Child reading aloud to parent - when to stop?

[DinosaurInAManger]

DS1 is nearly 6 1/2 and can read fluently now. He brings home four books a week in his bookbag and they are usually quite long. Up until last week we were getting him to read aloud to us in the evenings, then reading a chapter of something more interesting, like Harry Potter, with him. Trouble is, it's very time-consuming. Would it be okay just to let him read the schoolbooks on his own, so that we have more time at bedtime to read other books with him? Or is this a grave dereliction of duty??

[homemama]

Hi Dino,
If he's 6 1/2 and fluent then it isn't necessary to always hear him read aloud.
Try some other activities such as;
1)He reads a page, you read a page (helps them to follow text)
2) He reads to a certain point then retells you the story.
3) He reads to a certain point then predicts the ending.
4) He tells you about a main character or draws you a character web. (character drawn in middle with one word annotations)

As he becomes more able and fluent try other games such as 'lets change this so its written from the other character's POV'. Or lets act it out.

Don't forget that it's still fun for you both for him to read aloud sometimes.

HTH Good luck!

[homemama]

Also, drawing or painting the setting using the adjectives in the story (or descriptive words if he hasn't come across adjectives yet). This is always a fun activity which actually helps them think about the text.

[rockinrobinkie]

Lovely ideas, homemama, thanks from me.
Dino, our main thing is that ds cheats (ie skates over without asking) on new words (pronunciation and meaning both) so I scour through separately to pick up the ones I know he hasn't come across before, then we talk about those. Otherwise we get things like "mummy, my tummy's aching so rapidly".

[frogs]

My ds is also nearly 6.5. He gets one school reading book a week, max, which seems to be randomly allocated by one of the playground supervisors without reference to his reading ability or interests.

I ignore them, frankly. He's the second child I'm putting through the school, and I can no longer even be bothered to pretend that I'm reading the school books with him, and have learnt the hard way that making a big middle-class fuss about the school supplying suitable reading material achieves nothing apart from getting me marked down as a trouble-maker.

I read him a chapter of a story book every night (norse myths atm, just done three of the Narnia books, ds is considering choosing The Hobbit next). Each night I choose a paragraph or two of the current book for him to read out loud to me, just for practice, and because they can get out of the habit of reading aloud, and start gabbling or skipping words. Your proposal sounds eminently reasonable to me.

[homemama]

Thanks Binkie, your suggestion is important too!
Frogs, every time I read your posts I feel genuinely sad that your school has given you such a bitter experience of education. Such provision just simply isn't good enough but we're not all like that. Many, many schools are concerned that the books being read by its pupils enthuse and delight them. In the same way that many schools are trying to put in place a decent G&T package which doesn't just pay lip service to the guidelines. I hope your experiences improve.
Dino, I also meant to add that the books you share at home (in which ever way you choose) are far more valuable to his education than just hearing him read a book he shows little interest in.

[frogs]

I'm not bitter about ds's school experiences -- he's very happy, his teacher seems very nice, although a bit young and scatty. He's by no means G&T, but Y2 for some reason always suffers from appalling reading book allocation, and there doesn't seem to be the will to take them to the junior or council library to choose their own books. Other parents are in and out complaining about it, but I can't summon up the energy.

But in the end, however good the school is at teaching children in general, you are more likely to have a finger on the pulse of where your child is at. So probably not worth going along with the reading books for fear of a telling-off at school if your instinct says that reading other books is more useful. I wouldn't give up reading aloud completely, though. But by the time they're fluent it probably doesn't matter too much which actual book it is.

[singersgirl]

I still listen to DS1 (7 in Y3) most nights, for exactly the reason that Rockinrobinkie gives - that I know he is skipping over more difficult and unfamiliar words. But he usually only reads a page or so unless he is keen to read more. School reading books don't really happen any more, so he just takes whatever he is reading into school - sometimes he chooses from the classroom selection, sometimes from the local library or sometimes from his overstocked bookshelf.
I thought Homemama's suggestions were excellent.

[homemama]

Lol, I wasn't suggesting you were bitter just that you seem to have had a bitter experience

Glad it's not as bad as I perceived.

[homemama]

Thanks guys but I can't claim them as my own. I'm sure I've picked them up from various sources over the years.

[tensing]

I have 4 children aged 13 (yr 9), 11 (yr 7), 8 (yr 4) and 5 (yr 1), all of them still read aloud to me and to each other. It doesn't need to be time consuming, they will often read to me while I am doing things such as ironing, or cooking tea, they will sit on a stall at the breakfast bar and read.

[DinosaurInAManger]

thanks homemama for lovely suggestions, and thanks everyone else for contributions to this thread. Binkie and frogs, I know what you mean, when he does read aloud he does sometimes read what he thinks is there, rather than the words which are actually there! So I take your point and will try and keep up a bit of reading aloud.

tensing - DS1 does read aloud to DS2, which is quite sweet. But he is not keen to read aloud to DH or I unless we are actually sitting down in his room listening to him. But we are shortly going to have a bigger kitchen, so perhaps we could work on persuading DS1 to sit in the kitchen and read to us there. (DS1 has high-functioning autism and can take quite a bit of persuading to accept new ideas and ways of doing things.)

[roisin]

Frogs - I wish I could win over ds2 to your approach. He is scarily legalistic over his school books! He refuses to look at anything else until the school book has been read cover to cover
To my intense annoyance on the last day of term came home with a huge (naff) tome of "funny stories", saying that he needed something big to last through the holidays. Anyway, yesterday I'd had enough so I hid it, and we're reading the Magician's Nephew instead (which is weirder than I remembered!)

I shouldn't complain as he does have an excellent (huge) range of books to choose from at school - it's just he is not make very discerning selections.