How can my boyfriend improve his reading skills?

Question

My boyfriend has trouble reading, he's 23 and has had a very stressful past moving around, a broken home, and bad influences that interfered with him staying on a good track all throughout his years in school. Even though his life has improved, the result of his past is affecting him now. When he reads he will often mix up vowels or skip letters all together when pronouncing the word. For example he especially has trouble pronoucing the ending -tion, like the word demonstration. He will pronouce it
demon-STRAIGHT-EYE-ON. He wants to improve and I want to help in any way i can. Anyone with any recommendations on what he can do to improve and what i can do to help, i would love to hear them. Thanks!

Also of course since he has trouble reading he definately has trouble spelling as well any suggestions for improvement here i would also appreciate. :)

Answer 1

I can say from experience that the only way to improve is to do it! Get some books that he can read aloud to you, not childrens books because that would be demeaning but short books nonetheless.

Like:
Jonathon Livinston Seagull
The Pearl

Thats all I can think of off the top of my head ......anybody else know of some short adult books?

Answer 2

There are a number of video games, both online and for gaming systems that work on reading skills. Ok, they can be kinda juvenline, but if you keep in mind the goal of improving your reading, they are not too bad (I have used several with kids to help their reading skills).

Is it just reading outloud/pronunciation or is it reading in general?

I like to turn the subtitles on when I watch TV or movies, because it helps kids associate words and sounds, butyou have to be careful because they are not always perfect (particularly on live TV).

Read books together - you read one page, he reads the other. This way you both read the book and increase your knowledge, you have something to share and talk about, and you both benefit (I love having someone read to me). pIck easier stuff, or magazines about stuff he likes, but then move onto school type stuff - all those books he (and you!) should have read while you were in high school.. Some are really quite interesting!

Play word games - Scrabble, things like that, but with a dictionary so he doesn't feel friustrated about words.

Above all else, go easy on him. It's great that you want top help him, but don't let him feel like he's in a lower position and never laugh at his attempts.

Answer 3

Two things can help. One is practice. Keep practicing and keep up your/his spirits.
The other is a visual disorder. He should get checked out. Even with such a disorder, practice does wonders.

Answer 4

just tell him to read for 20 minutes each day to improve his reading and vocabulary skills