Reading with a child who can read by themselves

[Bumpsadaisie]

Just wanted to canvas what people do when children get to the point where they can read books silently and pretty fluently. My DD doesn't really want to read out loud to me any more.

How do you "hear your child read?" when they get to this stage? At the moment I just ask her to tell me what happened and were there any tricky words? She is resistant to telling me what happened though - she just says "you can read it yourself mummy!"

Feel a bit like I may not be supporting her properly - its all too easy to get her to go off and read by herself while I sort out her brother.

One issue is that the books she brings home from school are quite easy for her - I don't think she ever has any trouble reading them, so she never wants my input. She enjoys them though so I am not pushing for her to move up particularly.

Oh, the other thing I do with DS3 is actually check he knows what all the vocab means. Words I took for granted that he understood I have asked him what they mean and he really doesn't know. Now he is getting to the point of asking me if he doesn't know in his school books, although in his 'free reading' in his head I think he is definitely skimming over words that he can't read/understand.

Same age and similar reading level. I listen to her read pretty much every day. There's more to it than just whether she can read or not. It's bonding sharing a book together, appreciating her reading, listening to her. She then reads her own chapter books to herself in bed after I've tucked her in.

I don't intend to stop listening to her read anytime soon. It would be different if you'd mentioned a much older child. I might have said once a week, but definitely once a day at yr1 age. I think its really important in our house.

I disagree a bit that they need to keep reading aloud once they are free readers. Yes, reading aloud is a skill, but I'm not sure it's vital for 7yos. I stopped forcing DS1 to read aloud once he was a confident reader, because he really didn't enjoy doing it. I stopped reading to him not long after because he used to read over my shoulder and get ahead of me. He loves reading. And he's pretty good at reading aloud to DS2.

DS2 is 5 and similar reading level to OP's DD. I concur that reading aloud needs to continue for him for quite a while yet.

Its year 1- so 5/6 year olds and still learning vocabulary etc.

(ah which I see you then say in the next paragraph!)

Cornflakegirl it stays a required skill at DD's school right through juniors. It may of course be different at yours, but ours continue to need it for their english work.

LittleMiss that is a good point about the vocab. Even the most skilled 5yo has a lot of vocab still to learn. They do pick it up from the context, but until they can operate a dictionary easily, that shouldn't be their only way to find out the meanings of words.

Pickle - yes, but there are lots of things that they have to do at school that I don't make them practice weekly at home. I put in extra effort with learning to read and write, and with arithmetic, because they are such foundational skills. But other "home learning" is optional and dependent on the interests of the particular child.

I'm not sure that children reading aloud is the most important way of helping them to learn new vocab. If they struggle with decoding a word, it might be an indication that the word is unfamiliar to them, and that's a good prompt to talk about meaning. But lots of normal picture book have harder vocab, so they might well be familiar with the sound of words, and still not know what they mean. I've certainly found that with DS2.

I would say you definitely still need to be reading aloud together.

My daughter is 9 years old, yr 5, with a reading age of 13, and we still read together most nights. She likes to hear how I emphasise certain things, and we discuss more challenging vocabulary and themes together.

corn - my daughter (similar to OP) will often read a word well, then ask, "what does x mean, mummy." It's not just about reading aloud but the time together to discuss what they are reading to you, and you showing that you value their reading.

I used to get DD to read me poetry at that stage. Very good for developing the ability to 'read' punctuation and for hearing the rhythms of language/expression.

She needs to be reading out loud to you every day if she's 5 and on turquoise. I listened to my dc every day until they were free readers, at which point the books were hundreds of pages of tight text and so I might listen to a page or 2 but I find it such a task now. Often dd ignores words she can't read and often DS can read a word but has no idea what it means. DS will ask me but I have to be a bit more vigilant with ds.

Dd is 9 and free reader (finished ort at stage 16) and still reads out loud to me five nights a week. Reading is one thing, but understanding pace, building up tension, suspense, inference, point of views, new words etc are all based on the discussion of what's been read. Reading by herself is extra IMO and not related to literacy level. Dd is working at a high literacy level for her age and i believe it's directly related to the reading work we do.

Once they can definitely read well, then just listening to a page or 2 is enough, with a quick check re understanding.

But reading out loud is also a very good skill to encourage. It will do children well to keep practising this skill for later life. It is a very different skill to just reading to one's self.

Yes to the 'keep her reading aloud' comments.
My DS1 is in Y1 and on white books. He reads quietly to himself when he reads "his" books (Beast Quest and the likes!), but school reading books we read together, and he reads out loud. There are some words that aren't straightforward (like he read "examine" as exa - mine, which I suppose makes sense phonetically) and some where he doesn't know the meaning, so we talk about words as well as the contents of the story. Or practice how to read with good expression. So while he's on a good level, I think there is still lots that he can learn and improve. If you don't listen to them read, you don't know what kind of mistakes they might be making 'in their heads' while reading quietly.

I have to admit I'm very lazy about getting DD1 to read out loud, we've just had a parent's evening today and her teacher was saying 'she can decode everything, I'm interested in pushing her understanding and dissection of the text'. Which is good because DD1 really isn't fussed about reading out loud although she's a complete book worm and loves telling me about the plots of the books she reads herself in anatomical detail.

Also, I think bookish kids do inevitably come across words when reading they haven't heard said out loud (hell, I'm in my 40s and I do. Crapula, magniloquence and fulmination were all on one page of the last book I read). A friend apparently confused her parents as a child when talking about the place eggy-pit. I don't think it matters, better a child that mispronounces words that are complex that they've read than one that doesn't have the opportunity to stretch themselves.

This is where poetry comes into its own. It's fantastic for reading out loud and experimenting with expression and rhythm and interesting words. It's also not too long. I find that when DD reads a story she reads faster and faster, and more and more quietly until she's reading in her head again. But you can read a shortish poem several times in one evening and you have to read it slowly.

Absolutely unclerory, my 2 are forever mispronouncing long words, it's part and parcel of reading for pleasure and not an issue.

However a 5 year old who doesn't read with an adult could be misunderstanding words without realising. I discovered my 5 year old turquoise/purple reader thought 'frustrated' meant 'very sad'. It only came up because I asked him how a character felt. He also thinks 'silly behaviour' means 'like naughty only worse', but that's a whole other thread...

If your DD can decode but needs to work on her understanding, I'd have thought reading aloud would help a lot. When you read aloud it forces you to process the whole sentence on the fly, to get the right intonation and emphasise the right words. Reading in your head, you can get away with decoding individual words but just skipping over the sentence if you can't make sense of it as a whole.

As a teacher, I strongly encourage my parents to hear their children read aloud regularly well into ks2.

It's excellent practice for so many reasons- to improve expression, comprehension, vocabulary and (perhaps more importantly) a love of reading. By the time the child can read quite fluently, shared reading should be an enjoyable activity, using a book the child is enthusiastic about. (Not bloody Biff and Kipper!)

Also, I think it does matter if children regularly read words and don't know how to pronounce them. Of course it happens and the odd one can be entertaining. But I've taught children at the top end of ks2- 'able' readers in terms of comprehension- who can't read aloud an age appropriate book because they have no idea how to pronounce one word in every ten.

Of course this shouldn't happen in a good school, but unfortunately it does happen. And unlike something like maths, where you might need to know a particular method, any fluent reader of English can support children at this stage.

DS reads to himself every night. We get him to read his guided reading book to us each week. Sometimes that's once if there's not too much been set to read in one go, sometimes it takes a couple of evenings.