Dd's bad reading habits!

[mrsshears]

If anyone,particulairly teachers has any advice on this i would be really greatful.
My dd is 5 and currently reading band 9 school reading books,she does'nt have a great deal of interest in these so we just do them as a matter of course really,i read to dd alot at home which she loves,we are currently enjoying mr stink and the twits,dd can read these books herself but they are slightly too hard as she struggles with some of the more unfamiliar words and then the enjoyment of the story is lost,hence i read them to her instead.
She has developed some really bad habbits with her school books and will often put in words that arent there and/or be lazy about reading the words and will say things like 'would' instead of 'could' and change the sentence to mean the same but worded differently.
When she did this today with her book i told her that if she continued to do it then there would be no sweets later and of course she read the rest of the book beautifully.
I'm consious that i dont want to turn reading into a negative experience but at the same time i think school books are something that should be done really.
Any ideas? tia

It's a normal phase - my eldest went through this from the last term of reception and is just coming out of it now. He skips words or adds them in, so that what he's reading makes sense. Sometimes he says "a" instead of "the" and we used to have what/that whose/those confusion.

I spent a lot of time correcting him, getting him to read it again. Didn't make much difference. Now I just get him to slow down. After I stopped correcting every single slip it got much better, and he seems to be growing out of this phase. Like your DD, my DS was on a high reading band when this started. I think sometimes the children need to be told to slow down a bit.

Same as TheAvocadoOfWisdom with my DD it got much better recently when she slowed down in DD's case inventing words that aren't there, replacing words with her own, it was all getting really too muddled until she learnt to slow down and pay attention.
On top of that we also had issues with expression in her reading which also got much better with her slowing down and reading more quietly in more normal natural voice.
IMO found it completely counterproductive to make her reread whole page sometimes several, she finds these books tedious as it is and I think that was part of the problem, hence wanting to go trough them as quick as possible, so that she could do or read something else.
Funny enough she reads beautifully other materials, home books, poems newspaper cuttings, the real interest is there, she wants to gain through reading, accurate information, so there isn't any inventing of new words nor replacing them.

Thanks avocado maybe that's the problem then,its very frustrating,when we next read i will ask dd to read a bit slower and see if that helps.

I hope that it is just a 'phase' but I would keep an eye on her and nip it in the bud as much as possible.

Changing words, slightly altering the meaning or word order, and similar habits, may not greatly affect her reading for pleasure, but in later years exam questions have to be read accurately so it is best not to allow guessing habits to develop.

I sometimes used to make it into a competition with pupils I was hearing reading on a one to one basis. I got a point for every incorrect word they read, they got a point for every sentence read correctly. Competitive types loved it

I found my DC's reading got better when I started covering the pictures, I think she wasn't reading the individual words because she was getting the story from the pictures and using her own words rather than tackling unfamiliar words. Could be wrong about the why, but it worked.

It can become an issue if children have been encouraged to use pictures to "read" the words.

Thanks everyone,thats really helpful.

she has never really used the pictures in the story tbh,when she was younger she would be trying to sound out a word that if she had used the pictures would be staring her in the face,something like 'sleigh' for example.
I really want to get her out of this habit,if thats what it is,without making it worse.

Hi
Having worked with Primary children for over twenty years as a TA, not many 5 yr olds read words like 'could' 'should' let alone 'sleigh'; but then we were very lucky if we could get parents to share books with their children at all.

It almost sounds like she is reading at a Yr 2 or Yr 3 level, when those kinds of mistakes do become more common, may be through overconfidence. Personally, I wouldn't stop and correct every detail, as that upsets the 'flow'. Make a mental note of less serious mistakes, and go over them at the end. Or if the child made a very careless or really silly error, I would just say, "Pardon!", and they would often be able to correct the mistake themselves.

To help improve expression we would tell them to do it "just like talking".

