Reading too fast

[Cannotgarden]

My 5yo, yr1 DD is a good reader. She loves reading and it seems to click for her. She's on lime books at school but reading whatever she wants at home. Currently on 'victoria stitch'.

However, she has a real issue of speed reading. This causes problems such as if it says "Sarah replied to John" she will read it as "John replied to Sarah". She will also be reading to me and say words that appear 3 lines below what she's supposed to be reading.

It doesn't seem to impact her understanding of the text so I wonder if she's just reading in her head? But nonetheless I want to find a way of addressing it because it could cause issues down the line and I'm very keen she keeps reading aloud as well as in her head because I think it's an important skill.

Any tips to slow her down? We've tried using her finger as a guide which helps a bit but she won't do it consistently.

As you've said finger following is probably the best way to keep on track. I'd also recommend using a bookmark to cover the text below moving it down as she goes to stop her getting too far ahead and definitely keep listening to her reading aloud.
Would she follow your finger or a pointer (chopsticks are great for this) when reading to you?

We have the same issue with our 5 year old - her teacher recommended using a bookmark to cover the lines below which did work but had the obvious negative of her losing all of her expression because she couldn’t read ahead in her head. So we’ve just let her get on with it and it seems to be gradually improving as she gets used to reading aloud (she reads a lot in her head so I think just needs practice at reading out loud).

Yes would say bookmark / piece of paper to cover and just continue to practice reading out loud

We used to do left pages me, right pages DD for example and then it lifted the pressure to rush a bit

Thank you for replying. Yes losing the expression is a worry because she is getting some great voices in there and really responding to the punctuation. I don't want to squash that. But the chopstick idea is great. We have some from our wedding that I've never used because...well.. forks so might let her have those. She'll feel special about that no doubt. And better than our own finger as obviously she can't carry my finger to school

Now to find those chopsticks!

My DD was much the same at that age. Occasionally she'd miss a 'not' (for example) which would completely change the meaning of the text. She also 'guessed' some bigger words as she had skimmed over them and assumed they were something else that looked similar.

Having read many times on this forum (from Mrz and others) how important it is that reading is accurate, I kept gently reminding her how important it is to read exactly what's on the page, nothing more, nothing less. Like your DD, my DD wanted to put expression into her reading, and for a while she would pause at the top of each page or section, and it would be obvious to me that she was silently skimming. Then, she would read out loud, and was able to keep both the accuracy and the expression.

That's exactly what she's like @LetItGoToRuin youve given me hope though that it's a phase. I will persist and reevaluate in a month

This is a reassuringly normal phase. You should get her to slow down, so she gets out of the habit, but it’s a phase all my children had on their way to reading fluently.