<p>oliver Sacks' books should be great for someone who doesn't like to read as the stories are short and the writing is lively. He might also enjoy books by Stephen Jay Gould. For humor, math/science types might enjoy the collections of Ig Nobel awards.
My concern is not so much what will boost vocabulary and reading comprehension or enlarging knowledge but showing that reading can be fun.</p>
<p>I hate to (sort of) derail your thread but it seems now that this thread is focusing primarily on math/science.</p>
<p>How about the humanities and politics? I love politics and read several political books and would like to bolster my CR score.</p>
<p>^^CIA. I'd suggest Tom Friedman's books, if you are interested in politics on a global scale. Also, there are some good political autobiographies available (select people you admire).</p>
<p>CIA:
The OP's son loves math and science, hence the focus of this thread.
For someone interested in politics, the options are very wide. Tom Friedman's books are a good choice. Rory Stewart's Emperor of the Marshes is a great read. For fiction, you could try books by Amitav Ghosh such as The Glass Palace.</p>
<p>Thank you QuantMech, I'll try and check them out. I've already read "The Earth is Flat" and loved it.</p>
<p>Anyone else have suggestions?</p>
<p>Edit: I know marite, I was just hoping to maybe extend the thread to books of different genres that would help bolster CR scores.</p>
<p>Frankly, any kind of reading above 3r or 4th grade level should do (of course, it depends what you were reading in 3rd or 4th grade:)).
For someone who likes current events, the New Yorker is even better than for a math/science person. Also read The Atlantic, Harper's, the Economist. Remember that CR is about reading comprehension, not about literature as such.</p>
<p>My son could be your son!</p>
<p>He liked Ender's Game, after I begged him to read it.
He likes the Starfist series of books - they are total reading fluff, but they keep him reading. I think SAT Critical reading has the content/vocab/comprehension piece - you need to have a wide enough vocab to not get hung up or tripped up on too many words, and you need to know the game, understand when to skim, when to read carefully, and when to read the question first, then go back to the article - AND the speed part - you have to do all this relatively rapidly. I think any sort of reading helps with the speed part.</p>
<p>Things I have tried with son, without success, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain (he did like some of these), Alexandre Dumas, Ivanhoe, all for vocab.
Snowcrash is a great book for the gamer, he may be a little young, but not too much.</p>
<p>Great thread- BUMPITY BINK.</p>
<p>How about disaster books? Some of my favorites are Isaac's Storm, F5, The Johnstown Flood, In Harm's Way, The Perfect Storm, Into Thin Air.</p>
<p>Many teen boys enjoy books by Clive Cussler.</p>
<p>Another book many teens (of both genders) enjoy is Good Omens.</p>
<p>There is actually a series of Halo books that may get him to enjoy reading. They aren't particularly amazing science fiction books, but they're decent and may get him interested in finding other books that he may like. David Eddings (The Belgariad) is great for fantasy, David McCullough for biographies (his book John Adams was recently made into a series on HBO -- the book is fantastic), Ken Follett (Pillars of the Earth) is also amazing if he likes history (it's historical fiction). Many of the other suggestions here are great, I would focus on finding a book, any book, that interests him and after he finishes it, finding a similar book. Once he starts to see how fun reading is, he should be able to continue the process on his own.</p>
<p>What about subscribing to The Economist?</p>
<p>It is so true, as a mom posted earlier, that what you read doesn't matter. My D, who is a huge Tamora Pierce fan and read novels constantly at home, scored 800 on the SAT the first time she took it (then 72 on the PSAT in reading, oh well).</p>
<p>I do think there is a relationship between your son being great at math and not liking to read. I saw the same thing with my younger sister.</p>
<p>I haven't read the other posts, sorry, so will just mention the books my current rising 9th grader son (a natural athlete/musician who became a 'bookworm' of sorts because I quietly manipulated the home environment to produce that effect) loved:</p>
<p>Redwall series by Brian Jacques (a motley group of small animals go on quests)
(hilarious and my son re-read for a couple of years in middle school--I credit this series with engendering a love of reading in my son--for starting out, humor is very important--Gordon Korman's This Can't be Happening at McDonald Hall is another terribly funny story)</p>
<p>Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, etc.</p>
<p>Pendragon series</p>
<p>John Grisham books (he read about 3 in a row before tiring of them)</p>
<p>My brother loved Day of the Triffids, a science fiction horror about carnivorous plants that escape from the research center and propagate around Earth. Said it was the best book he ever read as a teen. I liked "Alas Babylon", a bit dated, though.</p>
<p>For someone a bit younger, if you want to develop vocabulary, take a second look at the Hardy Boys series.
