5th grade Reading - Challenges!

My 5th grader is still a reluctant reader. She has made progress but she still says, "I can't read," or "I hate reading." She CAN read; she just doesn't LIKE to read. It is a lot of work for her and she avoids it.

I'd love for this to be the year where reading becomes easy for her and she learns to love it. I'll be praying that for her. Meanwhile, I am not able to assign her the chapter books I would like her to be reading independently in 5th grade. That's hard for me to accept, but it is what it is.

Last year she read a lot of easy non-fiction readers and wrote about them daily. We'll do the same to begin this year; it's familiar and non-threatening. I give her a stack of books to choose from and let her choose one. The book shown open is harder than any she's read so far, but I hope she'll be up for the challenge.

I have her read aloud to me every day. Last year I required ten minutes (and she used a timer EVERY SINGLE DAY) and 2 sentences about what she read. This fall I will gradually increase the reading time and the amount of writing required, until we reach 20 minutes and 5 sentences. Once she is reading fluently aloud, I intend to add silent reading and written questions.

Any suggestions for easy-to-read high-interest chapter books at probably a 3rd grade reading level and preferably not twaddle? Those may be next for us, hopefully by November.

We will get back out the Reading Reflex book and work on some of the skill-building activities too, especially the multi-syllable management.