My advice: Reading is a great hobby. It really depends on your son’s standard of English now.
There’s no need to start with tough books because that may kill the interest he has- there’s no problem with starting with simple books.
A thousand miles start with a single step.
In my days, i started with the Ladybird books, the classic Enid Blyton books, Bookworm short stories, Roald Dahl stories or the Hardy Boy/Nancy Drew series. You can even start with the magazines- I used to read Young Generation weekly and Reader’s Digest!
For my students, I occasionally print some interesting news articles for the upper primary kids for their reading pleasure.
1) It is good to cultivate the habit to reading newspapers and keeping oneself abreast of the latest current affairs.
2) I like to get them exposed to international publications such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal so they can see things from an international perspective from young. 3) They can use the nice phrases used in the articles for their compositions.
4) Though it is a short article, it forces them to read at least once a week.
As for the P1-2 kids, before they attempt the weekly picture composition, I would gather them in a circle and describe how it should be written. They actually pay a lot of attention to me- this shows they are interested in stories and that’s a very good way to cultivate the passion for reading.
In fact, I am planning to do short segments of reading to the lower primary kids in future to get them exposed to the English language too. So if you are trying to get your seven-year old to start reading, you can start reading with him too.
Perhaps you guys can also help this parent. What books do your kids read? Are there any publications similar to the Young Generation magazine that the parent can subscribe to?