DD in YR 'reading' without looking at the words or even the page

[fatfloosie]

Any suggestions on how to handle this? She has a very good memory so on about the third read of her reading books she knows them off by heart and just recites them without even looking.

She is on red book band - just had Go Away Floppy and Presents for Dad. We do a lot of looking at the pictures for extra bits of story to tell but does anyone have any tips for making the reading part of it a bit more worthwhile?

Her teacher is absolutely lovely and I have mentioned to her that DD might appear to be reading when actually she isn't, so she said she will keep an eye out for it. I will speak to her again at parents evening in a couple of weeks but don't want to bother her again before that.

I do think DD can read some words but not very many. She will read her books perfectly but then if I write the words down for her to read individually she just pulls a panicked face and asks me to read them.

I think it's fine, really, just get her to tell you what individual letters & words are here & there, maybe one letter or one word on each page, make it into a game. They are still learning what it means to read at this point. It sometimes comes together in pieces, some words they know others they guess at, this is quite normal way to learn. The teachers will do specific phonics tests that pick up on her real weaknesses. She won't fool them.

My dd did the same at first.
I let her do it as "reading" gave her confidence and she enjoyed it.
If you think about it, early reading books often repeat words or phrases so it's inevitable that children will remember what's on the next page.
I would only worry if she's moved up prematurely.

I never bothered reading books more than twice for exactly that reason. In fact with dd2 and ds I can tell exactly which pages they read at school because they know roughly what it says and I'll often get a great paraphase of what that paragraph says.

I just got a lot of books out of the library for us to read through, instead of the reading books.

What you could do, which works well with ds, is you read a page. Read it wrong. See if she notices. If she does ask her to show you what you;ve done wrong. If she doesn't notice then try something even worse for the next page "Biff had a ball" on the page, could become "Biff went to a ball" at first or further "Biff dropped the ball on her toe... Oww!" Ds gets very keen to point to exactly which words are wrong. He also usually ends up in floods of giggles. He knows I'm being silly, but he still finds it funny.

If she is the sort of child that knows a book off by heart after the first reading, you can't really stop her, but then there is little point in her reading it more than once except, perhaps, to talk about the story.

Use the words at the end of the book as a check for her to get her to randomly read the words and ask the teachers to change her book more frequently.

I would change the book more frequently to ensure she's always being challenged by a book she hasn't previously seen (had the chance to memorise ).

How come you are still sane? Reading the same red band book three times - you deserve a medal!

Once she has read it, she either has to get it changed or just read another book from home if her school books are only changed on certain days.

Ditto. We only ever read a book once because ds had such an excellent memory. We tended to ask for more than one at once if school couldn't change them every day. Or read a book from home and record that instead!

Thank you all so much for the reassurance and advice. I will try all the things suggested.

DeWe I particularly like your idea of reading it wrong rather than just refreshing her memory!

At the moment she gets two books at a time which are changed twice weekly after she has read to teacher/TA so I'll ask about having more frequent changes (possibly without reading to teacher/TA?) at the parents evening.

Ask her to read a book that she doesn't know off by heart? My daughter also does this. And annoyingly she sometimes recites the text incorrectly too. Or she autopredicts text incorrectly. Depending on her mood when she's behaving like this I either insist that she does it correctly, leave it altogether or read a limited amount carefully with her. Next time I choose a book that she doesn't know.

However, I think it's still important to occasionally/regularly read books that she knows off by heart to boost her confidence and enjoyment. Too much struggle and didactics can bring on a resentment of reading. I think it's all a balance.

How do the teacher and TA assess her reading if she knows it off by heart? Better they read with her the first time through otherwise I'm sure their teaching time could be better spent!

I read with children in school and children have often memorised the book. I usually pick a word per page and say "which word on this page says.....?" to try and get them to focus on individual words.