I think giving your child some specific goals and then tracking them on a sheet of paper will help them feel empowered - that they are accomplishing something useful. Like a chapter a day or 10 pages a day and then checking it off the list. My daughter was given some guidelines on questions to fill out before, during and after the reading. These questions helped her have some kind of structure about how she should approach the book and got her mind set about what to expect. It even distinguished between fiction and non-fiction type questions. I'll try to find them and post them here.