Kids tend to either fight to never read or try to read even during PE class. Since the readers don't need any motivation then I would try to make reading interesting and easy to the kids that don't like reading. I would print short stories and give kids a copy and then let the computer read them the story on the overhead as they follow along. I would include these short stories because they are great.....
The Most Dangerous Game
The Problem of Cell 13
To Build A Fire
The Lady, or the Tiger
The Lottery
Then if short stories go well try an easy book like...
The Cay
The Lord of the Flies
Derek -
I'll 2nd what KY wild said of some books. Our English teachers in JHS & HS had us reading books & short stories such as -
To Build a Fire, - The Call of the Wild, - The Lottery, - The Telltale Heart (Poe), - The Grapes of Wrath, - A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, - Huckleberry Finn, - and anything about the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
If you want to give kids a taste of anything outdoors / nature - I recommend
Gone or the Day by the late Ned Smith - a Pa. outdoor writer/hunter/fisherman/naturalist. If you're not familiar with the author or the book, it's Ned's day-to-day, short writings as a kind of field journal. Entries are short paragraphs of his outdoor wanderings & sightings, about anything from insects, plants, animals, vistas (Hawk Mountain, for one), fish, with sketches of subject matter in some of the entries. Not heavy reading, but it stokes curiosity about nature in young people - and us older ones! Pa. kids will be able to relate to some of the locations mentioned in this book. BTW - Ned Smith painted many covers for the Pa. Game News magazine over the years, and his paintings / prints are nationally known in the outdoor world.