Oxford Reading Tree - ds (6) still not reading properly and guessing

[Giuliettatoday]

Hi there,

our school has mainly Oxford Reading Tree books and it's expected that children read to their parents for approximately 10 minutes a day in year 2, which we do, more or less.

Ds who's 6 (will be 7 in January) had stage 5 books for absolute ages until the end of yr1 and when starting year 2 miraculously has jumped to stage 7 and then, quickly afterwards, stage 8 books. They don't follow the ORT system religiously, but the children can choose a book from the appropriate box. Sometimes they have the same book 2-3 times, others of the same stage get not read at all, as the teacher doesn't check that (despite the fact that there's a reading diary).

However, I feel that he's still not reading properly. He's one of the few children who actually like ORT books, but in a way that's somehow a disadvantage. He looks at the pictures quite carefully and then does not read the words properly. Very often he makes up his own words or even sentences and I have to remind him constantly to look at the actual words and sound out the phonics (which he can't blend).

The teacher just says he's doing all the right things such as looking at the pictures and guessing. In my opinion that's not reading. Somehow I even think the pictures delay the actual reading of the words, as he's distracted by the pictures, wants to find out what happens next in the story and not bother looking at the words properly. What happens if he moves on to books with fewer or no pictures at all? Already he finds books without pictures offputting, unless he's being read to.

Ds1 went through a similar stage but all of a sudden it clicked and he reads very fluently now. However I don't feel with ds2 that it will 'click' soon. It still sounds a lot of effort when he reads and he tires quickly. According to the instructions on the reading diary they should read 20 mins a day but the teacher says 10mins is enough. As he tires so easily we normally do 10mins. But I'm wondering if that's really enough, considering his problems? How long do your children read to you? Although sometimes I think a different approach would be better than just putting lots of time into something that doesn't work properly.

In dss class, most of the girls seem to read chapter books with hardly any pictures and most of the boys are somewhere on the ORT stages.

Is this normal? How is this handled at other schools?

Has he had a sight test? My friend (a dentist, so in the health field and you'd think clued in) had a daughter who was memorising and inventing - until a sight test revealed she needed glasses. Girls in my kids' schools also seem to progress faster - I don't know if there is any real reason for it or if they are 'treated differently'.

Good point, he only had a very basic sight test by the school nurse in yr1 which was apparently 'satisfactory' with no recommendation to take him to a proper sight test, but I think I'd better do so anyway as ds1 and dh both have glasses.

Bump it up - i'm in Ireland so escaped ORT!

If you consider that ORT isn't working, have you tried following the phonics approach yourself (working on the blending point) at home?

Try to get him to read other things - read your shopping list out to you, recipes, TV listings - anything. You will begin to see how much he can read "out of context" and getting his eyes tested seems like a good idea too.

The Oxford Reading Tree books should be binned, IMO

www.aowm73.dsl.pipex.com/dyslexics/should_I_have.htm

Your DS should be able to read 18 out of 20 words accurately. Most children who make more errors than this end up frustrated and then there is a real danger they start trying to avoiding reading. And of course if they don't practice then they get even more behind - it can be a bit of a vicious circle. You can check how many errors he makes by reading a page or a paragraph and just counting how many mistakes he makes. Afterwards, count up the total words he read and work out roughly what percentage he read accurately. If the books are too hard for him, I'd have a word with the teacher and who should steer him towards more appropriate books.

The other thing I might consider doing is Paired Reading. PR is an approach which has been extensively researched in trials with over 11,000 children. On average, children reading with this approach for only 10 minutes a day, improve their reading age by 3 months for every month they do it. It's very simple to do, children tend to enjoy it and parents report that it can often make reading with their child less of a battle.

OK. How to do Paired Reading.
There are two stages.
Stage one - Your child chooses a book he wants to read. Then you and you child read the book aloud simultaneously. When your child feels confident that they want to read by themselves, they give you a sign e.g. click their fingers, touch your hand. You stop reading and your child carries on reading by themselves.
Stage two - If your child pauses for more than 3 seconds or makes a mistake, correct the word (and they repeat it with you) and simply join in reading simultaneously with them again.
When they feel confident that they can read by themselves again, they let you know and you stop reading until they make a mistake or pause. Etc.

No one really knows exactly why this is such a successful approach but it does seem to get remarkable results. It is definitely worth a go. Incidentally, there are other approaches that call themselves Paired Reading that are different to the one I have described above. (e.g. It can also be used just to describe reading with a child in an unstructured way. ) So if a teacher or TA says they already do PR it is worth checking what exactly they do.