How to Help Your Kid Get Through Boring Summer Reading When They Can’t Make Themselves Start
Last Saturday I found my 13-year-old Leo face-down on the living room couch, his required 8th grade summer reading copy of The Red Badge of Courage crumpled under his cheek, phone tucked under his body like a contraband pillow. “It’s so boring,” he mumbled into the cushion when I pulled the book out. “I can’t make myself read more than two pages. How do I force myself to do this?”
As a 7th grade language arts teacher, I’ve gotten that question dozens of times from students. Now that it’s my own kid asking, I can admit the old “just find a book you love” line is useless here. Summer reading isn’t optional for most kids, and even when the books are classics, that doesn’t mean they’re going to click with a 13-year-old who’d rather rewatch old TikTok compilations of soccer fails. I used to nag Leo about it, remind him every morning that he had 50 pages to do that week, and all that did was make him hide the book behind the couch. This year, I tried something different, based on what I’ve seen work with my most reluctant students.
First, I asked him how long he could stand to look at the book before he wanted to throw it across the yard. He thought for a second and said, “Two minutes. Max.” So that’s what we settled on: two minutes of reading, five times a day. No exceptions, no extra credit for reading more. I helped him slot the two minutes into dead time he already had: while the oven preheats for his frozen pizza, while his game loads after he dies in Fortnite, right after he brushes his teeth at night, while he waits for me to finish packing his snack for the pool. No sitting at a desk, no turning off all distractions to “focus on reading.” It’s just two minutes, in the middle of whatever else he’s doing that day.
The first day, he complained the whole two minutes, tapped his foot the entire time, and closed the book the second the timer went off. But he did it. By the third day, he forgot to set the timer once and read for six minutes straight before he realized it. I didn’t make a big deal out of it, just nodded when he mentioned it later.
Next, I told him he could do whatever he wanted to the book, as long as he kept turning the pages. If it’s your kid’s own copy (or if you use sticky notes for library books), letting them vent directly on the pages takes all the pressure off “appreciating” the book. I had a student a few years ago who wrote “this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read” in the margins of Of Mice and Men every other line, and she finished the book two weeks early because complaining about it made it fun. Leo took this rule and ran with it: he wrote “WHO NEEDS TO KNOW THIS MUCH ABOUT GRASS?” across a full page of landscape description, drew a mustache on the sketched portrait of the general in the front of the book, and crossed out all the flowery adjectives he thought were unnecessary. Suddenly, the book wasn’t a homework assignment that talked down to him—it was something he could mess with, something that belonged to him, not just his upcoming English teacher.
Then, I helped him find one tiny connection to something he already cares about. Leo is obsessed with TikTok videos that break down little-known military history facts, so I mentioned that The Red Badge of Courage was one of the first books to talk about how scared ordinary soldiers actually were during the Civil War, not just the brave heroes you see in movies. He perked up immediately. A lot of people think you need a big, deep connection to a book to get through it, but that’s not true. It just needs one tiny hook. If your kid loves makeup and the book is set in the 1960s, tell them to look for one detail about fashion or hair that they can look up after each chapter. If they love skateboarding, point out that the main character is a teen trying to fit in with a new group, the same way they felt when they joined their first skate crew. It doesn’t have to be big, just enough to make you open the book one more time.
What I’ve learned over the years is that forcing yourself to do something boring isn’t about willpower. It’s about breaking the chore down into pieces so small it doesn’t feel like a chore anymore, and taking away all the unspoken pressure that the book has to be enjoyable or life-changing. Most of the time, it won’t be. And that’s okay. The point of assigned summer reading isn’t always to turn every kid into a fan of the book—it’s to practice getting through something you don’t want to do, a skill you’ll need for college essays, work reports, and all kinds of boring stuff that comes with being an adult.
Leo is about 70 pages from the end now. He still says the book is boring, he still complains every time he starts a new chunk, and I still don’t nag him about it. Last night I walked past the living room and saw him reading while he waited for his chicken nuggets to cook, scribbling a note in the margin that said “this guy is such a drama queen.” He didn’t even look up when I walked in. He probably won’t remember much about the book a year from now, but he’ll know he can get through something that feels impossible to start, even when it’s boring. And that’s more than enough for me.
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