What level for struggling reader?

[screamingeels]

DD in Y3 struggles with reading (& writing & maths but question is about reading). It's not classic dyslexia as her phonological knowledge/processing is good but she finds reading difficult. She had assessment and 1-2-1 intervention from literacy support specialist last year which was very helpful. Expert - and all DD's teachers - agree she has a learning difficulty as her reading/writing/number ability are out of line with her general intelligence, other skills and amount of input from others.

So last yr end of Y2 LSS had put DD back down to green level reading books to build fluency and understanding. At start of Y3 1-2-1 support with LSS was withdrawn although she still somehow gives TAs advice on what they should be doing on DD's spelling. Class teacher started DD on purple level books at beginning of Y3. I expressed some concern and she said 'we'll see how it goes'. DD is now on white level.

She is keen to read these books as she really wants to get on to chapter books but I am concerned they are too hard for her. She can decode all the words in the books - which is why she has moved up, and her comprehension skills are way ahead of her decoding. But it's really slow, labourious and hard for her - she sounds out most words, often 3 or 4 times until she gets a word which fits context of sentence. She has v. little automatic recognition of words and ignores punctuation.

I jumble around the levels of what she reads at home. But what do you think she should be reading? And I just wondered would there be any value to getting her to read some of it silently in her head to get her passed the sounding out when she doesn't need to?

I don't know how to help(sorry), but recommend this website for comprehension.

www.readtheory.org/

Given what you said I think she is on the wrong level - My DS is on white and way beyond sounding out words. It can affect confidence and progress if she is on the wrong level, and they don't learn expression, flow, pausing as they are still concentrating on breaking down words.

I also volunteer reading in class two days a week - from what you have described I would buy a pack of Level 6 (orange) books and see if she is more comfortable with those and if she is, have another chat with the teacher.

We were always one reading level above school, as DS has concentration issues in class. You can read different levels, I would just advise to concentrate on two - rather than mixing it up.

It sounds like your DD enjoys reading and is very committed to trying / pushing herself forward. I've had kids in my class like this and its their determination that really help progress them.

it does sound like the books are too hard.

one thing jumps out at me though - you say she ignores punctuation. I thought my eldest was ignoring punctuation but we did eventually discover that she physically couldn't SEE the punctuation. full stops and commas were too small for her and due to an astigmatism in her eyes (and it is only a mild one) as well as mild long sightedness and focus adjustment issues she really struggled. we saw 3 opticians and it took 2.5 years before they picked it up as that, we tried coloured lenses before this and they helped but didn't cure the problem.

There are a lot of unusual reading related issues so it could take some perseverance to try and find out what exactly it is but I hope you do.

eldest here has a language disorder too which means she mixes up phonics, they are right in her head but she says the wrong ones (hard to learn to read like that, she is ok if it is only 1 or 2 together but in a longer word they all go wrong, luckily now she knows enough to get by but it is difficult with science terminology, languages, technical terms for things that she wouldn't know already).

Thanks. I do wonder about the vision thing. She has annual eye tests - only issue found was mild long sightedness. But couldn't hurt to try other opticians.

She did do a very odd thing last night when she insisted reading an easy green level book whilst charging up and down living room and jumping over my legs. And she was fine, actually better than usual, so I think i can rule out visual stress!

Yes - sounds exactly like a vision problem to me.

Have you thought of something like Engaging Eyes?

Working memory issues and slow processing maybe?

She doesn't really have the symptoms you'd expect from vision problems e.g. skipping, blurry or jumpy words. Plus the reading moving text thing above. And yes you would think slow processing/ working memory but both test fine.

It is facinating! It seems to be something about the nature of how abstract symbols: numbers/letters represent concepts of value, sounds, words and a retrieval failure for their 'names'.

We will probably go the full EP route at some point and try and pin it down. But at the moment explicit instruction, making things as concrete as possible and overlearning seem to work. She is happy and confident and loves learning - which brings me back to reading band. I'm just not sure whether to bring her back to a lower band to try and build fluency or support her with the higher bands she wants to read.

How is she with maths?

Slow 'rapid automatic naming' is a symptom of dyslexia. But I don't think it normally exists by itself.

Just because she doesn't skip words etc you can't rule out vision problems. You need her tested by a specialist to rule it out.

Anyway, I wouldn't move her down a band. I don't think it would help build fluency.

You have no idea what's causing the issue at the moment. Your logic with moving her down is 'more practice will help' but I don't think it will if the problem is somewhere else.

How's her phonological awareness? That needs to be in place to get fluent.

It could be the layout of the books. As you move up the bands there are more words per page which can be really difficult for people with dyslexic symptoms to read as the page is too 'noisy'.

I work with secondary school children and we use dyslexia friendly books that only have a few words per page similar to a red book band but with a more grown up content.

It could be that she has visual perception issues (Meares Irlen) and could benefit from a coloured overlay.

Reading to children builds their phonological side as much if not better than them reading themselves, so perhaps read the book/ page to her first pointing to the words and the. Let her copy you and do the same page herself.

My ds is 7. When he moved school in May last year his new school moved him down quite a few book band levels and he has improved a lot from May until now. He still has dyslexic type problems with reading but he is not as slow and not sounding out every word the way he used to. His old school would have moved him to chapter books in August last year. He has started chapter books this week with his new school and seems to be doing ok.

Really interesting to hear experiences.

In answer to mrz I'd say her maths is on a par with her reading, in terms of being below average. She cannot deal with abstract - uses a lot of numicon etc. She can do number bonds that add up to 10. And most bonds up to 10 i think but not confident. She can skip count 2s 5s and 10s but only do 10s as a timetable. Etc.

It really sounds from what you've written as if she's been moved on before being secure in basic understanding. If this is the case it might be useful to take a step back and work on these.

I think that. Actually teacher's just given me the email address for the LSS specialist so I may contact her and ask her to have a look/ word with teacher/ TAs.

Also spooky question about her maths Mrz. I've posted sporadically about DD's reading difficulties and that's what you said three years ago! Or you worried more about her maths on a thread mainly about phonics.

My DS (9) is going for a Visograph test tomorrow because I'm concerned about his reading. He has dyspraxia and the school have put him at risk for dyslexia but not yet confirmed. The test measures eye tracking and records speed of reading and comprehension. After the test I will get a full report and a plan of action to improve reading sills. Might be something to consider?

Reading skills

No I'm not more concerned about maths but often a vision problem would effect both

You said about her moving while reading. My ds has dyslexia. He learnt best moving. He would hang upside down over the couch to say his spellings. Obviously couldn't do that at school so found sitting all day nearly impossible. I took him to a neurotherapist. She said it was impossible for him to sit still. She put him on a complete programme with exercises to do every day including eye exercises. She said it was likely due to savage forceps delivery. He had horrendous marks on his head as ran into real difficulties at the end. His reading came on amazingly as did his ability to sit still. At university now. Did your dd have trauma at birth?
As to the level of books they are meant to read something that has some words they don't know but lots they do. For interest reasons could she have audio books or you read to her. Does she know all the common words by sight as that would help her not to have to sound those ones?