Question for clever teachers (or parents with experience of this)) pls about yr 2 reading yr5/6 books and comprehension

[nicknamealreadyinuse]

Ds has been put up to free reading which, because our scheme goes to 'diamond'/ yr 6 books is quite a feat as he is only in year 2.

He can read pretty much anything in terms of decoding and his comprehension is fine/ good BUT the year 5 and 6 books e.g. harder Roald Dahl's have quite a few unusual words for him e.g. desolate, ramshackle which are beyond his experience.

In a chapter of a Roald Dahl he read last night with us, there were about 8 words he needed explaining. He didn't find this frustrating though and seemed to enjoy learning their meanings. It also meant that his reading was teaching him something again, which it hadn't for a long time with the lower level books he had been on.

So my question - if there are about 8 words he needs help understanding per chapter (probably 1 word in every 40 or 50) in this level of books, is that okay or does it mean they are too hard for him? I know of the 1 in 10 words guideline but that was more about decoding.

Incidentally when I say 'his reading is teaching something again', before anyone leaps on me, I fully appreciate reading should be enjoyable and he does tons of recreational reading of whatever he wants for fun. I meant his school scheme reading books (and he enjoys these too anyway).

Anyone?

My eldest was reading similar books at a similar age. She just used to gloss over the words she didn't understand. It didn't affect her enjoyment at all. When reading aloud, we might stop to talk about a couple of the words, but I didn't make a meal of it. Think of it as expanding his vocabulary - as long as he's enjoying the books (and they aren't bringing up issues that he's not emotionally ready for) don't worry!

DS1 has always been about 4 years ahead in his reading age so I am talking from parental experience rather than teaching. I would think that if he is enjoying learning the meanings of the words then the level is probably about right. Especially if he is reading different books for fun so these are 'learning' books.

My girls are all reading about 4 years ahead of their age, and we've been told to aim for about 1 unknown word per 100. Apparently this percentage won't put them off the story but will encourage them to find out the meaning. It seems to work well for us, all three girls are very keen on finding out the definition of any new words and love to use them as much as possible, sometimes with hilarious results!

I would hope that the year 6's were capable of more than Roald Dahl to be honest.

How is he with a dictionary? But as AChickenCalledKorma said, don't make a big thing of it, i.e. don't look up every single word. Even if he doesn't know the exact meaning, hopefully the context of the sentence will help point him in the right direction.

Iamnot, perhaps....I don't have a clue what's normal for year 6 and it could be those books shouldn't be in diamond level.

So it sounds broadly ok for there to be this many words he needs to ask about? I was believe it or not considering whether he needed to go off free readers or have it limited to not include the last band. I might suggest to him he gets a mix from different bands so that he can focus on different things with different books.

not a teacher (but a child of two of them!) - but ime just let him go with it - if the story's good enough, it won't discourage him. A bright child can work out a lot from context. Very good training for learning foreign languages too. The only thing to watch is theme - all too easy for children with high reading ages to be able to read upsetting books before they are emotionally ready for them.

Be prepared for them to learn the meanings of words from context, but get the pronunciation wrong, though! No examples are coming to mind, but my DS often comes out with mispronounced words used correctly in context, showing that he learned them from reading. He can sometimes be quite resistant to having his pronunciation corrected, too. (I remember the same, and still get it from time to time. I thought for many years that "hiccough" and "hiccup" were two different words, for example.)

LOL I still have that problem with "inventory" (and a few others that I only heard long after I had read them, but can't remember now). It still happens sometimes if I'm watching BBC4!

at the mispronunciation, DS has a large stock of these words that take forever to retrain him to the right word! Rifle to rhyme with ripple springs to mind.

Content is definitely in my mind the bigger problem than vocabulary. I remember DS being distressed at a story about a boy committing suicide in one school story when he was in reception, although I am fairly certain that was probably only a year 2 book.

Me too with the words learnt from reading. I still often think 'myzled' for misled.
The ta is supposed to be checking each book is appropriate for a six year old before he looks at each one, which is good.

I remember having words like that too - words that I had seen written down but never heard anyone use in real life :)

Guessing what words mean from context is the main way most of us learn language - no-one sits a baby down and explains what 'mummy' means.

I've learnt five languages and I'd guess less than a quarter of my vocabulary in any of them is words I have looked up in a dictionary or actually been 'taught'.

So as long as he is enjoying the books, isn't getting frustrated at too many unknown words, and knows how to use a dictionary/ask an adult for any words he really can't work out, then I'd just let him get on with it.

I still can't get my head around 'tousled'. I thought it was pronounced 'tussled' till I was 25. It still doesn't sound right to me. :o

It's douche bag for me. Has anyone ever actually seen one?

I learned half my vocabulary from reading books, so I can't see this as a problem at all. He will either ignore the word and get on with the story, or work out the rough meaning from the context.

The expectations for a Y6 reading those books will be higher than for a Y2
the teacher will be looking to develop deeper comprehension

A typical Y2 will be able to ...AF3 = deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts
but they may not be able to ...AF4 = identify and comment on the structure and organisation of texts, including grammatical and presentational features at text level
or AF5 = explain and comment on writers' use of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level
or AF6 = identify and comment on writers' purposes and viewpoints, and the overall effect of the text on the reader
or AF7 = relate texts to their social, cultural and historical traditions.

What does AF stand for?

It stands for let your child enjoy reading as many books as possible before it all gets spoiled by asking him annoying questions about structure and organisation.

learnandsay <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Official-photo-cameron.png/220px-Official-photo-cameron.png&imgrefurl=en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cameron&h=276&w=220&sz=101&tbnid=0UnDNdDE1WoW0M:&tbnh=104&tbnw=83&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dpicture%2Bof%2Bdavid%2Bcameron%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=picture+of+david+cameron&docid=hrpfwFVWpxUqOM&sa=X&ei=oAztToHkH8nf8gPH6s2ZCg&ved=0CCIQ9QEwAA&dur=734" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here's one

Panzee I believe to rhyme with sow - zoold.

and exexpat I have wondered whether some people just have brains that are naturally good at decoding, therefore decode their own and other people's languages easily, or whether it's trainable. Probably somewhere between the two.

Assessment Focus :)

Interesting thought, sticky. I certainly found both learning to read and learning new languages quite easy - it may be a similar process, though of course the language learning thing involves a lot more aural/oral stuff as well, since you're usually learning the spoken language in tandem with the written one.

I would have thought that most Year 2's read Roald Dahl and need help with understanding certain words?