As an English teacher and writer, I've struggled with my son's apathy toward reading. Here's how I've gotten him interested.

• I've been an English teacher for years and have helped plenty of students learn to love reading.
• However, my son has never been all that interested in books.

I've been a secondary English teacher since my son was 5. Many of my students come to me loathing reading and writing, but I take the one school year I have with them to try to show them that maybe they just haven't found the right book. I really do believe that there are stories out there for everyone.

As a teacher, I'm successful about 80% of the time in garnering a genuine interest in reading. As a mother, I always thought my son would love reading as much as I do, having grown up witnessing me reading every day and with me reading to him nightly. But he's in fifth grade now, and he has proven himself to be my most stubborn "student." Still, a few things I've done to try to get him interested in reading have seemed to help.

I decided to stop forcing him to read

A few years ago, I accepted that the best thing I could do was stop forcing my son to read. I have felt like a fraud at times, as if I should know all the tips and tricks behind raising a young reader. But my experiences as a teacher have reminded me of two things: I won't get through to every student, and sometimes, it's best to give things a rest.

I didn't give up

While I stopped being pushy with books, I never stopped presenting the opportunities for my son to choose to read on his own. I still took him to the library every week and found books on topics he was interested in. For example, if he was into snakes that week, I asked the librarian to pull every snake book they had.

Sometimes, his interests were more difficult to pair with a book, such as football or muscle cars, so I went to the adult section and found coffee table books with informative texts next to the photos.

I continued modeling the behavior I wanted to see in him

I am a reader, so my son has grown up seeing me read when I can, whether on a lazy Sunday morning or every night before I go to bed. He'll sometimes ask me what the book I'm reading is about or why I like reading so much. Sometimes, he'll seem interested in the story I'm reading or left with food for thought when I tell him I like reading about other people's experiences.

I think a large part of my growing up to be a reader is because I saw my aunt and uncle reading all the time, and I can remember asking them similar questions. I didn't like reading for a long time, but when I asked my aunt to help me find books that I liked, and she did, that was it. I was hooked, and I loved getting to sit around and read with them, as if I had joined the club.

I always tell parents to read with their children

I have found that many parents don't realize reading to their children is just as beneficial as a child reading on their own. When you read to your child, they are still experiencing the story, being exposed to new vocabulary, and listening to how you read.

I have always read to my son nightly. At times of frustration when he doesn't want to read on his own, I have found solace in the fact that he still looks forward to our nightly reads. It helps me acknowledge that maybe there's a reader in him that just hasn't emerged yet.

I go to a lot of used bookstores and buy books that I think he'll like

Used bookstores and library book sales are great places to buy books for next to nothing. I never feel sour about grabbing books here and there and just putting them on my son's bookshelf in his room when they cost me so little. I figure that if he discovers it on his own, then that's great, and if he doesn't, at least I tried, and it's not like I'm out a ton of money. Also, these are the same books that I often end up reading to him at bedtime anyway.

Providing these opportunities paid off

Over the summer, my son recently stumbled upon the movie "Wonder" and really liked it. So when we were at a local book sale and I found the book the movie was based on, I grabbed it. To my glorious surprise, I found him reading it all on his own and did my best not to overreact and ruin the miracle happening before me. It felt as though not giving up on influencing him to discover reading on his own had finally paid off.

I know the numerous benefits that reading and writing have brought into my life, and I just want my son to experience that for himself. So, while I've struggled with him not being inclined to read independently, I let it go. Instead of being pushy, I just put him into different situations where his interest in books might peak, or he could decide to read if he wanted to. In the end, I know it has to be his choice.