What age do you let them read their school book to themselves??

[simpson]

Hi

DS is in yr2 but loves reading.

He will happily read other books, magazines etc as well as his school reading book.

ATM I am listening to him read every night (if he has finished his school book, then a library book instead).

But having spoken to a couple of the other mums at school apparently I am being a bit odd for doing this.

Either the other kids are listened to maybe twice a week or some of the better readers are allowed to read their school books by themselves and just re-tell the story to the parents to confirm that they have read it.

At what age can you let your DC read their school book to themselves??

Iamnotminterested - those reading ages I gave are purely decoding, not comprehension. There are other reading ages which require comprehension, which tend to give rather lower figures.

I work in a secondary school and in my school the 'average' reading abilities of 16 yr-olds are shocking. (Most of whom will not become A-level students.)

I only gave those figures as an illustration of the fact that you still need to hear them read, even though they can read!

I had just stopped hearing my Yr 3 DS read aloud but have started again after parent's evening. He's a good, if reluctant, reader and his teacher said he needed to work on his comprehension.

Tonight he read, 'they came out of the darkness and their eyes danced to see the sunlight'. Read it fine, no hesitation, no questions. When I asked him to explain how eyes dance, he couldn't.

I wouldn't have known that if he hadn't been reading aloud. Back to plugging away. As long as I'm not listening to him read when he's 21, I'll hold out a bit longer.

Dd1 is in P3 (6 going on 7) and I listen to her read her school reading book. She gets homework based on her reading book, such as comprehension or this week it was find words from your book elsewhere like in a newspaper, cereal box etc and cut them out. She is a very competent reader but some words especially names stump her sometimes - we had issues over the name Lorenzo tonight

I was kind of hoping to be able to not listen to him read so much

Will put it on hold till at least yr4

I'd agree with all that about comprehension v decoding. DD is Yr1 so I hadn't considered stopping listening, but I'm involved virtually all the time in explaining what things mean anyway - I assume because her reading (decoding) is good for her age so a lot of the books have more complicated words, concepts and background. If I wasn't checking that she understood what she was reading, I don't think she'd be coming to me and asking.

Even some of the Biff/Kipper books she was doing last year took quite some explaining - lots seemed to go back in time to the Egyptions, Imperial Chinese, Victorians etc so we had massive long discussions on history too, otherwise it all seemed utterly random.

[realise I am turning into my mother who couldn't help with GCSE science homework without giving a degree level lecture on biochemistry ]

Simpson, while I basically agree that listening to children read and keeping them 'right' is a good thing, sending reading books home is a relatively recent phenomenon. So, I don't think it would do any harm to vary it a bit, so he reads to you some nights and reads to himself on others. He can always ask if there is something he is not sure of.

He seems to have forgone the bedtime story, to read by himself instead.

So routine atm is that I listen to him read and then he scoots off to his room to read by himself whilst I read DD's bedtime story to her.

Hi simpson

We love reading with our kids. They read to us, sometimes they read it all, sometimes we read every other page and sometimes we read to them.

Currently DH is upstairs reliving his youth and reading Alan Garner's The Weirdstone of Brisingamen to our girls. (A result of them discovering Merlin on CBBC/ BBC1).

We find that gradually our reading with them has changed from listening (which we still do plenty) - to discussing. Do you know what transparent means? Do you understand what Gordian knot is? Do you know who Albert Einstein was? Little hints about pronounciation. Discussions about how things used to be in the past.

Sometimes we encourage them to read books we treasured from our youth. Charlotte's Web was a great success for DD1.

This past Christmas I read A Christmas Carol to the girls. They didn't completely understand everything - but it was a lovely way to learn about similes - Marley was 'as dead as a door nail' and metaphors (can't quite remember exact wording - but most people don't have a stake of holly in their heart). all of which DD1 was starting to learn about in Y4.

We also have fun pointing out spelling words in reading with both DDs.

I think from our point of view it's just a nice way to round off our day. After bath, one or both of us reads with the girls. They'll outgrow it far too soon - but right now we all seem to enjoy it.

If you mean reading his own books to himself, then probably about 2 when I trust them not to rip the book apart - of course the "reading" may not resemble the story, LOL.

If it is readers sent home by the school, then I agree with others that he needs to read them to you. It's about intonation, checking comprehension and generally having the skill to read things aloud fluently.

We stopped listening to dd (Y3) read regularly at the beginning of this academic year, we still read to her and ds every night, as we have always done.
I decided that as she was so fluent and was really enjoying books just for her own pleasure we'd not constantly check her and 'bother her' about it. She reads in bed every night by herself and gets through about 4 or 5 chapter books each week. It seems that this has been a good move because we had parents evening last week and in reading she has gone up by two NC levels (when they would only have expected 1 level in this time).
Having read this thread though I guess we should be making a bit more effort to ensure her comprehension. Just wondering is comprehension part of 'reading' or 'literacy'?