To me, it seems a shame to let sweets become a bargaining tool. Our own DS never had, nor expected, sweets after school; maybe a Marmite sandwich when we got home - but then that was twenty-five years ago!

Thanks ferguson

I know,i'm a bit about the sweets, i did that to see if there was a genuine problem there or not.
We finished a treetops book this morning and before we sat down i told dd to take it slowly and not to rush and it was a lot better,still a couple of mr instead of mrs etc but on the whole not too bad.

DD had very similar problem and she was identified as having a "tracking" problem with her eyes. If she reads with a reading ruler or even a normal ruler under the line she reads beautifully, otherwise missed words, added words etc, even using her finger really helps which seems crazy for a 9 year old - but she needs to.

Personally, I wouldn't stop and correct every detail, as that upsets the 'flow'.

I would!

'Learning' results from the reinforcing of neural networks by repetition. Every time the 'wrong' response is repeated it becomes more embedded and more difficult to replace with the 'right' response. Also, there is no point in flowing merrily on if what is being 'read' has little resemblence to what is actually written on the page!

If you really want to promote fluency it is better to correct mistakes immediately and then re-read the passage (correctly ).

I agree with maizieD
If she has a book containing should, would and sleigh I would have taught her the necessary skills in order that she could read them and I've taught many reception children to read and spell would could should and eigh representing the ay sound over the years ... Reading them incorrectly will do more damage to the flow of understanding than stopping her and correcting her.

If you really want to promote fluency it is better to correct mistakes immediately and then re-read the passage (correctly )

Damn. Do I have to get DD to read every passage twice?

There were also suggestions in the link on the other forum that you should read the passage to her first, and then she read it second...... Do you think that's a good idea?

DS ( age 5,Y1, level 8 ORT currently) does this too. He also sometimes mangles/ reverses short words, so will read was as saw or sky as ask, he is getting better at realising that what he has said made no sense and back tracking to re-read the sentence correctly. If he's read the sense but not the words ( IYSWIM) I'll pick him up on individual words at the end of the page and MAY make him re-read a passage.

Re-reading? No, IB. Not in your case! Not every time...

I would never read anything to a child first. The chances of them memorising (and not necessarily memorising correctly), rather than reading, are reasonably high. The purpose of learning to read is to be able to read unfamiliar words/text - independently.

If you think that she really hasn't got the 'gist' then read it to her once she's read it. But it is surprising how well children often understand what they have read even if it has taken them ages to decode it.

But re-reading, apparently, is shown (experimentally, not just anecdotally) to improve fluency.

Seems to me that it should because re-reading words helps to get them into long term 'sight' memory and all practice strengthens the neural networks....

Sorry! that I have upset our Trio of best experts all in one go! [and not for the first time?]

Probably I didn't make it clear enough, but I was really referring to 'slips' that a child might make, not because she CAN'T read the word, but rather that on this occasion, through distraction, carelessness or whatever, she got it wrong.

I would still maintain that a child might become rather 'pissed off' if EVERY incorrect detail is picked on. To me, the adult supporting the reading (rather than TEACHING it from the beginning) can, in some circumstances, exercise judgement whether or not to 'correct'.

Certainly 're-reading' is an excellent strategy. Last term I had a Yr 2 boy who had developed his own impressive style: from being very 'anti' reading in Yr 1, looking disgruntled and being uncooperative, he transformed to actually telling me he now enjoyed it and wanted to do well in future! Without being told to, he would 'sound out' a few words, then re-read them as a phrase; he would do this with each phrase in turn, before finally putting all the phrases together for the full sentence. He took obvious satisfaction in this, and I gave him plenty of praise for it. (I never really knew what had brought about this change in attitude, though I suspect there had been improvements in his home life, so that he was getting

I'm afraid I would correct slips such as the OP describes especially if the child is reading words that aren't there or substituting words. I usually re read the passage after the child rather than ask the child to read it again so they hear it read correctly but I work with much younger children than maisieD.

