Reading book question - are they too easy?

[harveytherabbit]

I've read before this figure that a reading book should be about 90 to 95% readable without support by a child.

Ds is in reception and his last few books seem like maybe they were too easy. They were maybe 300 words and read it all fluently with only 1 word he had to sound out and 1 other word he guessed wrongly and I had to correct him on.

Does that sound too easy (assuming it's not been given to him to work on his comprehension or expression which I don't think is the case)?

Yes, it does. My DD1 was getting books like that (LOOK! I CAN RUN, HE CAN RUN. DAD CAN HELP etc) and we went in to ask whether it would be possible to get her more challenging books. She is on the ORT Songbirds now and she does sound out most words so i think she is being adequately challenged now - maybe a word with the teacher might do the trick! x

If your son is in reception and is being given books with 300 words the teacher will be expecting him to be able to answer questions to check his comprehension not just his decoding skills.
As for suitability we use the 5 finger test
put up one finger for each word you need to sound out or ask for help
1 finger - easy
2 fingers - just right
3 fingers - a little bit hard but still ok to try
4 fingers - difficult
5 fingers - too difficult

We just asked for more challenging books and teacher was happy to oblige.

What sort of questions are appropriate to check comprehension at this age/ stage MRZ? It will give me an idea of whether he is getting it or not. I try and ask him a few about the story as we go though.

It really depends on the book but
Who or what is the story about?
Why do you think they did that /did that happen?
How might they solve ...
type questions

The books we send home have questions in the back to give parents ideas of the type of thing to ask and we check comprehension from the very earliest books with only four words per page.

I guess he sort of gets it but not always. Sometimes he gives quite short answers if I don't probe further e.g. what is the book about ds would elicit maybe "a dog" and then I'd have to say but what is the dog doing and he'd say maybe "he went to the park and got lost" or whatever.
Does that sound okay?

I would talk about it with him then ask the questions. Being able to read the words is important but not much use without understanding and like decoding it's a skill that needs to be taught.

How does one teach that?

I think they are far too easy- my dd (6) rolls her eyes at them, sighs, then batters through them in 2 minutes with no mistakes. I do question her about them afterwards and she is fully comprehending them. The books she reads for pleasure are far more challenging.

It's nice to know some teachers can be helpful in trying to encourage their charges with harder books. When I went to dd's last parents' evening, her teacher explained that she was already at the next "level". Apparently this is not a good thing, as I was assured that I wasn't to worry- the other children would soon catch up with her, and that the important thing was "not to let her get ahead of herself" . I don't know whether the teacher thinks I have been secretly hiring a reading tutor or what, but dd just likes to read! I had been led to believe that was a good thing, but it seems it isn't. Needless to say, I have not been pro-active in holding dd back- we dutifully read the books she is sent home with, then she can read books she actually likes for fun. We read stories to her every night, and I have a sneaky suspicion she reads ahead.

In short, my attitude is that there isn't much point arguing the case with her teacher- we will just continue to encourage her reading at home with books more suited to her ability.

300 words for a book halfway through reception is quite good going.

re: comprehension easiest way is to ask him to retell story, if he understood should be able to retell in his own words.

Need to probe deeper than "a dog" - if he understood it would expect detailed animated explanation that the dog went to the park, , rolled in some muddy puddles, saw some other dogs, ran around in the leaves, barked at some children, saw a ball, then realised he was lost etc. When my DD is asked I'd expect the explantion of what happened in the book to be roughly equal to half the number of words in the book.

re: teaching - every few pages ask what has happened so far.

If he is moved onto harder books he may find them harder to understand and then may become demotivating.

However if he is showing good understanding then you need to speak to teacher. My DD was in similar position at start of year 1 (books of maybe 150 words) - I'd give her the book, she'd read it into herself and then she was able to recount whole story to me.

Her teacher's attitude sounds awful Jooly.
I'm sure it's easier if they're all at the same level but .

I don't think we have that going on but my gut feel is there should be a few more words out of the several hundred in the book that he has to sound out rather than sailing through it.

maybe different schemes are good for different skills - these ones seem longer books but the ORT ones my dd used to get at this age (well year 1 probably when she was at the same stages as ds) had harder words at any one time I think.

I know, harvey It makes me feel a bit depressed that having been encouraged to read, read, read to your child!! since she was 6 mths, I'm now being "told-off" for it!

The other thing I have done that is useful for dd is to work on her writing- getting her to copy words she can read easily in her reading book, but when left to spell them off her own bat produces hilarious results (eg, she can read the word "special" but will write "speshul"!) So I'm trying to get her to make use of the books we get home to get her to pay attention to how the words are written, if that makes sense?

I'm always surprised when I read these kind of threads. DC2 was "free reader from the beginning of the schoolyear (Y2), but in the library she will happily choose Biff and Chip stories that she read in reception/year 1, or she will choose to read dc3's books (who is 3y old). (But she will also read more difficult books, like all Horrid Henry, Roald Dahl etc.)

Well, I suppose I'm the same, I'm re-reading my old children's book, Enid Blyton, Astrid Lindgren etc...

I suppose it depends on the purpose of home reading and what you want it to be.

I think that the guided reading done in his class is way below his level so I want home reading to be taking him gently to the next stage.
When dd was in reception they did a lot more individual reading that was at her level so it didn't rely on me doing stuff at home with her as much so I would not have been so botheredi f the books were easier.

300 word books are good for this stage in reception but it isn't about introducing difficult words that the child hasn't the skills to read. It is about using the skills they have to gain understanding of what they are reading. It is important to develop both skills from an early stage.
I would talk about the story, ask him to retell in his own words, point out significant things he may have missed, ask if he liked the book, ask why/why not, what was the best bit ... spend at least as long discussing the story as reading it.

Great advice MRZ will try that.