Reading, understanding but not remembering

[Munchmallowness]

Bit of a odd one, but wondering if anyone has any useful tips, techniques or activities we could do to work on this....

DS7 doesn’t like reading so to check he’s actually done it, I ask him some basic questions about what he’s read. He insists he has read it ( and I know he has ‘read’ as I see his eyes or finger moving across the page, but he can’t answer the really basic questions. He can easily find the answers in the text so it’s not that he doesn’t understand the text and did well in the reading SAT (107 maybe?) so it’s not an issue of comprehension as such. He just does not remember a single thing that he is reading... although he actually has a fantastic memory in the rest of life. Finally he’s not having me on and really does want to do it properly and it’s driving us both crazy.

Also, clearly this is why he doesn’t enjoy reading as he’s not really following the story (only the vaguest skim). He’s just totally not engaged in the book - regardless of topic / difficulty.

So any ideas about what we can do or practice to resolve this?

Does he read aloud or silently to himself?

In his head. Do you think out loud for a while would help? Thanks.

It's worth trying.

Find something he's really interested in finding out about. Maybe he doesn't like fiction at the moment

Are you sure he's reading it and not mimicking what other people do when they read?

Totally bizarre. Had half and hour of stressing and fuss reading and rereading 2 pages this morning.. Couldn’t answer the question, reread, then answered, couldn’t answer the next one etc. Finally last 2 pages, read them quickly and answered all questions first time!!!

He appears to have suddenly remembered how to read properly. I’m sure he wasn’t deliberately winding me up - it seems like he just got too used to being able to read the questions and hunt for the answers in comprehension at school!

We’ll see over the next few days whether he can unlearn his bad habits ... and perhaps start to enjoy reading!

Thanks for the ideas. Will try them out if we don’t continue on the right track.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf

Interesting. I almost never let him use a tablet but funny enough the next reading challenge is to read a book on a device. Maybe that’s not a habit I will encourage once the challenge is over!

The article talks about tablets but many children have the same reading habits when it comes to books.

Seidenberg says