I still remember in Year 1 I had read my week's book overnight and my teacher told me to read it again, but to give each character a different voice (so effectively act it out). This made me slow down and also think carefully about who was speaking (ie. you have to read in your head to the end of the line to find "said Jane" and then you know to read it in Jane's voice).

Would that help your DD? I suppose it's just a more subtle way of slowing reading down a bit.

I would still maintain that a child might become rather 'pissed off' if EVERY incorrect detail is picked on.

Ha, ha! They get so pissed off that they start paying a bit more attention to what they read in the first place!

But, as mrz points out, in a different context, I do work with older children with Very Bad 'make it up as we go along' habits. These habits must have started somewhere during the previous 6 years...

Interesting stuff

dd1 (now 8) definitely went through a period of doing this, probably aged about 6. Just around the time she was starting to read in sentences instead of word by word, I think.

In her case, I did correct every time and she just stopped wanting to read out loud. It was very clear I backed off, and she started reading again, and I only corrected occasionally if I thought it was a reading mistake as opposed to her frustration at wanting to be more fluent - if that makes any sense - and her reading improved quite rapidly.

She simply doesn't do it anymore, in Y3. It just passed.

I've also noticed several of her peers doing the same thing (I read weekly with her year group at school) at about the same stage - usually for a few weeks, and then it passes.

Perhaps the teachers are correcting them, and its just Mums who need to back off?!? Or maybe individual children do it for different reasons, and need different feedback??

In any case, none of the children I've known to do this were 5 - they were more Y1/2, so maybe its a different issue.

DD (also five) is also prone to slightly bonkers guessing and reading what she thinks might be there rather than what is actually there - I think it's because she's slightly frustrated at the slowness of working out a more difficult word because she has got very fast and fluent with even previously unseen easier words and she does enjoy that. The thing that is working for us so far is that I just say 'look again and check' or 'have a look at the sounds/words carefully' rather than saying 'no, that's not right' or whatever. I did notice that when I had previously started to say no that she became much less keen to have a go so I am very neutral about pointing out mistakes/guesses and praise her a lot for sounding out something that is a bit more difficult (on a par with something like sleigh) even if she gets it a bit wrong. If it's a reasonable guess for the letters that are in front of her (even if what she's come up with isn't a real word but it makes sense within the bounds of her knowledge) and she has actually tried properly I praise her for giving it a go. It seems to have really helped a lot and she's now a lot keener to try words she hasn't seen before. I am not at all an expert but this seems to be helping with my daughter. Would be interested to know if the experts here think this is a sensible way to proceed!

The thing that is working for us so far is that I just say 'look again and check' or 'have a look at the sounds/words carefully' rather than saying 'no, that's not right' or whatever.

Very sensible.

I realise that I should have made it clear that I just ask a child to have another go at the word, or ask them if they are sure. I don't keep saying that they are 'Wrong'! That would be discouraging... I'm not that hard hearted

That's very good to know that it's sensible. Thank you! I think it's very hard as a parent to deal with this kind of thing in a good way because obviously I have no memory of learning to read at all so have no real idea what is going on in DD's head. Not to mention the fact that I learnt with flashcards etc so only really worked out phonics after I could recognise a lot of words anyway. I don't think anyone ever gave me any phonics knowledge explicitly.

The thing I find really hard to tackle is words like sleigh that are obviously quite a bit more complicated than your cat and frog and seed and whatever. If DD were to come up with sleg, I'd probably tell her it was a good try and that this was a bit more complicated and 'eigh' can say 'ay' sometimes. But it feels a bit of a cop out because her class at school (she is older in her year, in Reception) are mainly at the stage of regular and easy words so she hasn't had any teaching to equip her to deal with words where the actual sounds don't correspond so easily to the letters. If anyone has any ideas of resources online or other things I could give her to help her with the harder words, it would be very gratefully received.