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.

How about you read a but and she reads a bit? Then she is not always working so hard at it but gets the reward of the story. This is what we did with DS.

The kids don't have to be held back on a stage as such if they can read fluently but any sounding out at our school is not considered fluent. E.g my dd6 can read my eldests stage18 books by sounding out, but I wouldn't class that as her reading stage.

She won't understand inference, creating mood, tone, setting pace etc... All things assessed in reading ability. These are things that are taught in school alongside reading the actual words. My eldest is given comprehension.sheets alongside each book, asking 'where does it show ...., what do you think x is thinking, which words suggest the pace is quickening etc etc'.

My dds tend to cover say 15 books per stage but will skip stages if they show ability. They use a huge range of books. But they wouldn't skip stages if they hadn't covered the associated phonics and fluency needed. For example dd is on stage 9 and out of 24 pages, reads approx 80% perfectly without sounding a word. She can read stage 13 well but if she skipped to there she will stop being as fluent which means understanding suffers.

Having seen the reading tests my eldest does in school I've realized it's mainly assessed by comprehension rather than reading the words. Some of the reading questions are hard!

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.

Sorry, but I think that's quite an insensitive comment tbh. And ill-informed.

I read a lot to my dd when she was younger, and was fortunate in that she was able to read quite fluently before she even started school - self-taught. I don't doubt that my own love of books inspired and encouraged her.

However, I have a couple of friends who also read a lot to their kids when they were younger, and indeed still do, yet they haven't had the same experience. Reading hasn't come easily to their DCs, and they still struggle immensely now that they are getting towards the end of primary school. Believe me, these parents care very much, and they certainly haven't just shrugged and left it to the school.

I totally get that parents have a huge role to play, and I'm not denying that the home environment can make a big difference, but I think it's potentially hurtful to suggest that caring is always enough.

Oh, and in answer to the OP, I'd let your dd read whatever she wants - as long as it is age-appropriate in terms of content. If it is too difficult for her, she'll probably lose interest in any case.

From what I've seen with DD's school, as long as they can get 97% of words correct whether sounded out or not, have grasped whatever the specific phonic thing is in each book and answer all the comprehension questions correctly then they can go onto the next level if they want to. I think DD did one L6 and then went straight to L8, did 3 books there and is on her 4th L9 at the moment.

I have noticed that she makes more progress when she moves up. It's as if because she's got a new challenge, the previous challenges are suddenly deemed easy.

80'schild - if we are reading something that is beyond her school reading books - small chapter books etc - then we will take it in turns to do paragraphs or pages otherwise she starts to get tired with constant concentration and I only do a chapter at a time. (That way she's always keen to see what happens next). She sulks if I get smaller paragraphs than hers - I have pointed out that it's swings and roundabouts!

That does seem odd to me - how can sounding out be classed as reading in a book? I'd find it odd if dd was still sounding on one stage and moved up as surely it shows they haven't learnt those words or they certainly don't recognize them on sight.

Dd on stage 18 is reading pride and prejudice, jane eyre etc and her book last week was Sherlock Holmes and it was written like the tv series with mad language, old English speech etc. It was very difficult. I read it with dd (few pages each at a time) and we had to stop every 8 or so pages to make use we understood the plot as there were something like 12 characters with odd but similar names, all in this crazy investigative plot. If sounding out too I think it would be impossible to follow!

Just shows I suppose how different schools are I suppose :)

There's no particular reason why sounding out must hold back comprehension skills. Although there's a persistent belief that it does. I've met plenty of children who sound out and still comprehend a text every bit as well as children reading the same text fluently. The accuracy of the decoding is far more important and the school sound like they have it pretty spot on.

She's 5 and a beginning reader, fluency will come as she reads more and more. I'd encourage her new found love of reading and just make sure she is reading the harder stuff to you. That way you can ensure she isn't slipping into bad habits. A PP's idea of getting an alphabetic code chart and teaching the bits she doesn't know as they come up in her reading is a brilliant one.