DD(6) - easier to read when moves away from book - normal stage?

[PeanutButterOnly]

Just wondering whether this a 'normal' thing. DD is 6.2 and in Yr 1. She's been struggling a bit with reading but is trying very very hard at home lately, so it's fine. The last few days, with regular words (e.g CVC) in her reading books, she's found it easier to read them straight off (without sounding out all the letters aloud) by looking at the word and then moving herself away from the book. She then says the word and then comes back to look at the next one. Is this a common phenomenon?! It seems very tiring for her! I did ask her if she could look at the word and shut her eyes to say it rather than having to flip her whole self away from the book to the other end of the bed, but she seems to like the former better . I hope she's improving, I think she is, but why is it easier for her to remove herself from the book and how can I help more?

I'm sorry. I can't answer your question about how normal it is. I don't know. Is she visualising the word do you think? You could try sticking cards with nouns on around the house, door, chair and so on. If you find later on that she can read these words easily once the labels have been removed and you are simply showing her the words you might find out that she has a knack for visualising whole words. My daughter began by only reading whole words and refusing to sound out. And then she switched arbitrarily to only sounding out.

Does she know all her letter sounds? Can she read cvc words generally? If you wrote them on cards and asked her to read them off the cards how would she do it? And if you made up some pseudo cvc words and wrote them on cards how would she get on with those? How does she get on with pairs of consonants like ch sh th and so on?

Thanks for your reply- I don't know really if she's visualising the words. I think maybe it's just easier to move away from the page and just focus on the one word at a time in her head. She does know the letter sounds and the consonant pairs. They're doing Read Write inc and she knows all of the first set (green cards) and some of the yellow set. She would be able to read CVC words on cards, by sounding out or sometimes without sounding out.

She often spontaneously rehearses letter sounds during the day. So she'll say 'M-A-T - Mat' or this morning in the playground before she went in, she suddenly said 'O-FF - Off' (Bless her - she's trying so hard and seems to enjoy it).

Sometimes when she's reading books, she's a bit hesitant, like it's an effort to remember the individual letter sounds even though she knows them. Her teacher said she finds it easier to think of the letters sounds for writing, than when doing it the other way round for reading.

I would get her eyes tested if I were you!

I would not hesitate to get her eyes tested. But if for some reason I had to wait for an appointment then I'd try writing the letters and words much larger and thicker in black marker pen and see if she could read them without having to turn away and think about it.

She needs an eye test. I wear glasses for reading for this exact reason.

OK, thanks. Hadn't thought about the possibility of it being a sight issue. Are you thinking that she could be long sighted and the words on the page are blurring at short-distance? DH is short-sighted and I'm normal sighted. I think she had her sight tested at school within the last year but I will get her an optician's appt in case. Thanks all, I wouldn't have considered this!

Yes, I was thinking long-sighted. It would make sense with her behaviour.