Child with comprehension lagging a bit behind ability to read words

[mumoverbored]

A bit of a classic reading question here. Sorry.

Ds is on a particular book band at school but can read far harder books and finds the school ones very, very easy (although he largely enjoys them). The teacher has said she won't move him along until his comprehension improves further (although she says it has improved).

ime he does sometimes struggle if a story is very complex or has themes outside his experience. But equally he does understand what he's reading and we now make sure we ask him lots of questions. They didn't do guided reading in class for most of the year so that can't have helped.

What is the solution here though - he has only moved on one book band in the last year which isn't a lot. I feel he isn't progressing. What can I do?

Just to add, fwiw he is doing pretty well for his age/ year so it's not that he is behind others per se, rather that he isn't moving on and there is this HUGE gap between what will move his vocab on and the level he is on in school.

Move him on with his reading and reading comprehension at home. If he works more intensively with you, hopefully school will notice an improvement and move him on.

sounds like you need to read a wider range of books at home and discuss them with him, get him to retell the stories in his own words etc etc

A classic example of how different schools use the reading scheme. Your teacher wants them to be able to everything at each stage whereas some teachers move children along regardless.

Just keep talking about the stories, ask him to retell you the story in his own words, pick out sections and ask him to explain what it means etc., and just keep letting him read at home.

If it is any consolation, Mumoverbored, DD was in exactly the same situation this time last year - reading your post was a feeling of deja vu - and the outcome was that she clearly WAS comprehending the bloody school books well as she finished the year on 2 sub-levels higher than teacher had predicted.

Lovecheese - I think that although his comprehension isn't perfect the teacher is being particularly negative about it. She is a NQT but then she must know a lot more than I do which is not a lot.

She is ultra-conservative with moving kids up from what I've seen though!

I'm not sure what level / age your child is at but just to share our experience with DD. She's year 2 and only started trying to read (reading wasn't exactly taught in her school) about a year ago. She's made rapid improvement but there was a change for her around ORT 10 / 11. The books before we're relatively easy for her to relate to just from her life experiences or perhaps almost like a story you might find in children's tv. After reading on I'd say that the comprehension and word reading has levelled back out again but she definitely doesn't always get the meaning of things straight away and did need extra books on these levels.

HTH

Poppet

Try reading more complicated books to him at home. I've certainly noticed that switching to chapter books for the bedtime story has helped with comprehension. My dd is nearly 5 and is totally comprehending Georges Marvellous Medicine. She couldn't possibly read it but the important thing she is getting out of it is listening, understanding and enjoying the story.

Hi,
Thanks for the advice. We are doing all this already as he loves these kind of bedtime stories so hopefully that will feed through and more importantly the teacher will notice.

I despair at the idea of ds being on this level for another few months. He read a lime level book (two bands higher) from the library word perfectly, good expression etc. last night and answered all the comprehension questions in the inside back cover pretty well, apart from one which he was a bit stuck on.