How do YOU do reading for advanced 3rd grader

[TyraTooters]

My ds is 8 but reads really well. I've just been having him read whatever he wants but I think we need.to.do a little structured reading. Nothing crazy as I don't want to hurt his love for reading.

 

So do you have them read to you, just read whatever they want, read mom-assigned books, do something with tbe book after reading? Anything else?

[Kiara.I]

We're planning on doing some mom-assigned books this year.  I've considered getting "Teaching the Classics" to work through (for me) as I think it teaches how to have good discussions about books with the child.

[zarabellesmom]

My daughter was an advanced reader at that age. I used the Mensa Excellence in Reading List and let her choose from it, with the goal of her completing the list. Anything she wanted to read was fine too, but she really wanted to finish the list and get a shirt.  I picked a grade level up, 4th to 6th since it was a more appropriate level for her. There were lots of good books on the list, many she wouldn't have picked up on her own. She hasn't found one she didn't like yet.

 

http://www.mensaforkids.org/achieve/excellence-in-reading/

 

ETA: She reads at night after going to bed.

[SeaConquest]

My daughter was an advanced reader at that age. I used the Mensa Excellence in Reading List and let her choose from it, with the goal of her completing the list. Anything she wanted to read was fine too, but she really wanted to finish the list and get a shirt.  I picked a grade level up, 4th to 6th since it was a more appropriate level for her. There were lots of good books on the list, many she wouldn't have picked up on her own. She hasn't found one she didn't like yet.

 

http://www.mensaforkids.org/achieve/excellence-in-reading/

 

ETA: She reads at night after going to bed.

 

I second this suggestion. You might also look at something like Mosdos Press or the Junior Great Books series.

[SilverMoon]

Mine got a particular shelf filled with only high quality children's literature that was gathered just for them. I'm really picky about what goes on that shelf. It's generally a collection of children's classics in various genres, different lengths, varied difficulty, and usually includes an anthology volume or three. 

The DC gets to pick which book they read next most of the time, and they're expected to read for a developmentally appropriate amount of time every day. We discuss what they've read. Once in awhile I'll pull a trump card and tell them which book comes next. That's it.

Edited June 17, 2022 by SilverMoon

[FO4UR]

Buddy read for pleasure and bonding time.  Make it your daily thing.

[Mrs Twain]

I have her read aloud to me on school days from an assigned text.

 

For her own reading, she mostly reads books I choose front the library which are good quality and appropriately challenging.

 

She also reads some of what she picks at the library which are usually easy, fun, series-types of books, plus lots of picture books. Keep checking out the picture books as long as possible because they are special.

[TriciaT]

I am pretty loose with my advanced 3rd grader. I do assign a book about once a week or every other week. I am using the "suppose the wolf was an octopus" series from royal fireworks press. We are working through the few books in the 3rd-4th she hadn't already read. She reads the book on her own, and on Fridays we have a book discussion. The questions are really great, and it has been really a joy to hear her thoughts more thoroughly about the things she reads. We'll soon move on to the 5th-6th grade book, or maybe do the Mud trilogy.

 

 

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[Monica_in_Switzerland]

I am pretty loose with my advanced 3rd grader. I do assign a book about once a week or every other week. I am using the "suppose the wolf was an octopus" series from royal fireworks press. We are working through the few books in the 3rd-4th she hadn't already read. She reads the book on her own, and on Fridays we have a book discussion. The questions are really great, and it has been really a joy to hear her thoughts more thoroughly about the things she reads. We'll soon move on to the 5th-6th grade book, or maybe do the Mud trilogy.

 

 

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I have that book sitting on my shelf- thanks for reminding me of it!

 

For my advanced 3rd grader, I have him read to me from McGuffey's 5th when I remember- maybe 2x a week?  Otherwise, he reads a ton on his own and we talk about it, but I think the book mentioned above will be another thing to add in.  

 

I am reading the Mud trilogy to him as a read-aloud.  

 

He recently read The Hobbit and I was so proud of him!!!  I can tell his comprehension wasn't 100%, but I could hear him laughing at several of the funny scenes, so he was definitely getting some of the hobbitish character traits that Tolkien was putting across.

