5 Ways to Help a Struggling Reader Love Reading

Reading doesn’t have to mean sitting quietly with a book.

I spent a year with LEGO’s publishing team testing books with struggling 2nd to 4th graders in Denver Public Schools. Over and over, kids found clever ways around the book. Given dinosaurs and a story about them, they played with the dinosaurs and never opened it. Given a LEGO set and a book to read while building, they just built.

Then we wrote a 72-page book about how to make slime. Every kid read the whole thing. They wanted the slime, and the book was the only way to get it.

If reading is essential to the play, kids will read.

The same goes for video games that require reading. I’ve met two children who say they learned to read playing Zelda and Final Fantasy. Kids tell researchers this too: in a large 2025 UK survey, children were more motivated to read when the material connected to a favorite movie, TV series, or hobby.

With Wonder.io, I mashed together reading and Kahoot. Kids read a little, answer a question, and compete with other readers. Suddenly reading feels a little more like playing a sport.

If reading has to compete with an iPad, give it a fighting chance.

Reading can be hard. When you’re still learning, it takes a surprising amount of mental energy.

We spent six months at the Boys & Girls Club in Denver watching kids read and noting the moment they got antsy. For kids who struggle, it came after about 30 seconds of passive reading. So in Wonder.io, something happens roughly every 30 seconds: a question, a choice, something to click.

We learned the same lesson with story length. Our early stories ran about 1,200 words and took 20 minutes or more. Partway through, kids fidgeted, talked to each other, or stopped. One kindergartner would consistently tell us, after about 300 words, “I’m going to stop reading now.”

So we cut stories to under 300 words, about five minutes. Kids stopped asking how many pages were left.

I’d much rather have a kid finish a five-minute story and say “Another one!” than spend twenty minutes asking “How much longer?”

You can always read another one.

Watch skilled parents read with their kids and you’ll notice something: they don’t just read the words.

They ask questions. Where do you think Goldbug went? What do you think is going to happen next? Why do you think she did that?

They turn reading into a conversation.

Researchers call this dialogic reading. A meta-analysis of 38 studies involving more than 2,400 children found that how adults and children talk around a story matters for children’s word learning. Another analysis of 19 randomized trials found that teaching parents how to share books improved young children’s language outcomes. And a 2026 meta-analysis of 64 studies and more than 10,000 children found that dialogic reading improved children’s reading, including comprehension.

Questions are also where we saw struggling readers wake up. With emotion sensors, reading alone often barely registered, then a question produced a clear spike. With eye tracking, kids skipped right past the text but read each question two or three times.

We originally built Wonder.io for kids to read alone. But it took off with kindergartners, where a child and an adult could sit together and answer the questions. The reading became something they did together.

One of my favorite books growing up was Where’s Waldo? I couldn’t tell you what the text at the top of those pages said. What I remember is finding Waldo before my parents. I felt like a pro.

We don’t create enough of those moments in reading. I always thought I was good at math because people could say, “Great job! You solved 7 + 4!” But what does winning at reading look like? Books rarely give a child the chance to throw their hands up and say, “I did it!”

Those moments matter most for kids who struggle. I’ve worked with first and second graders who already know they’re behind. They already describe themselves as kids who “aren’t readers.”

Malachi was a second grader and one of the most reluctant readers I’ve taught. He refused to play at first. One day he agreed, and finished in the top three. “I got in the top three!” After that he started asking to read pages out loud, so often that we had to work on giving other kids a turn.

We also make sure that all readers get first place on their first try: new readers compete against bots, the same way new Fortnite players get matched against bots so they can win early. It’s not a trick. It’s a ramp.

“Mom! I got first place!” is one of my favorite things to hear from a young reader. If you’re the adult standing next to them, celebrate it. Give them the high five. Ask how they did it. Let them bask in being good at reading.

There are surprisingly few really good stories for beginning readers. A lot of children’s reading material has to satisfy the purchaser (the parent, the school, the curriculum, the reading level, the phonics program) along with the child.

But after interviewing hundreds of children, I’ve learned that kids have their own quality bar. Their first requirement: make me laugh.

Captain Underpants understands this. Dog Man understands this. Diary of a Wimpy Kid understands this. I wish there were more.

Funny books alone didn’t get the kids at the club reading. But inside an experience that works, laughter is what makes them ask for more. And it’s a wonderfully obvious signal. You don’t need an assessment to tell you whether it’s working. The kid is sitting next to you laughing.

That’s why Wonder.io stories are about putting bubble gum in someone’s hair, an owl going to school, or discovering that your uncle is a dinosaur.

Kids shouldn’t have to become great readers before they’re allowed to experience great entertainment.