another reading question, sorry - dd has been moved up a book band and is finding it hard

[paddingtonbear1]

dd has always struggled with school work in general, and finished yr 2 on orange band books (level 1, ORT stage 6/7). Since starting yr 3 she's zoomed through the next 2 levels and has just been moved up to gold band. She found the last 2 levels easy, but is suddenly struggling again. How do I best encourage her? Her concentration has always been fairly poor and if it doesn't come fairly quickly, she gives up.

Am I right in thinking that at this stage the books get longer, 32 pages? Well for a start don't try to read it all in one sitting, spread it over two or three; Ask her beforehand to stop when she comes across any unfamiliar words or phrases and talk about them together - after all the vocab is going to get trickier or how else can she progress?? A good idea is to keep a little "Word book" where you could jot down any new words and look them up together; And one thing that I do with mine is to take it in turns to read a couple of pages, to keep the flow of the story and also to let her see how you as an "expert" read. Good luck.

So is she now on ORT 10+?
Chapter books,so don't read them all in one go, or even a chapter if it over-faces her.
Read as lovecheese suggests, sharing the text and showing her how to enjoy it.

They change her book when she's read it, so no strict rule. The book she's brought home isn't as long as some of her purple level books, but it does have harder words and is written in verse, which she finds harder anyway. We've just been reading a few pages at a time, with me explaining the meaning of some words and reading a few sentences back to her or we lose the jist of the story.
School haven't given any guidlelines for this level. I know dd still has extra help with phonics at school - her teacher says a small group work with the TA.
She was very pleased to be moved up a level - I just don't want her to lose heart!

She won't lose heart if you keep it positive, tell her how well she's doing and help her through the tricky bits.
Little and often, so do 10 minutes reading at a time, or 5 if that's what she can manage. Talk about the book, play around with the ideas and the vocabulary. Have fun.

Also bear in mind she just might not like reading verse as sometimes it doesnt make sense unless you get the rhythm right, which is hard to do when you are still focussed onworking out the words

Could you read her a couple of pages first sop she gets the idea of how to read it
And if she still doesnt get it, park it till the end of the holidays and ask to change it when she goes back for a non verse book. If she still really struggles with the next one she could always go back to some easier ones to build her confidence back up

I have similar with DS who is y2. I get a lot of short easier books from the library to keep his confidence and enthusiasm up. We alternate nights of him reading to me 1 or 2 of the easy books with him tackling ~2-4 pages in the proper school reading book. He also has TinTin and other library books he likes to read or at least browse on his own.

Comic magazines (Beano) are good, too. Anything that keeps their enthusiasm up.

Thanks v much all, this has been a great help. DreamTeamGirl I think you may be right, dd is not used to reading verse and that could be part of the problem. I think I'll read this one with her, then ask her to get a non-verse one for the hols (she doesn't finish till Tues), and see how she manages with that. I still read to her at bedtime, which she loves.

Oh well its ideal then to change it if she is no closer to enjoying it by Tuesday
Then you will have a better idea if it is the level or the type of material she is struggling with

When we got up to 32 pages DD started to struggle a bit. She really couldn't be bothered to read much as well. We kept plugging away even coaxed with a little massage after bath time as she read. Perhaps not conventional but it distracted her from the effort she was having to put in and kept her relaxed. We would often split the books and now on the treetops she can manage about 1/2 a book with the odd whole one if she's really into the story.

This holiday I am trying to read to her with her filling in the blanks.

Good luck