Reluctant Reader

As mentioned in another post, we have a reluctant reader in our home. He can, he just doesn't want to read, and it causes many tense moments. The primary way that most people judge our homeschooling success is on our children's ability and willingness to read. In our homeschool, we've got one of those (ability), but not the other (willingness). Which leads to me stressing out, worrying what our family will think when they ask him to read and he says either, "I don't want to", or "I can't"(gasp). My stress leads to me being much harder on him than I should. When I can manage, I'm starting to sneak reading into his other work (sort of the same why I sneak veggies and protein into his diet; he's also a picky eater - imagine that).

One thing he loves is puzzles, both jigsaw and solve it type as well. Some days, I will give him something that I would like him to read and ask him to find all of a certain phonograme, blend or digraph (for example, we did /dr/ yesterday). He happily reads the page, paragraph or book, searching for these items, the same way he would a solve it puzzle. When ever possible, I try to find things for him to read that I can print so that he can circle or underline the things for which he's searching, making the activity kinesthetic as well as visual.