ds' reading is terrifying..

[Spinkle]

Apparently DS (6, ASD) is picking up reading so quickly now, according to his teacher, that he's nearly fluent.

Which is good in a lot of ways, but am now scratching my head wondering where the heck we go to next...

Just realised, that's a stupid thing to complain about. I'm normally here bleating on about stuff he can't/won't do....

Roald Dahl, Secret Seven, Famous Five, Swallows and Amazons, Narnia series, Harry Potter, Phillip Pullman...

Really pleased that you've got something so positive. And that DS has found a nice quiet hobby to keep him occupied while you get some adult time

Great Spinkle, good news for a Friday. :)

Spinkle - don't you teach 6 year olds?

DS1 (almost 7) is a fluent reader and we do find books that suit his level and comprehension a bit of a challenge. By the time you've sifted through all the books about fairies and puppies in Waterstones, it's mostly books about farting and being rude to adults left.

Books he love/has loved include:
Astrosaurs (he tends to read these collaboratively with us)
Oliver Moon
Various Dick King Smith stories
Jeremy Strong books (can be silly and irreverent, but nowhere near as rude as Horrid Henry, etc)
Mudpuddle Farm

It's certainly not a stupid thing to complain about because when our kids do struggle in so many ways, I think it is important for their self esteem that we do encourage and nurture their strengths. Being a confident reader has unlocked a lot of doors for DS1 because he doesn't have to rely on taking in and processing spoken instructions. It's also made him so much better at entertaining himself constructively.

Indigo - yup I do teach 6 year olds - I know he decodes well but unsure of his comprehension.

Poor comprehension of words will hold him back reading more complex stories and lead to boredom and frustration....

I need school to test his comprehension but doubt they'll do it this side of xmas.

Though I teach in KS1 I don't have anyone in my class at his level at the moment. I feel unsure of where to take it because I am concerned it could 'turn him off' if I push it. We know he is bright but have always struggled to find the 'thing' he can do and I don't want to screw it up for him now.

ouryve thank for those suggestions. I think I need some quality time in a children book section in a bookshop (oh, and a coffee stop and perhaps a quick look round M&S....)

Are you near a library? I was a prolific reader, and had got through the entire kids section by the time I was 9. At 16, they got me a saturday job there and I loved it! Plus I was the only person with the patience to tidy the boxes of little kids books. IME, librarians are wonderful, and have an extensive knowledge so would be able to make very informed suggestions :)

My son is 6 and has been reading since he was 18 months old. I have tried to be relaxed and calm as possible about this. It has actually helped his understanding and expression as before he was completely fluent at 3 he would only use one word if he wanted something.
If he hadn't of been an early reader his communication would have been so much worse.

But if he was in your class what would you do?

For my son he has all the extension books to read offside of the reading program still with pictures in because he likes pictures in his books as opposed to the reading books in KS2.
At home he likes to read spongebob comic strip books.

DS was also an early fluent reader and is pretty prolific now. It was a real benefit for him, especially as it helped support his literacy when he was refusing to engage in class. I think he would have huge gaps in his knowledge otherwise (actually he often puts me to shame with his knowledge of trivia). I think he progressed through the book collections in years above his, until after about Year 3 he would just bring his own books into school.

It also helps him now with anxious moments - there are a lot of situations which he wouldn't be able to cope with if he couldn't hide his face in a book (public transport, waiting in queues, shopping).

I used to buy a lot of his books from online sites like Book People or Banana books - they do cheap box sets.

Is there any way for you to informally assess his comprehension yourself, like asking questions about the book afterwards?

Dd 7 (nt) is a fab reader!

However I am pretty sure she was just decoding for quite a while...because Ds has asd and is dyslexic.. We had a lot of audio stories...
So I just bought the books as well ad the stories so she could listen and comprehend.. And then would read the books.

Might be an idea :)

How to train your dragon books are on audio and David tenant does a fab job of lots of overly tuneful expression :)

Thank you for your comments

If he were in my class I would suggest the parents discuss the stories with the child to try and bring up the comprehension level, whilst at the same time finding books the child prefers.

However, my DS has SLD too - he cannot necessary formulate the right words to answer the questions. And as far as he's concerned, once the book has been read that's it, move on to another.

Which is why assessing comprehension is a tricky one.

OK - brainstorming random ideas here...

• Could you help his comprehension by getting him to follow written instructions? A treasure hunt? Baking? A lego model?

• Is there some way Non Fiction might work better? If he could read about something practical you could then do it together?

• Can he write? draw? type? make? something about what he's read?

