Reading Observations with DD

[omd21]

DD, who just turned 6, and just finished K, is reading at what I believe to be a 2.5 grade level. Most of her progress in reading has occurred in the past 3 months. She will read about 5 pages of a Magic Schoolhouse book in 30 minutes and has good comprehension.

 

However, she will read a paragraph or two perfectly and quickly, and has no problem reading words such as "desperately", "overlooking", and "disaster", but within minutes she'll have trouble with high frequency words, like "eat", or easy ones, like "graze".

 

She still confuses b for d about 40% of the time, and will reverse words, saying "rowng" instead of "grown", or incorporating the next word into the word she is currently on.

 

Is this normal for her age? Are my expectations just not realistic for her age level? I only have DD11 to compare her to, and DD11 started reading at 4 and very well. DH and I started at 4 too.

 

Also, how do you accurately test your children for reading level? I'm only going by the RL rating on the book she is currently reading.

 

She is brilliant in everything else, so what gives?

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[kbutton]

My DS6 is similar. We have dyslexics in the extended family as well. I know reversals are common for quite some time. My FIL was a reading specialist for decades, and he's not worried about my son yet. I am watching closely. My son reverses numbers as well (writing them backwards and sometimes writes them in the wrong place value slot in spite of having a fantastic grasp of place value), has trouble with directionality in real life, reads a number of small words backwards at times (was/saw) and seems to be taking words in by sight as well as phonics. He also has trouble in math with reading math problems backwards. As long as he likes his phonics lessons and makes progress, I guess he is okay for now. There are just enough quirks across the board that we'll be asking questions if they don't clear up soon. Vowels are a sticking point--he frequently guesses at them even though he seems to know them. I think he literally ignores them and looks at the consonants unless he absolutely has to look at the vowels.

 

I also have heard that fluency comes from reading in quantity at the sweet spot--not too hard and not too easy. If he seems to be hurrying or not paying attention to details, it does help to ask him to spell the word out loud and then try to read it. He catches his mistake pretty fast when I do that.

[Rachel]

You may want to cross post this on the General Ed board since it is a more active board.

 

 

I only have a 6 year old to compare to, my son did this last summer shortly after he learned to read.  Usually it happened when he was reading quickly, I would cover up all but the line he was reading to slow him down and the problem quickly resolved.

 

As she is a relatively new reader I don't think I would be concerned yet.  If she doesn't seem to show improvement you may want to investigate further.

[mamabear2three]

you can look into a book called QRI-3 for assessing reading level. It's a book I learned to use in college - it's basically doing a running record (child reads aloud to you and you note any words they read incorrectly)  and then they give you all the tools to take the data you collect from having her read to you and understand what that means about her reading level (it will give you frustration level, instructional level and independent level)... including comprehension and fluency. This is what I use to both figure out where my daughter is and what specific areas she's having difficulties (I can chart the words she makes mistakes with and see exactly what errors she is making so that I can tell if it is vowel digraphs, blends, or what have you.)

 

My daughter went through a short phase where she could read the multi-syllable words and not the easier words, and I simply reminded her to sound it out and refused to tell her what the words were. I don't know what was going on in her brain but she got over it. I've worked with a lot of kids over the years who had difficulty reading, so I can tell you this from my experiences: Every child will show a pattern of difficulty in a different area - but there will be a pattern. It just might take some sleuthing to figure it out. I can also tell you that with kids who have learning disabilities, intensive phonics instruction and practice is the only thing that worked consistently. (It took a lot longer than a typical kid and light years longer than a gifted kid) The thing that I like about a good running record is the ability to figure out which phonics skills needed work.

 

Even with my daughter, who is 6 and reading on a 5th grade level, there are phonics skills that we haven't covered yet that will still trip her up sometimes, but generally a quick look at the rule and it resolves the issue. 

 

So is this typical for her age? It's not atypical...but that said, I've always explained to my special edu parents that a disability is on some level defined as a child who is capable of doing one thing and for some reason is preforming much below that. If there is not another explanation (for example, never receiving phonics instruction, missing a lot of school, illness, emotionally disturbing circumstances, etc.) then they might be diagnosed with a disability. The thing about disabilities, though, is that they are still able to learn, they just learn differently. Special education (which, if you hadn't figured out, is my field of expertise) is simply finding the most efficient path of learning for each student. I've a lot to learn about giftedness still, so I don't know much about what it would look like for a gifted child to also have a disability in an area.

 

Here's more info on how to do a running record. 

[Cosmos]

Is this normal for her age? Are my expectations just not realistic for her age level? I only have DD11 to compare her to, and DD11 started reading at 4 and very well. DH and I started at 4 too.

 

Is what normal? To read at a 2nd grade level is of course not average for her age, but it's perfectly normal. Or do you mean to ask whether the mistakes she is making are "normal", i.e. developmentally appropriate?

