I'm frustrated that my 7yo second grader reads so slowly!

[Jumping In Puddles]

Really, painfully slowly. He also guesses at words on almost every page, still confuses b and d, he will sound out a word like "lightening" but then get an easy word like "that" wrong. :confused:

 

Everyday he reads, but he is not getting any better. He wants to read, so he reads (to himself) a page of the box car children every night just so he can say he is reading a chapter book. :001_huh:

 

Any suggestions?

[Ellie]

What are you using/have used in the past to teach him to read?

[MaryCatherine]

He's still so young! Boys start reading fluently at all different ages. As long as he's reading and enjoying it - that's MORE than half the battle.

 

Be patient...in other words. My youngest is 11. NOW he's reading fluently. Glad I didn't push because he loves to read.

[Jumping In Puddles]

I used AbeCedarian Level A and Level B. He finished level B and is not nearly fluent enough to move onto level C (which I think is 3rd grade, anyway).

 

I thought about going over level B again but my dd (K/1) is about to start that and he will be very discouraged. :crying:

[Jumping In Puddles]

He's still so young! Boys start reading fluently at all different ages. As long as he's reading and enjoying it - that's MORE than half the battle.

 

Be patient...in other words. My youngest is 11. NOW he's reading fluently. Glad I didn't push because he loves to read.

 

Thank you, MaryCatherine, I'll keep that in mind! :)

[Wee Pip]

At that stage, I started having dd read the same book each day. I encouraged her to point to each word and read. The first day - ugh, slow and torturous. Second day - better, less sounding out. Third day - starting to sound like a real reader, nice, smooth, and fluent, with a few mistakes thrown in. If she had the book memorized, I removed it from view for awhile - but I might add it back in later for review. This reading and re-reading helped *big time* - it taught her what real reading sounds like. I started with easy, repetitious, predictable books and worked my way up to easy chapter books. When the chapter books were still too hard, we took turns. I still pulled in easier books along with the chapter books to keep enforcing the fluency. Also, there is a point in chapter books when you need to learn the author's language, the names of the characters, words specific to that author's writing - so the first book in a series tended to be more painful to read aloud than future books from the same series. HTH! (By the way, I started off by using book lists from Teach A Child to Read With Children's Books by ? Thogmartin - I borrowed it from the library and then used the book lists in the back, which go up to a 2nd gr reading level. After that, started pulling in books of specific interest to dd).

[johnandtinagilbert]

Just wanted to let you know, my son didn't take off until 7.5 and now, he's finished reading Martin's Mice in 2 days! It will come, just keep up the sounding out of words and have him read aloud about 15 minutes a day for solid practice with you. It comes slower for some, but you'd be amazed at how it may click and stay ON!

[AngieW in Texas]

Repeated readings should help.

 

I used DIBELS Oral Reading Fluency Passages for my dd. Start with the 1st grade passages (even if they are very easy) and have him re-read each passage until he is able to meet your fluency goal.

 

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/SEMR/oralreadingfluency%20norms.2005.pdf

For a 2nd grader in the fall, you want a reading fluency of at least 50wpm and need to work towards a fluency of 70wpm.

 

I started off by having my dd read an entire passage from DIBELS and timed her doing so. I took the word count for the passage, subtracted the number of incorrectly-read words (unless they were self-corrected), and then divided by the number of minutes to get the reading rate.

 

Then I read the entire passage with her, but I tried to stay at a pace equal to her goal speed. She really struggled to keep up at first.

 

Then I timed her reading the same passage again for one minute. If she met her goal speed, then she moved on to another passage the next day. If she didn't meet her goal speed, we did the same passage again the next day.

 

https://dibels.uoregon.edu/

Registration is free.

[Wildiris]

I have a girl the same age doing the same things that you describe. I'm not worried. Really don't compete with the other mommies whose children read at birth. Such comparisons will make you feel bad, leading you to conclude that your child is somehow behind. Your child is fine so long as you are certain there are no learning disabilities. You would know. Learning disabilities would most likely manifest across all subjects.

 

Keep your goal in mind. My goal is for reading fluency by the end of 2nd grade. I want my DD to read for understanding. DD is motivated to learn how to read. She sees how important this skill is to surviving in the world. I think this is the same kind of motivation that gets kids learning how to walk. DD even came up with a solution to read twice a day. My solution is to have faith in her ability to learn and know that in year, with consistent focus on improving her reading skills, she will read not only fluently, but understand what she reads.

 

Slow and steady wins the race!

[Jumping In Puddles]

Thank you all for the advice. :grouphug:

 

Now I'm thinking repetition, patience, and testing before moving on.

