6 year old DD reading level, normal or?

[Gruffalobooks]

I feel ridiculous for asking this, considering I have a DS in Y2. But I don’t remember things being so difficult with him, I read with him in reception. By the end of that school year, he could read and in Y1 read books completely on his own. Now he’s reading Harry Potter books.

With 6 year old DD in Y1, it’s a bit slower, she could only read a few words at the end of reception and beginning of Y1. Now reading one book takes a really long time.

I know every child is different, but she can hardly read a whole sentence without help. Is it normal? Sometimes she can’t even read the word she read in previous sentence, for example: Once upon a time there was..” she will read that with help from me.. then next sentence she will see the word “was”, and is unable to read it. Then I go back and point at the word in previous sentence. After a few mins of thinking, she will remember it and read.

I don’t know if her reading level is normal for her age, she’ll be 7 in November. Anything else I can do to help her?

DS1 has now been diagnosed with dyspraxia and learning to read was slow and a shock to my system as I naturally picked up reading and was onto books like the Chronicals of Narnia before 8.

He struggled more with the short, abstract gramatical words. Similar words like that/ what were jumbled and words like was/ saw flipped.
In writing letters and numbers reversed. And sounds jumbled such as hcurhc flipping the ch phoneme.

He's always had access to beautiful books and naturally veers to non-fiction. Star Wars easy readers were great at 6-8 because they were accessible and interesting. They're by DK and Ladybird.

In y2 he did a reading stress test that picked up that identified that blue overlays help and he jumped from stage 3 to stage 5 instantly. Having done half of y4 he's made it to about stage 9 now which is functional. DS2 in y2 is on stage 8. Ironically DS1 is the more interested in books, if they are the right ones for his interests.

Find books that interest them.
Read more complex books to them that are age appropriate but not accessible.
Stoke Barrington do dyslexia friendly books with less type per page in an easy font, but more grown up than Kipper & co.
Keep it little and often with low pressure.
It sometimes clicks with time. It tends to be in y3 that dyslexia is tested for as it should come together by then (Even if it is screamingly obvious as with DS1)

@2andahalfpints

Err have any of you actually read the Harry Potter books? Totally inappropriate for that age!

Yes! He's reading the first book. Nothing much happens!!

@Yorkiee Thank you, Ive literally just copy pasted this to my notes she's in bed now, but will try this tomorrow morning.

I have 2 very different. DS1 could pretty much read anything by Y1. Reading age always around double his age. Hates reading now though.

DS2 Y7 struggled early on, suddenly early Y1 it seemed to click and he whizzed ahead then by end of Y4 he almost came to a standstill. It turns out he has a phonological processing issue. He now has additional help for reading. It really seems to make no difference academically though as the children who were/are much better readers really early on are in lower sets than him now. He just has to work extra hard to understand what he is reading.

It may be completely normal for your 6 yo but if there are any issues you probably will have to wait a couple of years to find out. Sounds pretty normal though.

Just remembered DS2 now has the tinted blue glasses for reading, he improved by 20 words a minute speed wise but obviously this doesnt help the processing problem.

@Norabird her writing is OK I think. She will sometimes write me a letter saying "to my mumy, I love you so much. You are betaful"

She will write some words correct, and others as it sounds.

Last week we did spelling, look cover check write and this is what she wrote, told you she writes the words the way it's sounds, should have been 'come' btw

I was told in Year 1 that one of my children was behind in reading. I didn't worry abiut ut at all, said child is now the biggest reader I know and did brilliantly in her SATs. Comversely my early reading child no longer reads anything if it can be avoided ... And I was a very very early reader and still love reading. Every child is just different.

Years 3 and 4 are generally the years where reading becomes more fluent and competent for most readers. And I have had readers only start to fly in year 5. Your dd is still very young.

I have two boys and could have written this myself a year ago. DS1 has always been very competent at reading, phonics and spelling. DS2 took ages to catch on. It was painful, sitting and watching him reading. I was very worried at one point that he was lagging behind. Certain speech sounds weren’t right and he was struggling with phonics.
In year 2 we suddenly turned a corner. He worked with a speech therapist for one hour(!) who corrected his sounds, his phonics improved & he is now reading David Walliams and doing really well. Reading stories he enjoyed was a massive game changer too.
Some of the problem was not understanding, some was self doubt and refusing to try, some was laziness & some of the problem was us having enough patience to calmly encourage when he was having a wobbly moment.

