My DS (almost 8yo) is an ok reader, I guess, but I would expect better (I think I'm comparing him to his sister at the same age, and her reading age was probably 3 years above his - she loved reading, writing, pleasing the teacher, etc etc).
I read to him, we have lots of books in the house, we go to the library where he's free to choose the books that he likes (usually either comics, or books with lots of colourful pictures). I don't mind his choice of books, I think he needs to read books that he enjoys, as long as he reads something, I'm happy.
However, I also try to read with him a few times a week (they don't bring home any reading books from school anymore, which is not bad, so I can pick what I want... ). However, when he reads to me, he makes lots of mistakes such as:
- skipping little words, or not reading the "s" at the end of words
- adding words that are not in the text (for ex: reading "wake up" instead of just "wake"
- reading a word instead of another (for ex: saying "for" instead of "of")
- reading "Mrs" miss or mister
He can decode words and read more difficult words, for ex: measurements, bulletin, but at the same time, he still makes the above mistakes.
So, today I lost it!!! Whenever he read "of" instead of "for", for ex., I made him write "of" 10 times, and "for" 10 times, same with Mr and Mrs, or when he added a word or missed a word (these are usually short words, so he was lucky!) We had to do this for 4 times on the first page, but then he read 4 more pages with no mistakes (or he made mistakes, but he corrected them).
I think this shows that he's careless, and lazy. Is my approach wrong? I don't really believe in dislexia, and I got his eyes checked. I do think he doesn't really care if he makes mistakes, unless there are consequences.
I also yelled at him, which was wrong, but I had lost my patience by then. I did praise him when he read 4 pages with no mistakes, though. I told him that from now on he will have to read with me and we will follow the same strategy (writing the misread words).
Oh, I also test him about comprehension, and if he doesn't know the answer, I ask him to re-read the page to find the answer. His strategy would be to look at me, and wait for me to hint what the answer would be.
I know this will not make him love reading, but I am afraid that if he doesn't practise he will never be a fluent reader, and he will never enjoy reading because it will always be too hard for him.
Am I a bad mother?