[8filltheheart]

My 14 yos was such a struggling reader at that age that it was painful to listen to him read. He didn't read on grade level until somewhere around 4th grade. He is a fabulous student now (way above avg in math and science, an excellent writer, but he is still a fairly slow reader)

 

I never let him know that he was behind. Ever. Not that long ago, he heard me talking to someone about how he struggled learning how to read. He asked me in utter amazement if that was the truth b/c he said he had no idea.:D

[ElizabethB]

:grouphug:

 

Here are some good review ideas:

 

School Phonics workbooks.

 

You don't need the School Phonics Teacher's Manual, it's self explanatory to someone who has already taught another phonics program.

 

http://www.didax.com/shop/productdetails.cfm/BrandID/7/Sort/Item/Order/Asc/StartRow/1/ShowAll/No/ItemNo/1-58324-103-5.cfm

 

Sample pages from the 1st student workbook:

 

http://www.didax.com/schoolphonics/studentbook.cfm

 

Student Book 2:

 

http://www.didax.com/shop/productdetails.cfm/BrandID/7/Sort/Item/Order/Asc/StartRow/1/ShowAll/No/ItemNo/1-58324-104-3.cfm

 

Webster's Speller.

 

The Program on my how to tutor page.

 

My online lessons.

 

The McGuffey 1879 Readers. They have the difficult words before the readings, so you can work on sounding out the hard words first, then do the reading. They have a nice progression.

[Kates]

My son was much the same...honestly, I took all formal work out of it and let him listen to read-alouds and audiobooks for at least an hour a day - sometimes more like 3 or 4. (At that age, it wasn't like we were spending tons of time on school, and he was happy to listen.) He would walk around the room just listening, and we'd talk about whatever story we were on. Occasionally, he'd plop down beside me (or open the book to go with the audio) and follow along.

 

When he was 9.5, he had gained the confidence to read Encyclopedia Brown and Cam Jansen on his own, but loved listening to classics on audio or read-aloud. One day, I had to stop reading The Hobbit because I was losing my voice, so he asked if he could continue to read it. Kind of shocked, I asked him if he was able to read it. He responded with, "Well...why wouldn't I be able?" and sat down and read it. Inside of a week. Uh...ok!

 

Since then, he's pretty much had a book in his hand everywhere he goes. If he doesn't have a book, he has an audiobook. He's constantly coming up with ideas for books to write, and discussing ideas he gets from books.

 

At 7, this is completely normal, especially for boys. Just love on him and provide him lots of opportunities to love reading. When he gets the confidence (and sees the point in doing so), he'll take the leap and start reading on his own. It can just be a long road getting there sometimes - but it's worth it!

[Jumping In Puddles]

Wow, I'm really glad I started this thread!

 

I feel much more encouraged than I did this morning. Thank you all for sharing!! :)

[Joker]

My older dd was the same and it drove me crazy and made me worry. The best thing I did was buy the Dick and Jane books. There is so much repetition in them and they build up well. She took off after reading through a few of them. HTH!

[*lifeoftheparty*]

.

[creekmom]

My 7 year old son sounds a lot like yours. It can be pretty stressful to have a slow reader (especially if you have other kids who caught on to reading quickly)! My son gets so frustrated with himself. I can tell it bothers him that reading is so hard (he'll often say, "I need a new brain - this one is not working very good!")

 

A few things that have helped this year:

 

** Pathway Readers. I love that the stories are about the same family/families so the characters and their personalities are familiar to him. Other readers have so many different stories about different people that it's hard for kids to "bond" with the reader. The other day my son looked at me after reading a story in the 2nd grade Pathway Reader and said, "I love this book!" Made my day!! BTW, the workbooks that go with the readers are WONDERFUL!!! Excellent reading reinforcement!!

 

** Victory Drill Book - I've posted about it before... it's a great book to build reading confidence and fluency.

 

** Have several short reading sessions each day. My son reads to me 3 times a day (morning, afternoon and evening). In the morning, it's the Pathway Readers; afternoon is the grammar lesson/copywork and maybe a science book on his level; evening is a different reading book.

 

** I tell him to "read with your eyes" a lot while I read aloud, pointing to the words as I say them. Sometimes we'll read the same sentence together.

 

** AAS has been great for phonics reinforcement - he's also on book 4 with the ETC workbook series.

 

As hard as it is somedays (especially those days when it seems we take one step forward and two steps back...), I'm so thankful he's at home with me instead of in a ps classroom!!

