would love your thoughts on fluency in my almost 9 year old.

[Lots of boys]

My son will be 9 in a month. I have him read out loud to me everyday from a book I think is slightly above or near his reading level. He also reads everynight on his own after we finish up our family read a loud. My concern is that his reading - when he reads to me out loud, is really difficult for him. He frequently misses words (skips them) or gets simple words incorrect (he will read 'there' as 'them' or 'his' as 'she'). If I stop him and point to the word he missed or read incorrectly he can always read it correctly. It seems he just has a hard time following along and reading all of the words. He also seems to have a lot of trouble decoding words that are unusual to him. He went to ps for K and 1 and I really don't feel he got a great foundation in phonics. He is doing AAS for spelling but because I only started HS him in 2nd, I didn't do a formal phonics program with him (he was reading well already). I used an index card for him as he reads to mark the sentence we are on so he won't loose his spot as much. He really gets discouraged and says reading out loud is hard and he doesn't understand the story as well when he reads it out loud. He really prefers to have me read it to him, or him read it to himself (second choice !)

 

The book we are currently reading out loud is Freddy the Detective . I don't know the reading level but I think it should be doable for him. I only have him read about 4 pages a day and then I read about 10 just to keep the story going. Even when we read much simpler "step into reading" level 3 or 4 books he has the same issue.

 

When he reads on his own he seems to read fast and I am always concerned he isn't really reading but he seems to have good comprehension.

 

Any advice?

[Susie in CA]

Well, I am certainly no expert. I do want to point out, though, that reading out loud is very difficult for some. Both my boys hated reading out loud at that age. I had one who read very well and one who struggled. Neither of them wanted to read out loud.

I'll tell you what we did with ds who had difficulty with reading.

 

1. I read out loud everything for school including literature until @ 6th grade.

 

2. I required him to read for 30 min until 4th grade and then slowly increased that to one hour. This was free reading. He could read anything he wanted as long as there where no pictures. If the book had pictures he wouldn't read. I did not look at reading level at all. He picked based on interest.

 

3. I usually read what he read as well. This way we could talk about the story. I did not ask comprehension questions. He hated that with a passion. We just talked about stuff casually and included things in the book as they came up. None of this was part of school. It helped that his brother pretty much read the same books. :001_smile:

 

4. Ds is in 8th grade now. This is the first year that we are reading out loud for school with success. We have tried it before, but it never worked. We do popcorn reading for literature using the Lord of the Rings. He is reading very well now; much slower still than the rest of us. However, he stopped reading words incorrectly, or skipping, or ..... Aside from decoding, what he has finally learned is to slow down and pay attention to the punctuation.

 

All this rambling to say that he will most likely get past these difficulties. Keep on practicing reading. Make sure he enjoys reading or at least sees the benefits of it. And then he'll be fine.

[cherylw]

You basically described my son, except he is now almost 11.

 

Does he seem to read better some days and worse on others? How is his spelling? You may want to have him evaluated for dyslexia.

But I will say that from all my reading and research that professionals say to always give them a lower level book to build fluency. You don't want to make it harder for him which makes them more frustrated.

 

A couple things that I have tried recently and seem to help some...

1.I've been having him read the Christian Liberty Press level 3 reader. Before he reads a passage I will highlight with different colors certain blends, diagraphs, diphthongs, etc. that I think will slow him down. This shows the word is already broken down and helps him to not have to think too long on sounding them out.

2. Have him read a sentence or two silently then out loud.

 

 

With that, my son still misreads simple words, the, for, from, etc. leaves out words and thus not getting the full meaning sometimes. But on the other hand his comprehension is surprisingly good with basic information passages. I can usually just point to the word he missed and he will get it right the next try.

 

My struggle is finding a book that's not babyish and that my son WANTS to read. He get bored with a book before he can finish it, because it takes so long for him to read it. He can "read" to a but the fluency is not what it needs to be.

