Chilg who is a good reader but skips/add words

[Albathecat]

Sorry, wasn't sure where to post. Hope this is ok.

DD is in Y2, she is currently on reading band Lime which is ok. Well, most of the time. She can read super hard words which is amazing, however when she reads a sentence she skips words, adds words so it makes it look like she's not fluent. It's very frustrating. I don't understand how normal that is. I wonder if she has eye tracking issues? Has anyone gone through this and can this be checked by NHS?

We've been to the Opticians twice in the last 2 years and her eye sight is perfect.

My daughter has visual stress and dyslexia. We got her tested privately and her scores (it was a while ago now but I think it was for reading accuracy) went from 7% to 75% just by using a pink overlay. She uses pink paper / exercise books in school as well.

I don't know how it works to get onto diagnostic waitlist now but it was years when we were trying.

If your area is anywhere like mine the school will be useless, you will really need to push.

Thank you, that sounds promising. Happy to hear her reading improved so much x

If you are anywhere near London The Institute of Optometry is fab. The dyslexia assessor distinguished the colour she needed but they pinpointed exactly. It didn't take long to get an appointment, and think it was around £100.

Brilliant! Thank you. I'll look into it right now, we are in London x

In our county, the high street optician can refer on to behavioural optometry at the hospital to look at tracking and how the eyes work together. This is a different aspect to being sensitive to brightness/ paper and text colours and needing overlays, so needs looking at in its own right (I’m speaking as a dyslexia specialist). Otherwise, have a look at the Institute of Behavioural Optometrists for someone to investigate further.

In exactly the same boat here, down to the reading book level! So frustrating!

I am not sure if it is eyesight in dd's case, but she seems to rush through it to get it over with (they aren't the most exciting of books), so I trying to get her to slow down. Not working very well though.

What type of words is she missing? I self taught at 2 but have always skipped words that are unnecessary like and and but and the etc and can scan a page in a couple of seconds. I insert words too if they are needed, particularly if the sentence is poorly constructed or doesn't make sense without them.

Same boat with Y2 DS. Must admit that I've just put it down to him wanting to rush his reading and get back to something more 'interesting', he can read the words fine when I make him go back and concentrate.

It sounds like she thinks that reading is just a phonics decoding challenge - how fast can you work out what words the letters make - rather than taking in the meaning.

Try asking her questions about what she has read…
Why do you think he did x?
What colour was y?
Maybe ask teacher to suggest stories about things she likes.

She misses 3, 4 letter words mostly but she does miss relevant ones too.

I.e. the text is 'Elsie shot higher and higher until the rooftops were as small as postage stamps beneath her'.

She'd be like: 'Elsie shot high over rooftops small as post stamps beneath her'. When I draw her attention, she reads it perfectly. So she can read it very well, I just don't understand why this happens and definitely holds her back at school especially.

It sounds from that example as if she's got good comprehension and is speaking the meaning she's extracted.

My DD did this and I always got the impression it was because she had read it at school. So she knew the gist of it and was mostly reading from memory.

Like your DD, she could do it properly when prompted.

Thank you all for your comments. It seems it's not totally uncommon for kids to do this. In DDs case it seems to impact her reading confidence especially when doing guided reading at school.

As per PP's advice I booked her an appointment with British Institute of Optometry. It's not until mid April but at least I'm doing something :).

Interesting! I have noting helpful to add but it’s fascinating isn’t it, as she can clearly read and is comprehending.

What happens if she chooses a book she is actually interested in?

Why don’t you try reading a page each, and tell her - when you are reading aloud, can she spot which words in the sentence you skipped or said wrong? (Then you deliberately make some mistakes. You need to read slowly).

Also tell her that this time when she reads you want her to use as much expression as possible, read slowly and really over dramatise it! Again take it in turns to read a page each.

I’d like to know if you really slow her down and get her thinking about the reading instead of racing through , is there a difference

Thank you. She loves books and she loves to read thankfully. She chooses her school book every day and then we read more books that we get from the local library. She does read a lot. I feel like, for the amount if books she reads, bless her, you think she'd be reading Harry Potter from cover to cover.

I try to slow her down but she's not taking it on board. Also she needs to work on expression, her Y1 and Y2 teachers have always mentioned that in her reading record.

This sounds great, will definitely try this Why don’t you try reading a page each, and tell her - when you are reading aloud, can she spot which words in the sentence you skipped or said wrong? (Then you deliberately make some mistakes. You need to read slowly).

I'm not a teacher so this may or may not be a helpful idea but I wonder if reading poetry would help her develop expression and reading every word as obviously rhyme and how it scans are important in them, not just comprehension of meaning.

Yes, I think we tried that and she really enjoyed it. I'm just collecting a book of poetry from the library today 😊.

Oh good! There are some brilliant children's anthologies, the ones compiled by Anne Fine stick in my mind - we had a series of 3, which were grouped by age.

I think perhaps it also helps with the idea you may need to read differently for different reasons - you can read a story quickly just to enjoy the meaning of story (and she's clever if she can do it!) but at other times you need to read each word.

My son does that. He was diagnosed with visual stress despite being a very good reader.
He got coloured glasses which seems to help.

Did you get the assessment through NHS? Happy to hear his issue was sorted.

Ds is older (12) but has done this since your dd's age. He was diagnosed with dyspraxia over the summer and I'm having him assessed with a behavioural ophthalmologist next month. He loves audiobooks so we now get him the paper or kindle copy of the book he's listening to so he has the two components together. He comprehends everything he's reading but it does impact on his written work so he is working on editing his first draft - slowly reading aloud to catch any missing or incorrect words and phrasing.

@Albathecat no, we went for a private assessment for autism/adhd and it was flagged up then. We then took him to a specialist eye place.

Honestly it wasn't anything I'd thought much of before the assessment. I knew he did it but I thought he was just reading quickly.

I bet you could just skip the whole assessment though and go straight to an eye place that screens for it.

While you wait for the op appt you could try a version of the coloured overlay yourself at home. You can buy thin floppy pvc type folders in different colours, try putting the text inside / beneath the yellow / pink / blue / green plastic and see what she says about the words - blacker, not jumping or switching places etc. It's not particularly scientific but it might reveal something to you.

I was going to suggest this too. Easy and quick to try.