oh lord the spelling! I think it's because he does not make a conscious effort to learn/remember the difference between (their,there,they're) and (we're, where, ware) etc. He just googles, or asks me all the time and I tell him the answer. Which really, he should make an effort to learn, and I know READING would help out in that area too. Hey, it can't hurt right?

I guess I'm just looking at the other benefits for him (to help encourage him to try) as to why it's a good idea to try and read something other than just magazines about boats, etc. I know my husband. I know he would enjoy it once he sinks his teeth in, I just need to get him past this fear that "he can't" or it's "too hard" or "too daunting". And I really think the suggestion of short stories is a fantastic way to start.

[Cinisajoy]

Oh Catherine, there may be a flip side.
How is your wall space? If he gets really interested in a topic, you may find yourself with many books on that subject or subjects as the case may be.

[copyrite]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Oh Catherine, there may be a flip side.
How is your wall space? If he gets really interested in a topic, you may find yourself with many books on that subject or subjects as the case may be.

Or is that as the "case may hold"?

[CatherineStewart]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

Oh Catherine, there may be a flip side.
How is your wall space? If he gets really interested in a topic, you may find yourself with many books on that subject or subjects as the case may be.

Um ya no wall space. Hence why I have e-readers

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by CatherineStewart

Um ya no wall space. Hence why I have e-readers

Well now I only have 2 shelves of cookbooks. One shelf has 16 2 foot sections and the other has 24 2 foot sections.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

He may become a reader, but it's unlikely that his spelling will improve.

In my experience with dyslexic relatives, their spelling has to be algorithmic and conscious. For me, an incorrectly spelled word just looks wrong.

My wife is Dyslexic and even correctly spelled words can look wrong to her.
It mostly affects her when she is tired. and it is difficult for her to read when tired. Another way Dyslexia affects my wife, when reading, is that the words seem to move around on the page. She also has a type of Dyslexia that causes her to lose her sense of direction.
Apache

[BookCat]

I'm not sure how dyslexics differ, but when I was a child I learned spelling and reading both together AND separately. I was taught to read using the original phonics method in the early 60s, but words which aren't spelled phonically: cough, laughter, etc were given as short lists of about six to ten words we had to learn at home and were later tested on.
Luckily, one of my older sisters was training to be a teacher at that time so I would sit with her while she was studying and just copy out the words we'd been given, cover them up and try to write them correctly. When I could do this on my own, my sister would test me.

That's how I learned to spell 'difficult' words while still at infant school. If your husband is willing, you may be able to help him in the way my sister helped me. I was a child eager to learn, your husband may feel differently.

Further to my link regarding aiding reading (for someone who is dyslexic) using a guide (like a bookmark) which singles out a line at a time; I tried this with my PaperWhite this afternoon, apparently cardboard doesn't activate touch screens, so you can use a card bookmark as a guide with a touch screen ereader. Hope this helps.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by CatherineStewart

I know my husband. I know he would enjoy it once he sinks his teeth in, I just need to get him past this fear that "he can't" or it's "too hard" or "too daunting". And I really think the suggestion of short stories is a fantastic way to start.

Oh, I'm a software engineer by trade. Sometimes when I need to write a piece of software, I'm going like this, even after almost 15 years:

"But I need to have it do THIS, and THAT, and take into account SUCH, and make it do SO, and.... I'll never get this finished before I'm pensioned off! Go away!"

And then I break it into pieces, like this:

[Program] consists of [TASK1], [TASK2], [TASK3].
[TASK1] consists of [T1_PROCEDURE1], [T1_PROCEDURE2], [T1_PROCEDURE3]

And so on, splitting it into smaller and smaller parts, until in the end, a part becomes so small that it only contains 10 lines of programming code or so. Then I work my way from the bottom up, writing the small parts.... and suddenly you have [T1_PROCEDURE1] done... and then the next... and suddenly [TASK1] is done and working.

And in the end, I'd be like: "That was it? Really? Gimme some real stuff to write, man. I'm tired of the small crap!"

Same with reading.

Start him off on the short stories; as short as an article in a magazine, something he'll read in 20 minutes. If he likes it, he'll want something that is more elaborate. Give him a novelette of a hundred pages, consisting of a few chapters, which he can then read in 4-5 sessions. And then a novella of 150-200 pages, and then a longer book.

Tell him that he shouldn't look at it as reading the entire book; look at it as reading a chapter at a time. Just like how you'd eat a whale: one bite at a time.

Before you know it, he'll be reading The Lord of the Rings backwards, including the appendices.

*IF* he likes reading. And I think he does like reading, or he wouldn't read those magazines on boats and ships and cars or whatever he likes

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by CatherineStewart

But the spelling. Oh lord the spelling! I think it's because he does not make a conscious effort to learn/remember the difference between (their,there,they're) and (we're, where, ware) etc. He just googles, or asks me all the time and I tell him the answer. Which really, he should make an effort to learn, and I know READING would help out in that area too. Hey, it can't hurt right?

Addressing the last bit first: It certainly can't hurt.

But homophones are especially difficult for dyslexics. In my experience dyslexics manage to read and write only with deliberate, conscious effort all the time. I't's not (IMO) the case they they could just spend a couple of hours of effort on memorising (say) they're/there/their and then it would come automatically.

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Addressing the last bit first: It certainly can't hurt.

But homophones are especially difficult for dyslexics. In my experience dyslexics manage to read and write only with deliberate, conscious effort all the time. I't's not (IMO) the case they they could just spend a couple of hours of effort on memorising (say) they're/there/their and then it would come automatically.

I'm not dylexic but I do have problems with visualization and thus visual recall which means that I have not been able to become better at spelling by reading sas I am unable to 'see' a word in my mind's eye regardless of how often I see it on page or screen. I need to analyze my words and physically practice my words to improve my spelling.

However, it's not as frustrating as realizing that I've put down my book somewhere unusual without making a mental note (using words) as to where and thus have no idea where it is or the inability to give reliable directions even to places(items) I visit(see) everyday. That's when I really wish I could 'see' what I just did or where I just was.

[Alohamora]

I've always been a good reader and a horrible speller. The only thing that's made some difference in my spelling is typing on a computer that highlights mis-spelled words but doesn't autocorrect. I have to work at finding the right spelling to make the red underline go away. Enough repetitions of correcting myself and the word will eventually stick in my mind correctly.