 

That's definitely not expert advice but HTH some! Let me know if you find something else.:001_smile:

[cherylw]

I reread your op and one difference between your son and mine is that your son may be fine with his silent reading. Mine is not, although it's much better than him trying to read aloud. He is slow at both, but reading aloud is much harder. So in that sense, your son may be fine.

[creekmom]

When working on fluency, it is important to pick selections that are easy - very easy for him to read. Pick an easy poem or a paragraph from an easy book. Let him practice reading the one passage (the same passage every day) for a week. Model for him what reading like a robot sounds like - then model for him how to read fluently. It is impossible to build fluency if he's reading selections that are on his level or above his level.

 

That said, it sounds like he got into a habit of guessing words (very common in ps where kids learn to recognize words by sight). The way to correct this is to have him practice reading nonsense words. There are books with nonsense words, and I think ElizabethB's website has some practice with these words also. Once he gets used to having to read every word instead of guess at them, you'll notice a big difference in his fluency and decoding ability.

[MerryAtHope]

My son will be 9 in a month. I have him read out loud to me everyday from a book I think is slightly above or near his reading level.

 

I agree with the others, reading aloud is harder than reading silently. It requires that he not only be able to read the words, but that he be able to translate them to speech. One also has to read ahead and hold some words in memory at the same time that you are speaking previously read words, otherwise your reading is very halting and it's hard to know where to place inflection.

 

I would expect that a child who is reading something slightly above his reading level or even right at his reading level will find it very hard to read aloud.

 

I would also expect that a child who is silently reading something slightly above his reading level would struggle with the words, skip some, guess at some and so on. So that will just be magnified when reading aloud.

 

He also reads everynight on his own after we finish up our family read a loud. My concern is that his reading - when he reads to me out loud, is really difficult for him. He frequently misses words (skips them) or gets simple words incorrect (he will read 'there' as 'them' or 'his' as 'she').

 

While it's possible that this relates to a tracking issue, it's also possible that it just relates to the difficulties of reading aloud (as described above). Even as an adult reader I occasionally miss a word or say the wrong word and have to correct myself, or decide not to correct if I think the meaning of the sentence won't be changed (last night I caught myself saying "replied" instead of "retorted," and knew it as I was saying the word but didn't bother to correct--but I did mourn that my kids missed hearing "retorted" as that's a lesser used word and I like it. A child won't have all these thoughts of course, but will process different kinds of thoughts, if they notice such an error, as he or she reads aloud.)

 

Sometimes I catch my kids reading quickly, and I just encourage them to take a breath and slow down. Memorizing things to recite can help here, because you give them a feeling for how quickly to speak and how to work on inflection etc... Reading easy material is another way to do this.

 

If I stop him and point to the word he missed or read incorrectly he can always read it correctly. It seems he just has a hard time following along and reading all of the words. He also seems to have a lot of trouble decoding words that are unusual to him. He went to ps for K and 1 and I really don't feel he got a great foundation in phonics. He is doing AAS for spelling but because I only started HS him in 2nd, I didn't do a formal phonics program with him (he was reading well already).

 

AAS is a complete phonics program and will fill in all of the gaps for him. Think through whether the words he struggles with follow phonics patterns that he has learned so far, or if they are new patterns. You can either show him now how the phonograms work by teaching him the new sounds, or know that he'll cover it soon. You can also use the syllable division skills he is learning to show him how to chunk longer words. This is a process, and will take time to become natural for your child (and it takes some kids longer than others).

 

I used an index card for him as he reads to mark the sentence we are on so he won't loose his spot as much. He really gets discouraged and says reading out loud is hard and he doesn't understand the story as well when he reads it out loud. He really prefers to have me read it to him, or him read it to himself (second choice !)

 

You might try the index card above the line instead of below, so that it doesn't interfere with the natural eye movement, that works better for some kids. But if the reading level is on the slightly high side, the font may be too small for him--young eyes don't track as well with small font. Sometime you might compare how he does with reading a larger font size--see if that's easier for him.

