The public school system prepares children for boring repetitive lives- it's criminal- they kill creativity. When I taught my kids I would give them reading assignments or let them choose their own. They learned to love reading. I had them write papers about what they read and we would go over it correcting for spelling and grammar and then discuss what THEY thought about what they read. Kids respond when their own opinion matters. My boys were reading Plato and Aristotle by the time they were 12-13. I didn't expect them to understand at the same level as me- but at least they were exposed to the material. Teaching a child to think is the most important gift you can give them.