Hooked On Phonics Worked for Ben...Sort Of

Miracle of miracles, I suggested reading Hooked on Phonics to Ben today and he didn't cry. He's a decent reader, but isn't making much forward progress because won't practice. He started the school year out strong, but his peers seem to be passing right over him. He'll listen to you read to him all day long, but cries and cries if you make him do it. To be honest, I haven't pushed it because I didn't want to make him hate reading. But here we are nearing the end of his first year at school and I'm not quite sure what to do about inspiring a love of reading. After he finished the Hooked on Phonics story in his workbook and earned his tootsie roll for completing it three times over the course of a few days, he started practicing the word repetition pages. They use a series of rhyming words to help the kids pick up on the similar endings and make reading fast by just exchanging the first letter. He must have been in a pretty good mood, because he started being silly with the rhymes. While reading the "ug" line, he read "bug, dug, so I guess that bug must be the opposite of dug since they are together." "Since a bug is so small, I thought the opposite of a bug would be something much larger, like a person. Would a person be a good opposite of a bug?" "Mom, I guess dug really is the opposite of bug. Cause don't you know dug is huge-r than a bug. You know. Doug Arveseth. He's real huge."