[PeterPan]

My dd was like that, and I just let her read.  Actually, around that age we did some of the book projects at Mrs. Renz' site, and they were fun, definitely recommend.  I had her keep a log of books she read.  I asked her to pick one book a week and do a single sentence summary of each chapter as she read.  (She has ADHD and had trouble organizing for that.)  I asked her to pick one book a week to do a plot line on (setting, climax, denoument, blah blah).  One year we used the worksheets in How to Report on Books and they were actually pretty good.  One year I used a genre diversification reading form on her and had her read more across genres.  

 

We did a couple years of the BJU reading, and it was fine.  It hits a lot of important terms, teaches outlining, etc.  Trouble is, she usually saw the things so quickly and intuitively that the discussion was anti-climatic, not informative, even when using it bumped a couple grades.  My ds, ironically enough, will likely be the total opposite, because of his ASD and dyslexia.

 

I say let him read and read a lot.  Reading widely will be good for him.  Don't be afraid to take him into the adult sections in the next year or two and get him books that interest him.

[J-rap]

My #3 was like that, so in 4th grade, I had her read the same books that my teens were reading for literature.  We only read the classics at that point.  We read a lot of Dickens.  She really wanted to read it and enjoyed it.  We often followed the book with the movie, and I'm sure that helped too.  Of course sure she wasn't getting the same things out of the books as my teens, and I didn't expect her to.  Her assignments were simplified as well, but she did love the challenge of the reading.  At that age, I wanted her reading to be enjoyable, so if it wasn't, I would have found something else.

 

 

[TyraTooters]

Love all the book lists! Such great suggestions! Do you just have our children read them as they or do you do any sort of quiz, comprehension stuff or anything? 

 

[The Governess]

At that age I still have them read aloud to me several times per week, even if they are advanced and fluent.  I will catch words that they think they are pronouncing right here and there that sound funny, or an idiom that they are not understanding, or sometimes see that they aren't grasping the flow of a complex sentence structure, etc.  They can also work on inflection, volume, clarity, etc.  For this I use McGuffy's readers or another collection of shorter passages like My Bookhouse or a fairy tales collection...We don't work for a long enough period of time to get through a novel this way. 

 

Most of their reading at that age is done independently.  I will pick maybe 2 or 3 books during the year for them to read independently and then discuss with me or maybe do a few projects.  Progeny Press has some really nice guides, they include vocabulary work and comprehension questions, but also some deeper analysis questions to get them to start reading between the lines, thinking about characters, etc., as well as some project-type assignments.  The rest of their independent reading I just let them read.  This may be books they have chosen or books I have assigned...but I don't think they need to do "work" with every book they read, especially at that age.

 

I also still do many read-alouds even when they are reading well.  The read-alouds are generally what I will have them narrate, and we will discuss as a family.  Read-alouds help them build listening skills, help model good oral reading habits, help us experience books together as a family... I plan on continuing even through high school age.

 

One other thing I will do is use Critical Thinking Company's Reading Detective program.  I find that my advanced reader has great comprehension but is sometimes unable to tell me *how* she knows something she has inferred from reading her book.  Reading Detective makes them identify the exact evidence in a passage that helped them to draw conclusions.  It also works on things like identifying the main topic of a passage and other reading skills that will help with both fiction and nonfiction reading. 

[SilverMoon]

Love all the book lists! Such great suggestions! Do you just have our children read them as they or do you do any sort of quiz, comprehension stuff or anything? 

 

Quiz, no. The discussion after the reading is the "comprehension stuff."  Just talk about the story and ask questions. "Why did she do that?" "What would you have done?" "How did the protagonist feel about that?" Their comprehension will be incredibly obvious, and you'll get some fabulous discussions with your kids over the years that may not have come up otherwise. :001_smile:

 

Deconstructing Penguins would be a good read for you if you'd like some ideas for how to do literature yourself without a curriculum. You can work the ideas into your conversations.

[vtamanda]

I read Deconstructing Penguins. Very useful ideas. We discuss literature here and there for comprehension.

 

We hit the library every 3 weeks. I pick a few books from the Mensa list for her. I ask her to pick a few books of her own, including non-fiction. DD is a very motivated reader, so I do not worry much.

