Why does DD have a hard time reading aloud when she's so fluent?

[AwkwardMary]

DD is 7...she is in year three (new to this school since Sept) and has been reading since she was just turned 5...she got much more fluent this year and when she arrived at this new school, her teacher told me she ought to have been on free reading for a while but she had been on a scheme.

ANyway...the teacher allowed her to choose her own books and she eats them up...loves reading...she's not especially advanced or anything...likes Roald Dahl and Tracy Beaker etc. Her spelling is very good and is about the same as that of a ten year old according to her teacher...so WHY does she hate reading aloud to me or to her teacher?

She drones quietly...on purpose...so that we'll let her stop. I know she is reading the books that she has....she lies there for a long time in the evening and begs to be allowed to finish a chapter before bed...she wil discuss books to a point but doesn't like it if I try to encourage her.

Is she having some difficulty with reading aloud? Is there some kind of disability related to this? Her spelling is very good and her writing is neat...she draws very well and her maths though not great is improving all the time....I had her eyes tested and they are fine...I told her tonight that she MUST read aloud to me...her teacher sad that it will help her confidence...

she complained that it "makes me go too slow when I read out loud." and got very angry when I tried to make her...how do we know if she is understanding all she reads if she won't share??? When I ask her questions about her books and the stories she will only roll her eyes at me. What to do?

Yes Hanging I've tred poems and various voices...funny thing is that DH and I are both actors, so there is a chance she's had too much of the "performance" in her life, even her fave uncle is an actor and he is always bursting into song and speech for the DC.

It's possble she thinks "God I have to compete with them!"...she does like me reading them to her though...I could try tins and packets i suppose? That would appeal to her weird sense of humour probably.

I will have a look at Stanley Bagshawe...she loves an accent and will do them when we're not reading.

Awkward - Does she need your help with the homework part though?

Reading aloud is very different to reading to yourself.

I have always been dreadful at reading aloud. In primary school I was so dreadful at it that I was in the remedial reading group until primary 5. My teachers based their assessment of my reading ability purely on listening to me read. However, I was actually very, very good at reading (as in the decoding of words and comprehension of texts). My teachers discovered this when we sat a standardised test and I scored off the scale in comprehension (it went up to age 16), so I as moved up into the top group but I still never became good at reading aloud.

It doesn't prevent me from being good at public speaking either. In fact, as I can't just read off a script, it probably makes me better at it. I am a university lecturer so I get lots of practice at speaking to audiences (and generally very good feedback about it).

I wouldn't panic about it. If you think it's a confidence thing, some kind of drama club or something might be useful. But only if she's actually interested in that.

DamselinDisarray is quite right, it is confidence thing and it will come in time.

I hated it as a DC and yet I loved books and was always reading. The one thing that would have upset me the most, aged 7, was someone suggesting drama club, debating or reading poems etc. It really isn't important at the moment.

Really interesting thread and funnily enough something I've been discussing with ds 8's teacher recently.

My ds learnt to read really early.He taught himself simple stuff before school and was reading anything by the end of rec. So he's been reading in his head for a long time now.

I had exactly the same worries as everybody else on this thread and have tried a lot of the ideas.

My ds's teacher basically said to chill,he's reading masses and she doesn't seem too worried.

My ds is shy and says he'll look stupid when I put on silly voices etc.I don't think it's that he can't but that he doesn't want to.He got upset and said I was saying his reading was rubbish(I wasn't) so I've backed off.Going to read to him a lot,got out of the habit recently.

If you are shy there is nothing worse than someone trying to get you out of your shell. I have spent my DSs entire school days trying to tell teachers this, and many simply don't understand. The ones that do were shy themselves.
It comes with gaining self confidence and trying to force it erodes any self confidence that you might have in the first place!

She does need help with the homework...she is gaining confdence but hardly trusts her own ideas...I find if I am there to support her, she enjoys it more. I am booking her into gymnastics because she likes that and also a sewing club for girls her age as she LOVES to sew...feel lucky to have found that one!

You need support-you just don't want forcing into 'things that are good for you'-much better to do things that you choose to do-sounds good to me.

Activities like gymnastics or sewing club should be great for building confidence (which will spill into other areas of her life). The key is that it has to be something that she wants to do, rather than something she's steered into.