To Read or Not To Read??

When talking about students lack of interest in reading one of the theories that keeps coming up is the idea that; "If you allow students to read things that they're interested in for leisure instead of knowledge it will spark continuous interest." That's good in theory and I understand exactly where professionals are going when they say this, because the reality is no 14 year old wants to go home and be forced to read 25 pages about the Civil War and answer the questions at the end. None. However, it's a harder fix than that. What do we do in cases where what the student WANTS to read and what the student CAN read are at two different ends of the spectrum? This past school year I worked in the fifth grade with an EIP(Early Intervention Program) classroom.
Most of the students began the school year reading on a fourth or third grade level with a select few who were reading below that. When taking my students to the library to pick out Accelerated Reader books for the week there was one who always chose a book way above his level of comprehension. He read on a first grade level. He was very interested in athletes and cars so those were the types of books he picked.  He struggled to read past the first the few pages and always gave up because he couldn't pronounce the words, and the words he did know he didn't understand what they meant. How can you tell an 11 year old boy that the books more suitable for his  level include the Berenstian Bears series and Dr. Seuss? I can't begin to name the countless students who desired to check out Harry Potter books but were turned down by their teacher because they only read on a third grade level and Harry Potter started at a sixth grade level.
The point is we need to figure out where the glitch is in the curriculum when teaching students how to read got placed on the back burner and change it. If students lack the necessary skills and strategies for reading  it wont matter if you give them history chapters or car magazines, reading will not be something they want to do in their spare time because of the negative feelings it evokes and will always take a backseat to other activities.