Reading level low -- first grader, what else I can do?

[beishan]

I am new here. My son is first grader in public school. We are bilingual family and English is my second language. My son was born is US and has been exposed to both languages when he was born. He started to received ESL when he was in Kindergarten. His spoken English is quite well, but he has some issue to understand words like what, when, why how and where questions so teacher decided to put him in ESL and ESL continues at first grade. He knows all the letter sounds at age 3 when I taught he alphabets. I thought that's phontics and he will pick up reading all by himeself in the future. We read simple books to him every night. When my son entered first grade last year, he was tested for reading level B. The teacher told me it was ok and he does not need additional reading help at this moment. His reading comprehension is above average per his teacher. After New year, teacher email me that now he is qualified for additional reading help because he was still on level C which is low at first grade. He was ok with CVC words and blending at that moment. Therefore, I started to search for additional help to improve his reading and found this informative forum.

 

We signed him up for reading eggs after he started received additional reading support at school at the beginning of March. He is currently at map 10. Two weeks later, his reading level jumped up to D. Then I purchased AAR2 to afterschool him at night (I work full time). We just finished lesson 6 and he is ok with the lesson so far. We tried to read one story from frog and toad book last night and he was ok to read most of it without help. What else I can do to help him? I hope we can catch up to second grade level by the end of summer so that he won't continue struggle in reading in the future.

[Crimson Wife]

Different kids pick up reading at different ages and as long as he is systematically working through a good phonics program than I really wouldn't worry about it at 6 or 7. Now if he's still struggling in a few years then there are more intensive programs to try.

[beishan]

Thanks both. I am kind of nervous as I do not have my primary education done in US (I came to US for graduate school) so I have no idea what the expected goal is for each grade level. When I heard from teacher that he needs reading support, I was kind of panic. My son was bad with sight words when he was younger so I gave up plugging him with sight words. He started to develop very little sight words naturally during second half of Kindergarten. I guess that is one of the reasons causing his slow progress on reading levels. From what I've learnt, I think now he is probably couple months behind the target progress on first grade reading so that I want to make sure that I am on the right track of helping him. From the information I found here, we decided using ARR2, WWE1 and FLL1 for afterschooling starting second week of April. And will continue in summer if we did not finish by the end of school year. Hopefully we can boost up his language art/reading/writing as a whole. We normally go through AAR2 and WWE1 4 lessons per week and 1 lesson for FLL. I love AAR2 and learning myself at the same time while teaching my son. I wished we had that when I was learning English We did not learn phonics back then and we need to memorize all words and grammers before we learn to read.

[Miss Tick]

It sounds like you are already doing what you need to do. Continue with the phonics program, keep having him read from other library books, and keep doing some reading out loud. Look at the progress you have made since January! If you continue working on reading through the summer and he keeps making progress you should be in good shape in the fall.

 

Maybe find out from his teacher what range of levels she expects for the end of first grade. I think you should be able to check his reading level online over the summer to see how you are progressing.

[beishan]

SusanC, Thanks.

 

We are in New Jersey and our school district is on the top. The average expectation by end of first grade is guided reading level I or J which is a big jump for my son as he started at level B. He now is level D on independednt reading and level E on instructional reading. He was level B last October, level C last November and finally jumped to level D in March after starting reading support at school. I will expect him to be on level F the most by the end of school and hopefully get to H by the end of summer. I am seeing progress slowly while we learn the new phonic rules. I think he needs more time to practice and get familiar with the new skills. Therefore, we read the same story from AAR2 reader on the next 2 days after we introduced new skill. The first time when he read the story, he needs reminder every time for the new skill. The second day when we read the story again, he can read it smoothly and only need to stop/sound out some words. They use Just right books at school for reading and bring home 2 (one is fiction and one is non-fiction) to read to parents every day. Should I use above level library books to read with him at home in order to push him up or should I stay with Just right book to practice more on the fluency?