How did last years school report/last parents evening go? Were there any suggestions you little one was struggling?

I would recommend
Phonics flash cards.
Find stories that are not too long they get bored and exciting enough to keep them entertained.
Read together- they do a bit then you read a bit and they follow the words.
Don’t compare your kiddies- they can’t all be top of the class, in every subject, all the time. They will all get there though in their own time .

Good luck and have faith they will get there in the end. X

Thanks so much Yorkiee, appreciate the advice. Sorry for barging in on your thread op.

Ps.... she has lovely writing

My Yr 2 DS is also reading Harry Potter. Hes a fluent reader and has been for some time, but he also understands everything he reads. He's also read The Magicians Nephew and The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe and fully understand them too. I get so frustrated when people say these books are too advanced. If children are reading them and enjoying them, and understanding them, then let them. He will probably read them again when he's older and get something completely different from them.

@Gruffalobooks her handwriting is absolutely beautiful and very neat for Y1!

at the spellings

@Gruffalobooks aww hopefully it works!

@OliviaPopeRules aw no problem. Thank you for your kind message and wish you all the best :)

@Hairdyehell I went to her parents evening in February actually, it was fine. In her report it just said she is where she needs to be, "expected' 🤷‍♀️. It's funny because DS7 couldn't say a word until he started nursery at 3 years old, literally nothing. He was just babbling, and the nursery found it hard to understand him. He couldn't say a word, we went to a speech therapist at the nursery every week. Lo and behold, a year later he couldn't stop talking. With DD she was yapping away at 2 years old. Funny how that works.

Thank you, I'll try the flash cards

@Gruffalobooks
That great news. She is developing as expected. They all progress at different rates. I try to look at it in the same way as a growth spurt .

Take care & try not to worry. X

My youngest daughter has dyslexia and says the letters "dance on the page and won't stay still." She's an adult now and still has a problem, although she's learned ways of coping. I wish I had found a way to have her tested when she was very young but I didn't know the right questions to ask. My daughter thought everyone saw "dancing letters." Maybe have your daughter's eyes checked and see a specialist?

It's not hopeless though! My daughter just graduated cum laude with her BSN (Bachelor of Science) in nursing. She always thought she was the dumb one of the family and it turns out she's probably the smartest of us all, LOL!

If you're worried try toe by toe. It's really good for getting a great foundation and worked wonders for my ds.

[quote Gruffalobooks]@Norabird her writing is OK I think. She will sometimes write me a letter saying "to my mumy, I love you so much. You are betaful"

She will write some words correct, and others as it sounds.

Last week we did spelling, look cover check write and this is what she wrote, told you she writes the words the way it's sounds, should have been 'come' btw [/quote]
Got to love phonetic spelling! In that case I really would just focus on getting lots of reading done. Find books that engage her. The more she does the better. It might just not have clicked yet and you'll find it suddenly does. Get lots of practice through the summer then when she's back in school talk to her teacher about your concerns.

Hi op, I wanted to mention reading chest.
My dd is also struggling and I wish I had intervened sooner. Along with flash cards, try simple books like Peter and Jane to get confidence up.

We signed up to reading chest over lock down and have been able to carry on with our schools book scheme. I will keep up the subscription when she goes back however because we can get bookes quicker than from school.
It's the best thing we did over lock down.
She was a slightly jerky stage 6 and now she's fairly fluent stage 8.

Also think about her short term memory... Can she remember things, for my dd not remembering was, more a sign of short term memory than laziness.

My DS1 wouldn’t write and more or less refused to put pen to paper before he was about 8. His reading was great but he couldn’t see the point of writing at all. Ds2 also was reading fluently by 5 but has rarely read a book since, knew how to do it, not interested in doing it again. They just develop differently and at different paces, I wouldn’t worry about it for now. Make sure you read stuff she likes, make her laugh, anticipate the story from the pictures, have fun.

My year 1 is on ‘yellow’ band ‘9’ whatever that means

Oh my! Didn’t you know that’s quite advanced.....@GameSetMatch 🥱

PSA: if there is one thing parents needn't be stressed about it's reading. Adult literacy levels in the U.K. are at 99%. Doesn't really matter if they read Harry Potter in Y2 or Y12, they all get there in the end.

I don't have a clue what my Y4 DD's reading level is