• Could you just chill and leave it 6 months and see how you feel about it all then?

• Can you read with him and comment aloud what you are understanding about the story? (i.e. supply the questions and answers you would like to ask him)

A nice-ish problem to have. I'm really glad your DS is reading so well.

You're right, it is a nice problem to have but one I didn't anticipate. I'm crossing this bridge now because I don't how much longer we can stretch the ORT scheme for.

Great suggestions Indigo. I try not to do too much school-y stuff at home with him as he associates school with writing/drawing and gets in a flap. We are also at the mercy of his many moods but if he's going to get on he's going to need to.

winces at the thought

The ORT books suck for kids reading beyond their age level, anyhow, even without comprehension limitations. DS1 was much happier when his school got hold of a load of Collins Big Cat books.

Of course, he's pretty much refused to do any reading for school at all, this term, but he's refusing to do a lot of things for his teacher, including setting foot in the classroom, most days. She's not exactly bringing out the best in him.

What about books meant for parents to read aloud to younger children? So from a social and comprehension point of view they'd be ok, but provide enough of a decoding challenge.

ORT are quite nice as semi-predictable social story / TOM development books for some dc on the spectrum. I have a dc whose single word reading ability is fab (don't think school have noticed but his paediatrician did!) but whose ability to understand a written story is on a par with the slower readers in his class.

We spend time talking about the difference between fantasy and reality, working out what the facial expressions mean, asking why people are surprised etc. So even if they're below his literacy level, might it be useful for the school to use another scheme for literacy /decoding and leave the ORT for improving social comprehension?

We have the same problem with dd1 (AS), she's the same age as your DS and reading Roald Dahl ect, i find it hard to find books she will enjoy and understand. School have been useless and have kept her on the same reading level (the last level before free reader) for a year (i think so the others can catch up). She's now getting fed up of reading at school. Her understanding is good (same as most 6-7 year olds) so i dont understand why they don't allow her to choose her own books.

Dd2 (ASD) has just started ORT (started school in sept) and is already reading so i guess we will have to go through it all again with her .

Dd3 is a really good reader to but she to has some issues with comprehension, she rarely self corrects because she doesn't realise she has read the word wrong and can only really tell you the basic outline of the story. Mind you the ORT books she has been bringing home lately are dire, she is on stage 11 but she insists on reading every book in every level in order because the titles are printed on the back so she knows what comes next.

Becuase she is very bright she got enough quetions right on her yr 2 sats to get a level 3 in reading even without bing able to answer the inference type questions.

School are more than happy with her reading because she is fluent but they are missing her sometimes dodgy comprehension.

Ds read at two, I didn't know because he couldn't talk but learnt when he made words with magnetic letters
His first word he made was Oracle which was the text service at the time and I suddenly realised that he was reading.He was diagnosed with hyperlexia at four because he could read anything but understood very little.I used to supply fact books which he enjoyed.
Like most things once he had mastered a skill he lost interest so rarely read once school age and his understanding and comprehension caught up in time.
It was a great skill for him to have and even now he understands more easily the written word than the spoken.
By far the worst thing he learned was to tell the time at three because he used to explode if I didn't keep to time and I am very lax on timekeeping .

magic tree house series by mary pope osborne

my son, now 13 AS, was a prolific reader when he was younger (brilliant speller as well) but he now refuses to read

his reasoning is, 'that he knows how to read so why does he have to keep doing it'

gotta love him and his logic!

asdx2 - DS1 was a clock watcher when he was younger, too. He was obsessed with clocks right from being tiny - when he was a year old, he'd watch the microwave and oven clocks and refuse to eat anything until they said the same time. I used to spend ages fiddling with them until they were perfectly synchronised, only for one of our frequent local brownouts to happen and for me to have to do it all over. Anyhow, by the time he was 2 he was able to use digital clocks as a time reference and was telling the time from analogue clocks and converting it to digital format (and vice versa) by the time he was 4. Many of the kids in his year 2 class struggle with all that still.

Anyhow, he was so obsessive, he'd start clock watching all the time at nursery and increasingly through reception and throw a wobbler if something didn't happen exactly when promised. The ended up having to hide the clocks when he moved into year 1 in hope of breaking the cycle and we had to check him to make sure he wasn't wearing his watch before he left the house for school, in the morning!

Goodness me!

Just this very afternoon we removed the clock from the wall - he was driving himself beserk with it

HFA really is a double edged sword...

Ds has an in built clock too that is very accurate so when out and about if he wants to "finish" and I say five more minutes. He will know exactly when his five minutes are up.