 

I don't see anywhere in your post where you stated your expectations, so it would be impossible to say if they are realistic or not.

[Paige]

It sounds perfectly normal to me. I have had a fairly wide range of readers at this age. I think there's a huge range for normal in newer readers. Once things settle down and reading becomes as natural as walking (or time passes and it doesn't become that way), then you can more accurately assess if what you are dealing with is normal. It's kind of like walking- babies and toddlers have a wide range of normal paths to learn to walk, and then, once most of the kids are walking well, you can see who will be the best sprinters and who may need orthotics. 

 

For your specific question, I found my children who learn to read quickly would also frequently misread easy words. I think at times they may be anticipating a short word and not really reading each word- which is normal- adults do that too. Harder words grab their attention and force them to *look* in ways that smaller words don't. It also may have to do with simple misspeaking- they see and know the words, they'd get it if you asked, but the speed at which they are reading may make them stumble- kind of like if they call you Daddy instead of Mommy. For my kids who picked up reading more slowly, they went more slowly on every word and didn't slip over the easy ones as much. 

 

If she stumbles over the easy words in isolation and out of context, that would be a red flag to me. I would think she may have just memorized a large variety of words and could run into trouble down the road when memorizing becomes impractical. Also, is she left handed? My unscientific opinion based on an extremely small sample is that left handers reverse letters more often and for longer than righties.

[omd21]

My son reverses numbers as well (writing them backwards and sometimes writes them in the wrong place value slot in spite of having a fantastic grasp of place value), has trouble with directionality in real life, reads a number of small words backwards at times (was/saw) and seems to be taking words in by sight as well as phonics. (...) Vowels are a sticking point--he frequently guesses at them even though he seems to know them. I think he literally ignores them and looks at the consonants unless he absolutely has to look at the vowels.

 

This is DD to a t. She reads 21 as 12 constantly, etc. I'm glad to hear that your FIL is not worried about these reversals at this age. Thank you.

 

you can look into a book called QRI-3 for assessing reading level. It's a book I learned to use in college

 

My daughter went through a short phase where she could read the multi-syllable words and not the easier words, and I simply reminded her to sound it out and refused to tell her what the words were. I don't know what was going on in her brain but she got over it. The thing that I like about a good running record is the ability to figure out which phonics skills needed work.

 

Here's more info on how to do a running record. 

 

Thank you so much. I'll go take a look at the book you mentioned. I'd love to be able to identify the specific areas where she's having the most difficulty so I can give her customized help.

 

It sounds perfectly normal to me. I have had a fairly wide range of readers at this age. I think there's a huge range for normal in newer readers. Once things settle down and reading becomes as natural as walking (or time passes and it doesn't become that way), then you can more accurately assess if what you are dealing with is normal. It's kind of like walking- babies and toddlers have a wide range of normal paths to learn to walk, and then, once most of the kids are walking well, you can see who will be the best sprinters and who may need orthotics. 

 

For your specific question, I found my children who learn to read quickly would also frequently misread easy words. I think at times they may be anticipating a short word and not really reading each word- which is normal- adults do that too. Harder words grab their attention and force them to *look* in ways that smaller words don't. It also may have to do with simple misspeaking- they see and know the words, they'd get it if you asked, but the speed at which they are reading may make them stumble- kind of like if they call you Daddy instead of Mommy. For my kids who picked up reading more slowly, they went more slowly on every word and didn't slip over the easy ones as much. 

 

If she stumbles over the easy words in isolation and out of context, that would be a red flag to me. I would think she may have just memorized a large variety of words and could run into trouble down the road when memorizing becomes impractical. Also, is she left handed? My unscientific opinion based on an extremely small sample is that left handers reverse letters more often and for longer than righties.

 

This makes sense, and I'm thinking I need to come back to this and re-evaluate where she is in 6 months or a year. She made a lot of progress quickly, in a 3 month span and it may be that she needs an adjustment period. She can read the high frequency words correctly in isolation, but tends to get them wrong within the text, so it does sound like she is maybe guessing in order to go faster, when she should be going at a slower pace. She is not left handed but DH is.

 

Your responses were so helpful. I have only had experience teaching one other child and it was completely different, so I'm glad to hear this is not uncommon. I'll be working with her closely and keeping an eye on her progress. I think I'm going to record her reading so I can have a good base to compare in six months or so.

[ThoughtfulMama]

I gave my DS the DORA test online and found it to be very interesting.

 

I know my son reads faster than he can talk, so he would sometimes get tangled up with himself when reading aloud. Once he transitioned to reading silently, I couldn't see what was going on in his head, but his reading speed increased even more and his comprehension is good.

 

In a similar vein, when he was 3-4 he would often stutter and get stuck when talking because his brain was a couple sentences ahead of his mouth. I know this is normal too, and it did eventually correct.