[kalanamak]

Really, painfully slowly. He also guesses at words on almost every page, still confuses b and d, he will sound out a word like "lightening" but then get an easy word like "that" wrong.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Oh, I know that feeling.

 

I added Victory Drill, but it might just have been time and practice. I knew it had become automatic when he wanted to lie awake and read in his bed.

 

For VD (how is that for an abbreviation?), we went slowly, and if he guessed a word, I put my thumb over all but the first syllable, and worked my way through with him. Stay as patient and calm-voiced as possible. It nearly drove me mad.

[ElizabethB]

Oh, I know that feeling.

 

I added Victory Drill, but it might just have been time and practice. I knew it had become automatic when he wanted to lie awake and read in his bed.

 

For VD (how is that for an abbreviation?), we went slowly, and if he guessed a word, I put my thumb over all but the first syllable, and worked my way through with him. Stay as patient and calm-voiced as possible. It nearly drove me mad.

:iagree:

 

Some of my remedial students are lucky to be alive! (Especially the first few.) With later students, I added in fun games and collected enough different phonics programs that I could teach the same thing in slightly different ways and save my sanity. Although I mainly stick to a few programs now, if any repetition of sounds is needed, I get out books I haven't used for a while to mix it up a bit. (For my sake, not theirs. They don't seem to mind repetition as long as they're learning.)

[scrapbookbuzz]

He's young yet! Don't despair! He'll get there! Just because he's slow now, doesn't mean he will be forever. Patience, Mom! My dd didn't 'get it' until she was close to 10yo, now she devours books! If you're concerned about his decoding skills, you might try Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. But, please, don't get frustrated with him. What you've described is perfectly normal for a child that age, probably even more so for most boys.

[FO4UR]

My ds7 is the same way.

 

I have been using the Elson Primer some and going through the dolch words phonetically until they are overlearned. I also bribe him to read by promising to read a book if he reads the first paragraph or two (depending on how long they are).

 

He does better if I hold an index card under the line and then track with my finger for him. If it's a multisyllabic word, I uncover one syllable at a time.

 

My dd5 is a very good reader, and that makes this process all the more painful for him.

[QuirkyKapers]

My dd who is 7 does this too. Sometimes it is easy for me to get in the mind set that she is purposefully being difficult but what I have found is if she wants to try and read, it goes a lot smoother. What I don't get is how she can get some of the harder words but not some of the easier words.

[Mama2Many4]

One of the things I did when teaching my two boys to read was to play lots of reading games. I would write down the words they were struggling with on different colors of construction paper. Then I took and empty egg carton and glued small circles of the colors I used in each one. We made a game of tossing a die into the carton and whichever color it landed on they would have to read a word from that pile.

 

They loved it and if they got the word right, they earned a couple of m&m's, if they got the word wrong I would put it third in the pile of those cards so they would see it again while still fresh in their memories. By the end of the game each boy had a nice little bag of m&m's as his "prize". I did this until they no longer missed words, then would move on to another game I made up.

 

I bought one of those fishing games at Walmart where you have to catch the fish with a plastic hook while a motorized base spins them around. I took the fish and sorted them by color, then glued pieces of paper that were the same color as the fish to the bottom. I wrote on them digraphs and other things that they need work with and would have them complete whichever task I gave them once they "caught" a fish.

 

It worked wonders and now my 7 year old is reading on a 4th grade level and my K'er is reading at a 2nd grade level. It's not to say that your son won't require a little more time, since all kids are different. Just wanted to share some ideas that helped me. Good luck!

[Jumping In Puddles]

Thank you all again for your thoughtful responses! :grouphug:

 

I am taking this advice and I'm going to practice being patient! :)

[Brindee]

He's still so young! Boys start reading fluently at all different ages. As long as he's reading and enjoying it - that's MORE than half the battle.

 

Be patient...in other words. My youngest is 11. NOW he's reading fluently. Glad I didn't push because he loves to read.

 

Just wanted to let you know, my son didn't take off until 7.5 and now, he's finished reading Martin's Mice in 2 days! It will come, just keep up the sounding out of words and have him read aloud about 15 minutes a day for solid practice with you. It comes slower for some, but you'd be amazed at how it may click and stay ON!

:iagree: My ds, now 17, started out painfully slowly! He, too, was 7 1/2 when it "clicked" and he took off. We didn't push him, cuz it would be frustrating for him. There was nothing wrong with him (aside from possible ADHD, but handleable), so we knew he'd read soon enough. He ended up being an insatiable reader, still is!

 

I've heard of boys not reading well until they're older. I wouldn't show your frustration, I'd just praise him for trying! It's definitely worth being patient until it "clicks" for them!