 

Comprehension IS more difficult when he's reading aloud--he's focusing on decoding, speaking, reading ahead etc... as I described above. That's less working memory left over for comprehension and thinking about word meaning.

 

When he reads on his own he seems to read fast and I am always concerned he isn't really reading but he seems to have good comprehension.

 

Any advice?

 

It's a good sign that he has good comprehension when he reads on his own. I would have him read things that are at or slightly below his reading level for most reading, and for reading aloud I would let him read things that are below his reading level.

 

HTH some! Merry :-)

[Lots of boys]

I agree with the others, reading aloud is harder than reading silently. It requires that he not only be able to read the words, but that he be able to translate them to speech. One also has to read ahead and hold some words in memory at the same time that you are speaking previously read words, otherwise your reading is very halting and it's hard to know where to place inflection.

 

I would expect that a child who is reading something slightly above his reading level or even right at his reading level will find it very hard to read aloud.

 

I would also expect that a child who is silently reading something slightly above his reading level would struggle with the words, skip some, guess at some and so on. So that will just be magnified when reading aloud.

 

 

 

While it's possible that this relates to a tracking issue, it's also possible that it just relates to the difficulties of reading aloud (as described above). Even as an adult reader I occasionally miss a word or say the wrong word and have to correct myself, or decide not to correct if I think the meaning of the sentence won't be changed (last night I caught myself saying "replied" instead of "retorted," and knew it as I was saying the word but didn't bother to correct--but I did mourn that my kids missed hearing "retorted" as that's a lesser used word and I like it. A child won't have all these thoughts of course, but will process different kinds of thoughts, if they notice such an error, as he or she reads aloud.)

 

Sometimes I catch my kids reading quickly, and I just encourage them to take a breath and slow down. Memorizing things to recite can help here, because you give them a feeling for how quickly to speak and how to work on inflection etc... Reading easy material is another way to do this.

 

 

 

AAS is a complete phonics program and will fill in all of the gaps for him. Think through whether the words he struggles with follow phonics patterns that he has learned so far, or if they are new patterns. You can either show him now how the phonograms work by teaching him the new sounds, or know that he'll cover it soon. You can also use the syllable division skills he is learning to show him how to chunk longer words. This is a process, and will take time to become natural for your child (and it takes some kids longer than others).

 

 

 

You might try the index card above the line instead of below, so that it doesn't interfere with the natural eye movement, that works better for some kids. But if the reading level is on the slightly high side, the font may be too small for him--young eyes don't track as well with small font. Sometime you might compare how he does with reading a larger font size--see if that's easier for him.

 

Comprehension IS more difficult when he's reading aloud--he's focusing on decoding, speaking, reading ahead etc... as I described above. That's less working memory left over for comprehension and thinking about word meaning.

 

 

 

It's a good sign that he has good comprehension when he reads on his own. I would have him read things that are at or slightly below his reading level for most reading, and for reading aloud I would let him read things that are below his reading level.

 

HTH some! Merry :-)

 

 

Thank-you so much Merry and everyone else. I guess I thought he should be reading a slightly higher level book than he was at with me, so I could help him rather than when he reads alone. I will back up a little and try having him read stories out loud to me that are slightly lower reading levels with slightly bigger font. He does seem to struggle with books that have small font and small spacing between sentences. I will also try repeating some reading to give him practice with known passages.

 

AAS ia going well and he enjoys is. I am glad to hear it may even improve his phonetic awareness :)

 

In the meantime - I guess I will just finish Freddy the Detective as a read a loud to him (he loves being read to :001_smile:)

[MicheleinMN]

When working on fluency, it is important to pick selections that are easy - very easy for him to read. Pick an easy poem or a paragraph from an easy book. Let him practice reading the one passage (the same passage every day) for a week. Model for him what reading like a robot sounds like - then model for him how to read fluently. It is impossible to build fluency if he's reading selections that are on his level or above his level.

 

 

:iagree::iagree::iagree: