Reading too far ahead, problem?

[elfonshelf]

Really don't want this to sound like some kind of stealth boast (and in any case, so many kids here seem to be on HP or Narnia by now, that it probably wouldn't count as one anyway!) - but as anyone who read my thread of a few weeks ago will know, we've had a terrible battle persuading Y1 summer-born DD to read at all or in fact do any school work at all. I posted here for advice, tried a couple of the suggestions and they seemed to have worked and she's now making up for lost time and gone from L4 at xmas to L9 last week. I am very keen not to do anything to upset the apple-cart and end up back where we were.

As well as the school books and home books that she reads to me, I also have lots of books that I read to her, both picture books and ones with mainly words.

This weekend, I bought a set of Secret Seven books for me to read to her - wasn't sure if she'd enjoy them yet, but thought I'd try one and see what she thought. Started it last night and one paragraph in, she decided that she wanted to read it and made a lot of effort. She's obviously keen as she had it out again before breakfast and on the bus to and from school.

However, she is struggling quite a bit/a lot with it - some of the phonic sounds haven't been covered yet at school and so she can't decode a lot of the words.

She also still sounds out EVERYTHING, even words she knows well, whatever she is reading, so it's quite slow going. But she can make a good enough fist of it to work out the sentence correctly in the end and comprehend the story completely.

She's very proud of herself, but I'm worried that she is trying to jump ahead too fast and will miss learning important steps in her determination to read 'big girl books', or even worse get frustrated and go back to refusing to read at all.

Should I just be glad that she's finally decided that books are a great thing and let her battle her way through it, or should I hide anything that is really beyond her and build her confidence and work on her being able to read without sounding out everything and being able to decode 99% of the words on a page before moving on to anything harder?

There must be others who have children who have done similar things, so would welcome advice. Her usual TA who does the reading in class, has just moved to another role over the last few weeks, so I haven't got someone I know at the school yet that I can ask who knows the backstory or DD's very determined and stubborn personality.

I think that as long as she is reading it with you and therefore can have help with new words, pronunciation, meaning etc then it can only help her reading to be honest. (mind I am surprised she has got to level 9 books if she still sounds everything out and doesn't know all the phonic sounds).

Encourage her to try the words and then help her sound them out correctly rather than just tell her the word, same principle as when you were doing the basic books with her. share the reading with her because longer books can really drag on when you are young and read slowly so if an adult can help you get through the story quicker then it helps maintain interest.

Hi - I have seen some of your posts, but haven't studied in detail.

Something I often suggest, to make reading more satisfying for kids who are keen, is: share the book together, she points to the words as she goes along, and reads them if she can; if she can't she pauses her finger over the word, and YOU say it for her. Try and keep the 'flow' going, and don't analyse problems, but recap them at the end if you wish.

Children often feel 'safer' sounding out, even when they do know the word. It's a bit like in Numeracy, young children can't 'count on' from a number, but have to start from one every time.

I'll have a proper look at your other info in a day or two. Parents just WORRY TOO MUCH about all this stuff!

It's not just about the reading though ... Is she taking in what she reads herself? Like the previous poster I am confused at L9 if still sounding out every word.
I agree with the poster above about keeping the flow.
I speak to many parents who try to get their children to enjoy older books and you are right to be concerned about it turning them off reading. Spoke to a parent of a 9 year old recently who couldn't understand why her son was refusing to read - turns out she was making him read Lord of the Rings. At 9 most children would struggle (I read them when I was about 11 and only when I read them years later did I get the whole death metaphor!)

Good grief purplesky... LOTR! I sometimes wonder if parents want to say that their child is reading things like that rather than it being the child asking to. At that age, for that genre, something like Susan Cooper's "The Dark Is Rising" series would be much exciting and accessible.

I've noticed with DD that even if she really likes a film, the book isn't always appropriate. She loves the DVD of Tom's Midnight Garden for example. I had my old copy in the bookcase and got it down thinking it might be a good bedtime story. I put it back straight away - the vocabulary and very descriptive sentences were not only too complex, but what took 3 minutes in the film - Tom having to go away because his brother had measles - took a whole chapter in the book. DD would have been disappointed and frustrated that it wasn't fast paced enough for her.

Hence why I thought the SS would be good as they get stuck in to the exciting stuff very quickly.

Probably because she watches films like that, Narnia, The Secret Garden, Heidi etc rather than cBeebies, and has parents who use a wider vocabulary than average (and has DH's blooming Economist inflicted on her in the car all the time ) her vocab has always been very advanced for her age, and that does help her read words that many children her age haven't been exposed to.

With the sounding out, it's weird. She literally sounds out every single word - even things like 'a', 'the', 'and' which she knows backwards. And if there is a new word in a school book (backpack was one a few weeks ago) and it occurs 20 times, she will sound it out 20 times. I find it very odd but am trying not to get frustrated. She's very fast at sounding out, doesn't struggle with doing it and doesn't seem to lose comprehension. I thought that being able to read fluently and fast was one of the skills needed to access higher levels, but apparently not - fluent decoding, decoding and then saying the correct word and having full comprehension of what you are reading seem to be the main requirements (iirc, you have to score 98% correct at a level to move up to the next one).

That is really interesting Ferguson about the counting from 1. She insists on doing that. We have tried endlessly to explain that is you have 8 plus 7, you can just count on from 8, but she will not even try to do it or even accept that it is allowed.

The school had their reading specialist assess her the other week and it came back as a secure L8, probably L9 and aim to be free-reader by Easter. The L8 books she got through in minutes, the L9s she's having to think a little bit harder.

I think it's only because they haven't covered some phonic sounds. For example, she doesn't know that 'ce' can sound like 's' yet. I have no idea how phonics is taught or what order things come in, but she will suddenly start getting excited about spotting certain things like 'ou' and the different sounds it can have. Most of the time she will get the word right even if she can't get the whole thing phonetically by making a good guess based on what she can decode and the context and she is definitely secure in meaning and pronunciation.

I'm going to try some of the suggestions like sharing the reading, maybe doing alternate pages and a really good idea to sound out the word for her rather than just telling her the whole word, which I have been doing. I'm cautious about giving her new information on phonic sounds she hasn't done - like the 'ce', because mummy is apparently a bit dense and things are only correct if her teacher has told her. Marvellous.

Could you talk to her teacher? Just because some children (I was one) are very rule bound and will not drop out a stage until a teacher says they may. So she may be sounding out because she hasn't been told explicitly that she can move on to just reading words she recognises.
I'm a bit surprised she hasn't covered all phonic sounds by this stage of year 1. If she won't trust you on a sound then maybe you could ask the teacher to talk to her about it.

Experienced teachers may get this whole "only believing teacher" thing, less experienced teachers may find it a shock; but its something they need to learn. Its even worse when a teacher makes a verbal slip, is mis-heard or makes a mistake - I can remember having to repeat a science experiment with kitchen objects to show that volume can change when you add two substances together but the weight is always just added up.

With reading if she is enjoying it, then let her get on with it. You don't have to understand every word to enjoy a book. Old fashioned children's books were much more challenging than present day ones, but can still be enjoyed.

I'm hoping there's a parent's evening in the next few weeks or so as it can be tricky grabbing the teacher for a chat at the end of the day - and we've had quite a few 'chats' last term and the beginning of this over the refusal to do anything. So I feel I've had a good amount of attention and don't want to always be the one taking up the teacher's precious time given there are another 29 children in the class, some of whom have real struggles with the basics.

Nearly all the teachers at the school are young and fairly new (it's a training school or whatever they are called), which is great as they are all fresh and enthusiastic and full of ideas, but I guess they are also on a learning curve on the child psychology part!

They would definitely be very receptive to the idea that she may feel she hasn't got permission to stop doing things, so I will check whether they already tackle that with the children or not.

DD is a perfectionist and after the big discussion we had at the last parent's evening I know the staff have worked on showing all the children that everyone makes mistakes, and it's better to try something and be wrong and learn from that rather than not to try at all.

With the phonic sounds, I'm not at all sure what they have and haven't covered in depth. I can only go by what DD gets excited about all of a sudden. So, they may have covered them all, but not had an in depth lesson on it or something. If I ask her, she just says she can't remember (the standard answer to any question about school).

The school does have a big percentage of children who are EAL (and properly EAL, not fluent in English and a mother tongue), whose parents don't speak English and the baseline is very low. A lot of the children don't know which way up to hold a book when they arrive let alone know any letters or even what their own name looks like.

Given that they get 100% L4 at KS2 for English (all parts) and over 70% getting L5, they are doing something right, but it may well be that the time spent covering the basics is much, much longer at this school than it would be at one where all the children started at a higher base-line.

I know I've been very surprised at how full-on YR has been at my nephew's school. He has had 4 books home every week since September, we only started to get books with words just before xmas and then only 1 a week.

LOTR? madness. My 7 year old can read much harder books but she wouldn't want to, she likes chapter books age 5+ or 7+ depending on the book. she might even occasionally be found reading a rainbow fairy one still even though she started reading them 2 years ago. I always feel school must want her to read harder books because she has finished up to level 12 and they don't go any higher than that in her school but I want her to read books she WANTS to read so if that is something a bit easy then that is fine with me but equally if she wanted to try something harder then depending what it was I don't think it would necessarily be a problem, some books can be read at different levels of comprehension. not LOTR though.

if she wants to try and read harder books then I don't see how it can be a problem? If she's not understanding enough then she'll get fed up and stop.

When DS was about 5 he decided that it was very unfair that his slightly older sister could read and he couldn't, so he was absolutely determined that he was going to learn. At that stage he could recognize some words and sound out many others phonetically, but it was a painfully slow process - definitely not fluent. I would say he was pretty average for his age.

He chose himself a chapter book - also Enid Blyton (The Naughtiest Girl in the School) as it happens and devoted himself to reading the whole thing. I really didn't think he would stick at it until the end, but he did. And by the end he was reading properly. He was one of those children who was reading HP at age 6 and is still a very very keen reader at 11.

Another thing you could do is alternate reading slightly harder books to her with letting her read some of the same book to you? That way she gets to enjoy the story rather than getting to bogged down. But you never know, she may just crack it!

I wouldn't worry as long as it's what she wants to do and you offer as much help as she wants.

You don't need to wait for school to teach her the phonics sounds - just do it as they come up in her reading. DS nabbed a phonics chart I printed out for myself last year - perhaps your DD would like to look through something like that to fill in the gaps?

www.phonicsinternational.com/unit1_pdfs/The%20English%20Alphabetic%20Code%20-%20complete%20picture%20chart.pdf

Some schools wouldn't move them up levels when still sounding out all the words, clearly some would. I assume you have actually explained that she doesn't need to sound out... Have you tried asking if she can do the sounding out in her head? As long as she knows it's not compulsory I should imagine she'll get bored of it and stop sooner or later though.

Hi elfonshelf:

I think I'm in catkind's camp - don't worry about what she decides to read - just encourage her. It may be a struggle to sound out new words - but if she's persevering and getting it - that's really useful and worth encouraging (because as we all know it just gets progressively harder).

I found that when a book was really tricky but DD1 (my struggling reader) wanted to read it (liked the story/ her friends were reading it/ etc...) - I would do more reading than DD1 - but would encourage her to try a sentence or paragraph here and there. Gradually over time, she did more and more.

HTH

She can sound out in her head fine. She does it about 50% of the time and will do the whole sentence (or if it's long, half a sentence) at a time. I can see her lips moving though, and know she's still sounding out the baby words. She also does it with repetitive sentences where maybe only one word is different - the whole thing is sounded out each time. I do say well done at the end of each sentence so it's not as if she is wondering if she got it right first time.

I have said she doesn't need to sound out words or sentences that she knows, but I just got given 'that look' so I've kept quiet and am waiting to see what happens.

It may be that with her only having really started reading about 5 weeks ago, that, although she's whizzing through the levels, she doesn't feel secure enough to stop doing it yet.

Her school is very child-led. My niece was at one where they couldn't move up a level until they had read all the books at that level even if they were obviously ready; whereas DD's seem to look at the individual child's temperament. Some do better with a constant challenge, whereas others need to feel very confident before they'll attempt something new and they move them up according to that.

Irregularregular - the SS book was "supposed" to be for me to read to her - she just took over - so I think that does seem to be a good way forward.

That's really interesting about your son. Seems like the main thing is to have them determined to do it for their own benefit, rather than it being a chore to please someone else.

catkind - thank you so much for that link! That is so helpful. I'm going to print it off, so I know what things are supposed to be. Brilliant.

Given she's only "got" reading recently, maybe it's not surprising that she's still sounding out. Much better that than guessing when she does need to sound out after all!

Books for older children may have smaller print than Reception books, which could be a problem. Also, the font used in a book confuses some children, particularly letter 'g' which is often more ornate than they are used to.

I'll give you a couple of pieces of info:

ONE An inexpensive and easy to use book, that can encourage children with reading, spelling and writing, and really help them to understand Phonics, is reviewed in the MN Book Reviews section. Just search ‘Phonics’.

TWO She may enjoy this:

When I worked with less able Yr2 children, who were finding learning to read particularly difficult, we often used a SoundWorks kit, which consisted of a set of wooden letter blocks, which the child used to build simple words.? The theory was that, for some children, it is easier to SPELL words than READ them, which is a later stage.

It started with three-letter words, with a vowel in the middle - "a" glued onto a board.

The child then looked at the individual letter blocks, and was asked to make the word "c a t". Then he was asked, how do we change "c a t" into "h a t", which letter do we need to change? Then change "hat" into "ham" (with an emphasis on the "mmmm" sound).

Work slowly, and pronounce the sounds accurately and clearly. This approach was used with our Yr2 children who had been unable to make progress with more conventional methods of learning to read. It is rather time-consuming, and ideally needs resources to be made, but it does work very well.

So, if you can find or make suitable letters, and make a card with "a" glued in the middle, your child may enjoy building the words. Use letters that are occurring in words in the books he is bringing home, and then go on to make cards for the other vowels if it seems to work with "a".

elfonshelf:

Just to say that I know that in that phase of already mostly learned how to sound out but struggling with new words and trying to read 'older kid' books - both DDs struggled with smaller fonts.

It may help to invest in a nice bookmark (or just do a homemade one) to help guide the eye across the line you're reading.

I also was big on always using my finger when reading to them, so they could see where I was reading. I also had fun throwing in the odd different word 'Harry was angry' read as 'Harry was mad' - just to see if they noticed. There usually was howls of complaint about how I'd made up a word or read the wrong word. I have to admit - sometimes the mistakes weren't me pretending, just me jolly tired out.

HTH

Let her read what she likes but take her to the library or get her books from there regularly, so she always has other options around too. And keep reading to her and with her as well, maybe different books. I loved this stage with DD, I kept finding her with a book in the most unlikely places around the house - sat at the dining table, on the stairs.

Ferguson's point about the fonts is a good one. Look for Early Reader versions of Rainbow Magic etc, which have bigger fonts and sometimes coloured pictures. And font size does vary - can be smaller in the multipack books but not always. The 3-in-1 type books that are popular for Enid Blytons are not ideal as they are relatively heavy for little hands and hard to hold open. Very much a first world problem but separate copies are preferable IMO.

Your thread has actually just cheered me up. I read (as a parent volunteer) with Yr5 and Yr6s who are struggling and have just had a very challenging afternoon with some of them. The common denominator - not one of them is read to or read with at home. I don't live in a very deprived part of the country, these are all kids from homes with two parents in work and above the breadline so outwardly there doesn't appear to be a social element to the issue. They just have parents for whatever reason (and I cannot fathom it) don't think they have to have any input into their kids reading ability. I am half tempted to start an AIBU to ask why people don't read with/to their kids (but I am too scared to!)

I cannot stress how important reading out loud to your child is at helping them learn to read, even if your child is 10.

The fact that you care means your child will do ok. Thank you for reminding me not all parents expect school or volunteers to be responsible for teaching their kids.

We had a teacher at grammar school who said you were never too old to be read to, and used to read to us once a week. It was a book about a little girl who had met some Liliputians. We had to sit VERY quietly and listen. We did this, because he was VERY scary.

I don't think I'd want to go smaller than the SS font - she does fine with those other than the odd b/d confusion. A lot of the time she does the finger along under the line. I don't really like the x-in-1 books as they look a bit intimidating and are way too heavy to hold for me let alone for her. The SS set are the first 5 stories, but each as a separate book.

I've never really bothered with the library, due to the huge number of books I have here. I must buy at least a couple of books a week - incapable of walking past a charity shop without nipping in to see if they've got any. She has 4 different book areas in her room - Old 1970's Ladybirds; mixed picture books - all ages from no words to big stories; non-picture books... Milly Molly Mandy, Noel Streetfield, basically all my old books and finally a non-fiction section with stuff on dinosaurs, volcanos, human body etc. I did it that way so that it's not just one huge overwhelming bookcase.

She's not a dinosaur fan, but crazy about volcanos (Pompei mainly) and 'Nandatiles' (Neanderthals ) and often choses them for me to read to her but doesn't want to read them herself at all.

Progress is still upwards. She came home with another L9 book on Friday and told me she'd read with her teacher that morning and she told her that she's starting L10 on Monday. Seemed really excited about it. Such a change from last term.

autumnmum - glad I could cheer you up. I can understand parents getting fed up with trying to make a child read to them (I did), but that is very different from reading to them.

Although I must admit to rather losing the will to live when my beautiful Quentin Blake and Errol Le Cains are rejected so we can have blooming Disney Weddings for the 5th night in a row!

DayLilly - I love being read to still. I remember the RE teacher at grammar school always reading to us on the last day of term - normally The Magician's Nephew - he had a lovely voice for reading out loud. My father always read Arthur Ransome to us when we were on holiday as children. I have a much younger sibling, so I was in my mid-20's when he stopped.

Even now, DH and I get loads of audio books for the car and when I'm working (I'm a designer) I often put them on as background.

Always feel so sad when I read things like Cheryl Cole saying she has never actually read a whole book.

Forgot - Am going to try and find a nice bookmark together to put under the lines.

Also, with her reading yesterday, she didn't sound out any of the very common words (and, he, a, the etc) for the first time ever.

At our school, such hesitancy would stop a child being moved up.

They just have parents for whatever reason (and I cannot fathom it) don't think they have to have any input into their kids reading ability. I am half tempted to start an AIBU to ask why people don't read with/to their kids (but I am too scared to!)

Our school is constantly sending missives out telling us to read to dc, and also getting us in for workshops and telling us how to support.

Does your school do this>?

Op I am amazed your DD is level 9 and still sounding out, as someone said - maybe she thinks she has to do this.

I am also surprised about sounding out at stage 9. Is she reading ort in school? Only because stage 9 on ort is much easier than stage 9/gold on other books. I think I'd make sure she masters fluency at each level first before moving up.

Sounding out seemed to end (with the exception of say one word a page) by stage four with my dds as instant recognition took over. In our school, the guideline for correct reading stage is reading 80% fluent with 20% sounding. If more than this, our school would not put on that stage at all.

. Ours also won't even move up until they can read the entire book/level fluently and with near perfect flow e.g pausing when necessary and using expression for speech etc. this was taught from beginning but how can she be doing that with sounding out? Surely there's no flow, with progression of the plot itself slow - thus comprehension must be difficult as focusing on words rather than hidden meaning etc?

Ours in strict though as they follow a reading scheme with accompanying comprehension until stage 18. Even if you can read the book perfectly, if the comprehension lacks kids don't move on.

I'd take her back to easier stages until she can read more fluently tbh.

What age does your school class as free reader? Ours get free reader status after stage 18 but by then they are comfortably reading books of 100+ pages - minimum of two books per week from school. Stage 9 (my dd is on it) has only 24 pages approx.

I wouldn't compare schools as there's a massive difference between how they do it. Most kids in our school only become free readers in year four!

I have no idea what they level up to.

They've always commented that she can do the expression and the comprehension well in advance of her reading ability - I had that in last terms parents evening as well as from the assessor this term.

She will quite often sound all the words out and then say the whole sentence fluently straight after. But I'd wondered if she was fully following things when she's sounding out, but if I ever quizzed her about what we'd just read she knew the whole thing. She'll also sound a sentence out and then ask a question about the story related to that sentence so it appears she can.

I asked her teacher today if DD knows that she can read without sounding out and she said that a lot of them don't know that they can. Asked DD and she said that she had to do it, but she could do it in her head if she wanted to. Have said that we need to try reading with no sounding out at all and that she can check with Miss M if she's worried about that! She read the school reading book on the way home and sounded out about 5 words total.

I also discovered that she has a finger tracking under the words she is so much faster. Seems like her eyes get distracted by the letters on the line below and she's not concentrating on the one she's supposed to be on. She wasn't very pleased about the finger at the beginning but agreed it helped by the end.

School are just thrilled that she's so keen finally - we all thought it would take a lot longer to engage her - and if she's keen on moving up levels and difficulty as a motivator then they'll run with it.

Buttercupsanddaisies - that sounds horrendous. How to make children bored beyond belief making them stay back till they can do a whole level fluently. Yikes. What do they do with children who can already read fluently?

DD's school don't follow a particular reading scheme. All the schemes are mixed in together with non scheme books and then their specialist grades them all (in line with ORT I think).

They are very much in favour of working with each child individually. Some like to be constantly challenged, so every book they are given is a bit harder than the last. Some want to be uber-secure so can stay on the same level until they have to be persuaded to take a risk with the next stage up, some are already reading whatever they want, and some are having a lot of remedial help because they are struggling with the absolute basics.

It seems like every school has a different way of doing things with reading. I may be wrong, but from the advice I've had here and now read elsewhere, it appears that a child who is bright with no difficulties in learning and who has been given the tools to read (letter sounds and shapes etc) and who wants to read should possibly just be left to get on with it, and the odd check to make sure they're not frustrated and struggling.