how to help bright kids

[CJBRDS]

any tips on the best way to help a 4 year old with reading age of 7... thanks

what sort of help is needed?

avoid the reading scheme the school uses (or any one tbh, they can all be rather dull). Join the library if you don't belong already.

Take care that the books don't have content that is to 'mature' over and above the reading level

how to encourage without putting off or creating pressure

My advise FWIW is to encourage without being pushy. Keep it fun. Try to ensure they fully understand what they read by talking about the story etc.

HTH

thanks- my daughter seems to enjoy the challenge and whatever the school gives her, even taking into account her age/abilities she seems to do it quite easily. So the thing is how to challenge without creating pressure... thanks for all ideas...

just keep a good supply of interesting reading material to hand, read to them often too - lots of people seem to abandon their nightly chapter of Matilda or whatever once their children can read fluently but this is a great shame as the meaning of more difficult words becomes apparent from within the context of your expression, so a good indirect way to expand vocab

and watch dramatisations of favourite books and discuss differences, what came across better in the book? what did the film/tv version deliver that a book couldn't?

lots of development in reading and love of storytelling is promoted via activities that are not reading if that makes sense?

thanks ..

Hi. I have only just joined but my son was like this, I used to give him joke books to read. He had a great time, so did the earwigging grannies who used to listen to him tell me the jokes when we were shopping. Then he moved on to horrid henry (I don't think these are just for boys), then to Roald dahl, then horrible science, histories etc. I used to read bits of the books to him so that he didn't think I was just giving him a book to keep him quiet. He didn't use the schools reading scheme because he could already read before starting school so they started to give him books from the junior school. I had to read most of them first to make sure that the content was suitable for him.

don't overlook non-fiction/reference books as reading material - what are her interests?

Lots of non-fiction on subjects she enjoys. DK do a great series called EyeWonder. Usbourn have some great non-fiction books in their Early Reading series. The challenge will be new words that don't follow the usual decoding rules, the layout, the index, the glossary etc.
I take my DD to Borders book shop every week, she picks 15 or so books and we go and have coffee whilst reading a variety of books. She chooses anything from 'lift the flap' books to Magic Fairy books. We also go to the library and get a huge selection of books each week again ranging from board books to longer chapter books. Lots of variety (and lots of books) keeps my DD happy!
Some days DD doesn't read at all, other days she reads for hours. I always read her a bedtime story or 4 and she tends to prefer reading in the day.

great minds tiger

Broad horizons - in a word two words

If school skills are coming easily to her, don't focus on school skills, expand her world instead. Take her interesting places, talk to her about things, offer her different interests & hobbies & see what catches fire, and, most important, give her LOTS of other children to play with (of all kinds of abilities and ages.

We use lots of non fiction as often they stretch reading skill without worrying that content might not be appropriate. I also agree with carrying on with reading to them - there is a gap between what ds can physically read and what he can comprehend in terms of complexity of plot - reading at bedtime really helps this also as you can talk about what is happening in the text.

Lots of good advice already given - non-fiction is great particularly if it comes in short interesting chunks as many of the information books do. To find stories which have appropriate storylines have a look in second hand bookshops. Children's books published in the l960s and early l970s used a much richer and varied vocabulary and the stories do not have themes you wouldn't want a four year old to come across! Annuals from that time also have much more dense text than modern annuals and both my DS and DD adored them.