? about 2nd grader reading habits

[julie4]

My second grader/7 years old does the following things when reading...

 

Easily loses her place when going to the next line in the book.

 

Is easily distracted by all pictures, she will stop mid sentence to look at a picture, then loses her place.

 

Will not read a contraction as a contraction, she reads it the "long" way. If it is written as "wouldn't" she reads it as "would not." We talked about this and she understands what contractions are, but insists on reading them this way. Maybe it's just a habit we need to work on.

 

She has good comprehension and is reading at or above grade level. I don't remember my older 2 doing these things. Would you be concerned? Or is this pretty typical stuff for this age?

 

Thanks,

Julie

[MerryAtHope]

I probably wouldn't be overly concerned if she's reading at or above grade level. It sounds like she is curious and has good comprehension, that's awesome!

 

You might want to discuss a reading strategy for her for pages with pictures. Some kids just don't know when to look at things and are distracted by various things. Talk her through how you would read the page, for example, study the pictures first, then read all of the words, then look again, etc... (If this is a science or history book, the strategy might vary).

 

You could also teach her to put her finger in the place she stops reading if she wants to look back at a picture before finishing the reading.

 

It's possible that she has some mild tracking issues (or if she is reading harder books, maybe the print is just too small for her eye development at this stage--take a look at font size and make a mental note or keep a journal of when it's more likely to happen). If you see lots of tracking issues, you may want to look into www.covd.org to see if she may have some vision processing issues. If you haven't done a regular eye exam, that might be worthwhile as well.

 

You can use a blank index card to help with tracking, or to cover some of the other words (or even pictures!) on a page to help her track, see if that makes a difference.

 

Does she tend to be easily distractible overall? If so, that might be something to keep an eye on (girls are notoriously underdiagnosed for ADD). If not, unless you are seeing other significant issues, I don't think it's overly concerning.

[mom2one]

My 7 y/o DD does the exact same things you mentioned. The losing her place and getting distracted by the pictures I figured was just because she's a little, well, flaky. :) But the reading a contraction the long was has really puzzled me. I don't suppose it's a big deal and eventually she'll get it, but it is strange.

[Farrar]

My boys do some of those things. I haven't worried. One of mine is a bit ahead of the other and is slowly getting better at finding his place and not losing it. One of mine finally stopped reading the contractions separately very recently. Some kids are tearing through long novels at this age, but others aren't yet and still have some hurdles like this. Both are normal, I think. :)

[zarabellesmom]

I don't know if this makes it better or weirder, but I am pretty sure I read the contractions, uncontracted, until well into my teenage years. I just thought they sounded better, and I was an avid reader...

[monalisa]

My 9 year old dd still does those things to some extent, though she has improved over the past 2 years (she doesn't do that with the contractions). I asked our optometrist about it, since she also does vision therapy and she didn't think she had any issues once she examined her. I think for my dd it is a maturity thing; she does read fluently out loud, has high comprehension, and reads above her grade level. For a long time, I would use a card or flexible bookmark above the line she was reading to help her improve her "tracking." I'd give it some time, and try to give her tips on how to improve as other posters have suggested.