Also, for your grandsons, if you want to avoid this problem, get them reading Encyclopedia Brown series when they are in 2nd grade, followed by Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators series. Add in The Pushcart War, and by now you should have a boy willing to read anything--from Jules Verne to his sister's Babysitter's Club novels. I know this from personal experience!</p>
<p>Hope some of this helps.</p>
<p>ivydreamin..........both my d's have read tamora pierce books and other fantasy fiction.<br>
d1 scored very well on ACT and PSAT.<br>
d2 is also testing well on standardized tests.....very strong in reading/english.
their extensive vocabulary amazes me sometimes. </p>
<p>seiclan - thanks for starting the thread. good suggestions so far.</p>
<p>I liked Alas Babylon, too!</p>
<p>Tamora Pierce would probably be astounded to find herself being discussed as a booster of SAT scores! But she really is lots of fun, everyone in the family reads her and in fact my husband is reading her most recent book right now.</p>
<p>My son has a visual processing deficit that makes reading a slow and laborious process, so he also prefers not to read. Ender's Game is his favorite book of all time. He also enjoys just about anything by Kurt Vonnegut.</p>
<p>He had a great English teacher last semester, so he read and enjoyed several books that he otherwise would never have gone near. The one that stands out is Life of Pi. The first half is a tough slog for someone who likes action/adventure, but once he got to the second half he couldn't put it down. We decided that our next cat will be an orange tabby, named after a character in the book. Guess who?</p>
<p>ivydreamin: It is so true, as a mom posted earlier, that what you read doesn't matter. My D, who is a huge Tamora Pierce fan and read novels constantly at home, scored 800 on the SAT the first time she took it (then 72 on the PSAT in reading, oh well).</p>
<p>condor30: ivydreamin..........both my d's have read tamora pierce books and other fantasy fiction.
d1 scored very well on ACT and PSAT.
d2 is also testing well on standardized tests.....very strong in reading/english.
their extensive vocabulary amazes me sometimes. </p>
<p>mathmom: Tamora Pierce would probably be astounded to find herself being discussed as a booster of SAT scores! But she really is lots of fun, everyone in the family reads her and in fact my husband is reading her most recent book right now.</p>
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<p>:) Gotta love Tamora Pierce. My d read her Alanna series so many times that I thought she was going to turn into Alanna. I've since read the series and loved it also. </p>
<p>Sure Tamora Pierce is great for boosting SAT scores :). Anytime reading is that enjoyable, well ... you read - and in the case of my d, you reread and then reread and then reread ... All of a sudden, you are a reader.</p>
<p>(Thanks Tamora - dd scored an 80 on the PSAT and an 800 on the CR section of the SAT and I wouldn't bet AGAINST the Alanna books being a factor.)</p>
<p>Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who recommended Ender's Game for the non-reading boy. My son LOVED it and has, on his own, tried to Google to find similar books. Amazing. I'll tell him to look at the list of other suggestions on here (he's already read Andromeda Strain and some of the other books mentioned).</p>
<p>My D's ACT Reading was way below her other scores and in particular 7 points below English, which was her highest. Her poor reading was known to us before she actually took the test. She believed that there is no way she could improve it, so she focused on improving her math to compensate for poor reading. This strategy worked very well. By the way, she did prepare for English at all, she did not know how.
Poor reading score had no consequences in her academic performance Freshman year in college. I would not worry too much about it.</p>
<p>My S went up 110 points in his CR score between Junior and Senior year and attributed it to being forced to read Brit Lit in the summer before Senior Year. The literature passages were his worst in practice tests, but after getting through Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre (which he surprisingly really liked), he felt far more comfortable with them. I think you have to develop an "ear" for that stuff, which only comes from exposure.</p>