Y6 dd is not reading questions properly

[Madsometimes]

She can read beautifully but put a Sats paper in front of her and she ignores the instructions. In maths she is scoring better marks on the mental paper. I wish I knew how to help her.

She has just sat an indie entrance exam, and I am fairly sure she has done daft things. She said the paper was easy, and with her that often is not a good sign. She gives harder questions more respect.

Any tips?

It's very common for children to rush at tests in a panic to get it finished I have resorted to withholding pens until they have read through instructions

Tell her to slow down and read everything twice but tbh I think that is very typical of kids this age. ds(12) readily throws away at least 10 marks on average this way.

tell her to read it out loud

ask teacher to set a long question with complicated instructions that will take a lot of effort and ensure the last few words or something hidden in the middle are something like "ignore all the above and only write your name" as homework

a few of these and she'll start reading them properly

A teacher at the school I work at has done that, activate - the long instructions paragraph started with 'Read all the instructions carefully' and ended with 'Ignore all the previous instructions and go out to play without speaking or disturbing others'

The children who didn't bother with the instructions but just started answering the questions were amazed when their friends just started walking quietly out of the room and the teacher didn't do anything...

Thanks everyone. I'm glad it is common. She will easily get a L4 in her Sats but I think that with better technique she could get 5's. However, when she combines not reading the question with arithmetical slips, she does not show what she is capable of.

Perhaps organisation is one of the attributes which separates a higher achieving candidate from an average one.

activate - that's exactly what i was going to post.

I fell foul of a teachers april fools joke (a long time ago) sat and answered all the questions, about 100 of them, whilst my school friends were all finished and had moved on to something else!

Last question said...Ignore all of the above!

Needless to say, I have read all paperwork to the end before completing...

It's funny what things stick with us our whole life...

that, and never to put the spoon in the coffee before the sugar as it transfers clumps of coffee into the sugar..

OP - take activates advice...it worked for me :)

Love the comments above!

I have also found this to be an issue with both my kids. They glance at questions then get upset when they have answered them wrong, but neither of them will focus on reading through each question properly.

They are both good readers with good comprehension skills, yet rush through tests and seem to be proud when "it only took 15 minutes" when they have been given 45 minutes.

Neither of them seem to go back and check their answers either.

Would also love to know how I can change their ways to focus more on actually reading what is written.

Teach them to underline the key words in the question when they are reading it. It's a reading skill, really - I teach this purely by looking at the questions sometimes, and nothing else, asking the children to agree on which words are really important. They soon get very good at this, and it virtually stops the syndrome where they, say, circle one thing instead of the three they've been asked for - which is infuriating and just throws away marks. They would always identify 'three' as a key word, and no longer miss key information like this.

My ds1 can be like this, so frustrating! Can I suggest a highlighter pen or underlining for key instructions as Feenie recommends?