Am I committing a parenting faux pas by letting DS1 read his reading books to himself and then just give me a summary of the story??

[ceebeegeebies]

He is free reading chapter books, magazines etc so is there a reason I am missing why he needs to sit and read boring books to me?

No. You are just preserving your sanity.

You are encouraging independent reading and checking his understanding. A* in Parenting homework.

In my opinion this is perfectly acceptable. I have been doing this more and more since they've been fluent readers, especially with the younger three.

If he is a free reader then I think this is acceptable from an educational point of view (ready to be corrected if a teacher comes along) but maybe a bit sad from a personal point of view. My DS1 has been a free reader since Easter and I love reading to him and hearing him read. Agree the books can be a bit tedious but it's still a nice thing to do together. Maybe it's just not your thing though.

Well, as a teacher, I do think you should hear him read occasionally. Even free readers sometimes need support to read with more expression, take more account of punctuation, decode unfamiliar words, like names. Also, you could give him a lot more support with comprehension if you heard him read.

It partly depends how old he is and how good the school are at teaching reading.

I think that is fair enough once they are confident on chapter books. My daughter is just starting on rainbow fairies and I am encouraging her to read a chapter to herself and then tell me what happened and read a bit to me. Her school reading books I do with her but she is only in reception so I think that is still to be expected. I think it is important to check they have read unusual/hard/complex words and grammar etc correctly as otherwise they may just be skim reading or misreading some words without realising they are doing it but once they are good enough that you know that isn't likely to be the case then I think they should be encouraged to read alone whilst still enjoying books with adults.

Agree with Pozzled-there are definitely reasons to hear your child read even when you feel they have good comprehension of the text.

I still listen to DS (yr3) daily as I did stop for a bit as he is a very good reader but his teacher then said he was finding inference tough so we have re-started again and his teacher has noticed a big improvement.

Having said that I don't always listen to DD's (reception) school books as she reads them to herself sometimes but I do still listen to her daily.

Oops, I meant I listen to DD read a book of her choice daily which is sometimes her school book but more often not iyswim.

Thanks for the advice - I will try and listen to him occasionally.

Just out of interest, at what age would you stop listening to him? He is yr2.

DD2 refused to read to me, I just signed reading records in say that she read beautifully and with expression (she did, to the parent helper in school).

"Just out of interest, at what age would you stop listening to him? He is yr2."

I think that year 2 is far too early to stop listening to him. I think you listen to him to read every day until he is a comfortable national curriculum level 4. It only need be five minutes, but it will help him with comprehension no end. Reading is far more than the ablity to bark at print.

If he is a free reader then surely he can choose more interesting books. I still hear my year 6 son read occassionally although not every day.

I am trying to remember when I stopped reading to my parents (my mum was a primary school teacher so pretty hot on reading). I suppose the problem is that reading out loud is a different skill to just reading if that makes sense so the whole time they are learning new ways to read more clearly/effectively etc and if they don't practice reading out loud then when they have to do it at school it might trip them up a little. I don't remember reading to my parents after about yr2/3ish but I did do speech and drama lessons and exams from that sort of age and learned to read out loud through that so perhaps that was when I tailed off reading to my parents so much.

I think so long as you listen to him a couple of times a week then I don't think you are neglecting it but from yr3/4ish I personally think if he is confidently reading chapter books then you could cut that down more but my 2 are still a lot younger so I could be suggesting something I might not want to put into practice myself. I think you know how strong his reading is, where his weaknesses may lie and if you continue to do some reading with him then that is probably ok. I think at yr2 many children will still enjoy having books read to them so perhaps make sure you continue to do that or share reading so he reads a bit and then you do and so on. he will then pick up expression skills and so on from you.

He is not a free reader at school, he is stage 10 but the teacher insists they read all the books in each stage before moving up!!

How do you know he is decoding more complex vocabulary?

It is so important to keep practising this skill and it is impossible to check that it is being practised correctly unless you listen to him read out loud.

Periwinkle, I have bought The Magic Faraway Tree books to take on holiday this summer and I fully intend to read those with him as they were my very favourite books when I was little in fact he will probably have to wrestle it off me

mamaleuh - that is why I posted as I don't know what I should be looking for when he reads and was after advice

I am now only listening to DS1 (10) once or twice a week. He has been a free reader since Year 2 and is a very capable reader (if a bit keen on fantasy for my tastes) but he still comes across words he doesn't know.

In fact I suspect that's more of a problem with good reader who end up reading books that aren't specifically written for their age, and who may not understand everything.

I'm not sure it's just about books tho at this stage. For example DD also level 10/11 was playing temple run on my iPad today. She was reading the menu, I wasn't really paying attention, but she read ancient as accident and I overheard her. I just told her the correct word, asked if she knew what it meant, a twenty second conversation.

She is in Yr 1 so hasnt come across the word before. If it were in a book, she may figure out that it didn't make sense. Sometimes, some words are beyond their ability but if the book is reasonably appropriate to their age and sense of the world, I think they figure it out.

My ds1 is 6 and Y1. He's reading v well, but I agree his school reading books are often beyond dull. We read them on the day they are changed, twice a week, and on the other days choose something else, a chapter of whatever he is reading. He is attempting complex books because he's interested in the story (Harry potter at the moment) but unless I hear him read I would not know he is mispronouncing or not understanding certain words. He certainly understands enough to repeat back the gist of the story, but I'd be missing an opportunity to increase his understanding and vocabulary if I totally left him to it. Plus it's lovely to share books together - we just read " The owl who was afraid of the dark" at bedtimes, and I remembered how much I had loved sharing that with my Mum.

I think perhaps if school still have him on level 10 (even if it is partly due to a policy of reading every book) then he probably still needs to read to you a bit more. There are a lot of skills they expect them to develop between the levels so it may be he hasn't yet got all of these. My daughter will always come and ask me about a word she hasn't come across before or isn't sure of or if she can't follow something but she does misread things sometimes (even more so with visual processing disorder) so I do keep a close eye on her at the moment.

I plan to hear DS read for at least a other year every day (so end of yr4) and after that maybe 2-3 times a week.

Reading out loud is a different skill to reading to yourself and both need practising IMO.

DS1 reads very confidently but I still hear him read on average 5x per week, the school book he has brought home. This is mostly about encouraging expression, comprehension etc.
DS may read any books to himself at anytime he wants including his reading book from school apart from these times.
A totally separate subject is reading to DS and there is no way I'm giving that up just because he can read himself ...I'm not stopping until he's big enough to kick me out!! We both love story time, I like revisiting books and we can do books that are far beyond his reading level- we have recently read The Indian in the Cupboard and Stig of the Dump and he adored them both, we have also done the tricky Edwardian language of Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet, again which he loved.

I have asked most of the parents of my y5 class to listen to their children read more often this year - most are nc level 4a and ort 16. Apart from the obvious enjoying time with you, asking searching questions and checking new vocab is really important. One child read to me today, a 5 syllable word and only two syllables pronounced which altered the meaning.