1st grade reading & guessing

[tranquilmama]

My ds6 told me the other day that his kindergarten teacher always told him that if he didn't know a word to just "guess." We did a ton of reading and read alouds over the summer but now he seems to be guessing a lot. I have no doubts that we will remedy this over the course of the year ahead but I guess I'm sort of freaking out about it and disgruntled about his reading experience thus far.

We're going to be grinding phonics to a pulp this year and he's already excited about AAS.

 

Anyone have any suggestions. More for me because I think my attitude is horrible (not towards my son but towards how dumbed down he got "at" school in kindergarten -- he went into K at a first grade reading level).

[lotsofpumpkins]

My 7yo likes to guess at words that he does not know too (nothing he was told to do; he just does it!). Whenever he does it, I gently remind him that he knows enough phonics to sound out the word, so he needs to figure it out on his own. Sometimes I think he's just being lazy. This seems to work; he's guessing a lot less than he used to.

[LaurainMD]

Personally, I like to see *some* educated guessing from content, in addition to the sounding out (or when the sounding out is failing you because you haven't learned that rule yet). Random guessing based on the first letter, yeah, that I would take issue with. But using deductive reasoning as one of your reading tools isn't necessarily a bad skill, IMHO.

 

Just my 2 cents.

[Ellie]

Reading aloud will not, by itself, improve a child's reading ability, especially if his phonics instruction was lacking.

 

A good, methodical phonics method is a necessity for most dc, IMHO. Wild guessing is not a good thing; it builds bad habits.

[kathkath]

It would depend on the type of guessing. What kind of thinking is being shown? Does it show understanding of context? Syntax? Is he paying attention to just the word beginnings, or does the word look similar in other ways to the correct word? All that should come into play and help you understand his thinking.

 

If he's doing too much guessing, I would also encourage you to take him down a notch or 2 in difficulty level. The best instructional level for a child is no more than 95% accuracy reading the text the first time. Ideally that percentage should be higher. Anything less is considered a frustration level, and the more frustrated a child is, the greater the chance he will wildly guess than work out the issue. I have a feeling you'll be able to remedy this quite easily by simplifying his reading material. In the end you'll end up with a better reader because he will be more likely to choose to read at other times, and it is during those independent times that his reading will improve exponentially.

[Cindyz]

My 7yo likes to guess at words that he does not know too (nothing he was told to do; he just does it!). Whenever he does it, I gently remind him that he knows enough phonics to sound out the word, so he needs to figure it out on his own. Sometimes I think he's just being lazy. This seems to work; he's guessing a lot less than he used to.

 

 

This is my son too.

 

I pretty much know which words my son knows and which he doesn't. If I know he knows the phonics rule for a word and he is stuck, I will remind him of the rule and that's usually enough for him to figure it out. If he comes to a word that I know he will not know, I will just sound it out for him and then he will say the word.

 

When he guesses, I can see his eyes looking all around the page for clues, but more and more he will try to sound it out instead.

[Brenda in FL]

Ooh - that would irk me too! At least she should have said - "sound it out" not "guess."

 

At that age one of my kids would do alot of guessing - so in that sense it can be normal - but should not have been reinforced.

 

I'd make sure the two of you read daily - and you should stop him every time he guesses at a word and make him (help him) read it correctly. He'll get past the bad habit soon enough!

[Snowfall]

My dd, also 6, has never been told to guess, but she does it anyway, so don't feel too bad about it. Believe me, I would also be furious if the advice a teacher had given my kid was to guess based on context, rather than to try sounding a word out. Kids shouldn't be asked to read words they can't sound out anyway, other than a short list of true sight words like 'of' and 'one'. If a kid can't sound a word out, the solution is to teach the appropriate phonogram(s) before asking them to read the word, rather than telling them to guess. I can definitely see why you'd be frustrated, but just think of all of us whose children have figured out they can guess all on their own, and you'll probably feel better. lol

 

Sometimes I have to cover up pictures to stop my DD from guessing. I am not satisfied with her reading "Peg had 7 pet hogs" when it actually says "Peg had 7 pet pigs". Sure, the meaning isn't lost, but she has lost an opportunity to experience the richness of language when she substitutes a more common word for a less common one. Additionally, she has either internalized that h/o/g/s spells 'pigs' by reading it as 'pigs' or that she doesn't really need to bother looking at the words to "read" a story by not reading it at all. I don't want her to believe either one of those things.

[ElizabethB]

We just moved, you can ask more later if you want, here are a few quick tips:

 

Nonsense words with my game (you CANNOT guess a nonsense word!)

 

Teach all but 5 of the 220 Dolch words phonetically before they are learned as wholes by sight, this will help stop the guessing by configuration that is taught that way.

 

It is much easier to stop the guessing if you stop it early and don't allow it to take root--you are right to be concerned, I've remediated a lot of students who developed guessing problems from balanced literacy and whole word teaching at school.

[misidawnrn]

My 6yo DD does that too...a lot. I think that if they catch the first few letters it triggers a word in their brain that they have seen like the word "then"...DD will read it as "that" or "this' sometimes, obviously just guessing. I make her stop and sound it out. I came across a site like this a few years ago and it makes you wonder how many words we actually come across that are misspelled or that we read incorrectly.

http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/

[Dana]

AAS helped us with this. I also told my son that if he was struggling with a word, I'd help him with it, but if he just made wild guesses, I'd get angry.

 

It took us about a year but the wild guesses have stopped. Although yesterday I had him reading a postcard written in my mother's cursive and I was encouraging him to make educated guesses. I do see his point when an "n" does look like an "x" :)

[ClassicalTwins]

My ds6 told me the other day that his kindergarten teacher always told him that if he didn't know a word to just "guess." We did a ton of reading and read alouds over the summer but now he seems to be guessing a lot. I have no doubts that we will remedy this over the course of the year ahead but I guess I'm sort of freaking out about it and disgruntled about his reading experience thus far.

 

 

Do whatever ElizabethB suggests!!! My sons were taught the exact same thing and NO it did not get any better, if not worse and turned into a war! We worked through her suggestions a pretty lengthy discussion between her and I few months ago, there is a thread on here somewhere I called Stuggling with Reading or something like that I started.

But I will say it has improved greatly, over the past few months.

 

I think this is the thread: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184677

Edited August 5, 2010 by ClassicalTwins
added a link.

[ktmo]

One strategy we use is "Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?" I think that if used correctly it can be a valuable reading strategy. I imagine that he was taught something like this.

[ClassicalTwins]

One strategy we use is "Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?" I think that if used correctly it can be a valuable reading strategy. I imagine that he was taught something like this.

 

I wish for my boys that was the case, but no it was simple guessing based on the picture and first letter. So it could be hat or hot....how do you know, if the character in the picture has on a hat.

[Guest Cheryl in SoCal]

Reading aloud will not, by itself, improve a child's reading ability, especially if his phonics instruction was lacking.

 

A good, methodical phonics method is a necessity for most dc, IMHO. Wild guessing is not a good thing; it builds bad habits.

:iagree:Guessing is encouraged in whole language instruction.