Reading...impossible progress??

[CardyMow]

Since starting Y1, DS2 has been 'stuck' on ORT lvl 1 books, struggling with the words etc, despite me sitting with him every night helping him. For the last 3 weeks, due to me being ill with pneumonia, I have been unable to listen to him at all, or do any work with him, and DP hasn't done anything either. So tonight, as it's the first day that I've felt anything approaching human, I decided to listen to him read.

Unknown to me, I'd pulled out the 'library' book from his bag, that is meant to be 'too hard' for him, and is for me to read to him. He read it almost perfectly, and when I was surprised (due to words like 'sheltered' and 'starfish' being in there when he's never read anything longer than 4 letters before!), I checked the back of it, and it was an ORT level 5 book.

How is it possible for an asd DC to 'suddenly' be able to read fairly well (well enough to cope with a proper story) and jump 4 levels, with 3 weeks of a lot LESS help than normal??? In fact looking in his reading record, as I've been unable to help at the school last week, he was only listened to once in the week before HT (and was struggling with ORT lvl 1 then) and once since HT, and again, struggling with the words in ORT lvl1 was written.

So can someone please enlighten me as to WTF happened and how come DS2 can suddenly read?? . Seemingly as soon as I was unable to help him???

Not sure how it happens but I have heard of children doing this before. Maybe there are parallels with children who can't speak but then suddenly start talking in full sentences. It is like they have been absorbing the rules and conventions and then only once they have got all that do they attempt to talk or in your case, read.

My DS (who has AS) was slightly less dramatic but there was definitely a point at which reading 'clicked' for him. Like his brain couldn't cope with it and then suddenly he got it and he was off. It happened over the course of maybe a half term. I'm not saying he read perfecty but having been stuck on ORT 1 for most of Yr R he began going through the levels very quickly in the middle of YR1.

Do you think he understands what he is reading? It is possible to get the rules of reading and make a good go at sounding good but not actually be concentrating on what it is those words mean?

Do speak to his teacher though - maybe she has been working on phonics and literacy with the class (as opposed to individual reading)in a new way which has helped your DS.

hmm not sure ds2 who is nt was struggling to read in y1 then all of a sudden he took of and went from basic to fluent he told me it just made sense all of a sudden and now at 13 he is a bigreader

it clicked like that for ds1 too, but not til year 2. His teacher was amazed how it had suddenly clicked for him. Maybe it is an asd thing!

I've noticed with the dts the whole thing seems a lot more gradual, they pick stuff up a lot easier. ds1 jsut didnt really get it at all for ages.

its possible, he wasnt reading persay but pattern matching, if the book had been read in a follow along iwth your finger sort of way then he may have memoriesed the flow..

but it is possible to teach yourself to read rapidly as i did as a child, reading is one thing comprehension is another

got bored of phonics after first day or so and took 4 hours to master reading...

try him on something else of that level to see if he was reading or remembering.

I have tried him with another book on that level today after talking to his teacher...he is not only reading the books, but is understanding them, and finding some of them amusing . And not doing it by sight, as he sounded out hippopotamus tonight!!! (the hippopotamus was hiding in the lift....DS2 said but a hippopotamus is too fat to fit in the lift, and giggled, so he does understand it as well??!!)

Oh and no 'new' teaching method at school either, DS2's teacher got him to read a different library book today to her, and spoke to me with a face this afternoon.....