 

I work in a few Arrow editions each year (Bravewriter).

 

I bought the Mud Trilogy for later this year. I am going to go investigate The Wolf and the Octopus and The Reading Detective now!

[MinivanMom]

I let them read whatever they want, though I will suggest books or nudge them in a particular direction if I feel like they're needing some guidance or more challenge. I will also give books for birthdays or Christmas that I think they are ready for.

 

I don't do any discussion or analysis before middle school beyond the occasional, "How did you like that book? Tell me about it." I firmly believe that less is more where literary analysis is concerned. First do no harm.

[kbutton]

Mine got a particular shelf filled with only high quality children's literature that was gathered just for them. I'm really picky about what goes on that shelf. It's generally a collection of children's classics in various genres, different lengths, varied difficulty, and usually includes an anthology volume or three. Veritas Press has fabulous lists and has been our favorite over the years, if you need somewhere to start.

 

The DC gets to pick which book they read next most of the time, and they're expected to read for a developmentally appropriate amount of time every day. We discuss what they've read. Once in awhile I'll pull a trump card and tell them which book comes next. That's it.

 

This is kind of my approach, though I throw fun stuff in there too. It's a variety and includes non-fiction.

 

We read out loud together sometimes so that i can be sure things are still going well with decoding and pronunciation. My kids are 2e, and they don't always make a connection between words they hear and words they read that they may not know how to pronounce the typical way. And it's more fun to read together sometimes.

[mamaraby]

At that age ds did most of his own reading for history and science. I assign his literature books in reasonable chunks. He writes a weekly narration of what he's read. We also talked about the book when he was finished with it. He also read books of his own choosing for 30mins a day. Free reading books have always been something he picks out on his own. I've never been involved in book selection and don't particularly care if they're below grade level. Free reading is intended to be practice for a life-long habit of reading for pleasure.

 

I also had (and still do) ds read aloud to me periodically so I can spot check his decoding.

[duckens]

I do not know if my dd8 is and "advanced reader" or not, but I have started to assign chapter books for her to read this year.  They are between 60-200 pages.

1)FICTION BOOKS:
For this year, we chose books from the Battle of the Books website.  She chose half, and I chose half.  I have organized them in order of shortest to longest.

By 5th grade, I hope to have her choose books from the Newbery Award List.

For high school, (if we are still homeschooling), we will choose books from the Cliffs Notes list.

2) TALKING ABOUT FICTION BOOKS
I  am working my way through "Teaching the Classics."  This is a crash course in Literary Analysis that uses children's books.

Dd8 is making her second literary lapbook from with this Literature Analysis Lapbook Template.  She seems to genuinely enjoy it.  (Trim the edge off your construction paper, and run it through your printer).  We also have the Literature Helper.

Novel-ties are study guides for individual books.   The Freckle Juice one has contractions, comprehension, writing activity, root word activity, math connection, etc.  Rainbow Resource has some of them, but Learning Links is their home.  I have purchased a few of them. 

If I couldn't find a Novel-ties, I did a Google search for "Literary Guide [book title]".  Many were free.  I had to purchase only one.

3) NONFICTION BOOKS
Read this thread about thinking long-term to train your children to read college textbooks.  The posts #1 and #7 by lewelma (Ruth in NZ) are incredibly helpful to me in seeing the big picture when it comes to nonfiction reading.  Paste them to a Word file to remember where to find them.

[TyraTooters]

You all are awesome!!! We are working on narration and comprehension with WWE2 so I know where he stands with comprehension. He is all wrapped up in those Magic Tree House books with their Fact Trackers right now. We just started a reading journal for this year. I am pretty lose about it, sometimes he writes his favorite part of the book, other times he draws a part from the story, sometimes he writes two or three sentences about what he's recently read. I don't make him do it for every book, or every day, just kind of when I think about it or if it's been a couple days. 

[Holly]

I have them each read aloud a bit during the week.  We each read a few verses of our Bible reading.  They also read a poem or two aloud each week.  My 3rd grade and I are reading her independent history books together.  She's not an advanced reader, so I read several paragraphs, then have her read one or two.