Phonetic decoding/comprehension mismatch

[drjuliadc]

I have my 1st grader in public school. I just got done with his parent teacher conference. His ability to phonetically decode maxed out the school’s test at 8th grade.  His comprehension is at a 1st/2nd grade level. I don’t think this is a problem. I REPEAT, I don’t think this is a problem, neither did his teacher, however it raised some questions for me. His teacher said a 1st grader just doesn’t have the background knowledge to comprehend at a much higher level.  It seems to me like it is a vocabulary thing. Maybe those two things are the same.

I’m just wondering since a lot of you have readers way above grade level is that common to have comprehension much off of decoding?  I overtaught all my kids decoding because of my fear of dyslexia in the family, so I’m not surprised at his difference. I was just too lazy or have too many kids plus other responsibilities to follow through with other finer points of reading. Actually this kid loves math and piano and spends a lot of his free time on those, so another reason his reading comprehension wouldn’t be as far along.

So, opinions please: are decoding and comprehension usually mismatched in accelerated learners or very individual?

[HomeAgain]

I don't think there's any usual when it comes to ALs.  They all develop differently.  Like, my 9yo is still working on putting his shirt on the right way the first time.  (We're getting there. 😄 )  But I would say that it would not be unusual, especially if you spent a significantly larger amount of time working on sounds than on understanding.  Or if you aren't reading aloud regularly.  Or if it isn't a topic he has had much exposure to or is interested in.  There are a lot of factors to consider.  The more he finds things to read and wants to read, the better his comprehension will become.

[forty-two]

I'm going with very individual. 

My kids all have/had difficulties with decoding.  With my oldest, decoding actually lagged behind reading comprehension - she was a whole language poster child, naturally using picture clues and context clues and grammar clues to bolster and work around her weak decoding. 

With my middle, I think decoding and comprehension went more or less hand-in-hand, although I think her reading comprehension lagged behind her decoding, while her decoding lagged behind her oral comprehension. For a while, after decoding was solid (except for decoding unfamiliar multi-syllable words, which we were working on explicitly), she wouldn't read anything unfamiliar, while she *would* read fairly high-level books that she was very familiar with, from read-alouds and audiobooks.

Youngest is still learning to decode, but his oral comprehension (with read-alouds and audiobooks) is quite good.  In general I'd say his (fledgling) reading comprehension is more-or-less in line with his (fledgling) decoding skills, in that he understands what his readers are saying. 

One thing I did notice with my younger two, wrt decoding and comprehension, is that they both try to decode first, understand second (while my oldest tried to comprehend without decoding if at all possible).  And so they found individual words easier to read than connected text (unlike oldest, who was the opposite - the more context, the easier to guess and thus avoid decoding).  Which meant there was/is a decent period of time where their connected-text reading stamina lagged/is-lagging behind their individual word decoding.  And therefore their reading comprehension lagged behind their decoding.  (Although I thought of it in terms of their connected-text decoding stamina lagging behind, since in general decoding was harder than comprehension for my kids.) 

That said, not one of my kids was reading in Oct of 1st grade.  End of first for oldest, end of second for middle, and I'm hoping for end of second with my red-shirted youngest.

Edited October 27, 2019 by forty-two

[drjuliadc]

None of my three boys will let me read aloud to them and never have.  Nor will they listen to audiobooks.  I could probably push the audiobook thing further while doing legos, if I could find an appropriate device/setup that my first grader couldn’t hack.  it isn’t for lack of interesting audiobooks. My girl could be read to all day long, but she has always seemed to be advanced in receptive language.  Wait, she’s a girl.  She seems to be advanced in everything, haha.

I’m glad you mentioned connected text.  I think my 1st grader has always been able to decode individual words at the level he does now since he first started decoding before he was two.  He just didn’t have stamina for connected text.  He still doesn’t.  His lack of development in that department surprised me.

I'm still glad I taught him to read early because he was able to read instructions on math apps, in his piano books and geography apps, which heavily fueled and jump started his passions.  Even more importantly, his passions kept him engaged and independent. He is miserable when his mind is not engaged, and with twins following him, if it wasn’t with independence it wouldn’t have happened.

He likes to read, but thanks to Scholastic bookfairs, his favorites are Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dogman. I am thankful that, since Scholastic bookfairs in Kindergarten, he likes to read and is an enthusiastic and independent reader.  I just need to move him away from those types of books gently.

Edited October 28, 2019 by drjuliadc
typos

[Jackie]

I remember that I had this mismatch as a child. I could technically read a lot more than I could understand.

My daughter has not had it. She has always scored very highly on both decoding and comprehension.

I suppose that puts me in the “no such thing as usual” camp.

[kbutton]

23 hours ago, drjuliadc said:

I’m just wondering since a lot of you have readers way above grade level is that common to have comprehension much off of decoding?

While gifted kids and 2e kids can be uneven, in our house it's been a red flag. Our mismatch was not as big as yours, but my son turned out to have profound expressive language problems that were a shock to everyone since they showed up only in certain academic situations. 

Vocabulary and background knowledge can be a problem for younger kids, but a lot of times, gifted kids are already picking up those pieces.

If this persists (or the gap starts to close but slowly), I suggest some open-ended types of language testing, such as the Test of Narrative Language (TNL) and the Test of Problem Solving. 

Language problems can be really quirky and seem isolated to just one area but actually be causing more problems than what is evident.

We use Mindwing Concepts products for remediation. It's been stunning to see the changes. They will look like overkill, but if there is a problem, they are not overkill. 

[Guest]

My DD's comprehension followed the amount of context and background knowledge she had in the area. So, at age 5, she could comprehend almost any non-professional non-fiction (like National Geographic, Scientific American, or books for adult hobbyists), and generally did well with fantasy and sci-fi, and fiction with child protagonists, but "realistic fiction" with teen/adult protagonists made little sense to her. She just didn't have the emotional context and background to understand the relationships, especially, therefore she didn't understand character motives, etc. It didn't take long for her to close the gaps, but I don't think she made that final jump where all the emotional motives made sense until about age 11-12, and she struggled with doing literary analysis at a fairly deep level until then. She could decode anything-she was one of these kids who just seemed to intuit phonics (although we did have the leapfrog videos and the talking refrigerator letters, etc, I never did a phonics program with her, and in K, when they did Sing, Spell, Read and Write, for her it was mostly handwriting practice and then read your independent reading book and take AR tests). She's also a natural speller, and seems to pick up on grammar easily as well. The same as been true in other languages. She can usually learn to decode very, very quickly, and then it's a matter of building vocabulary and context.

 

I suspect that one reason why she has always been so "Sciency" is that science books were accessible to her early and less bound by maturity. She had to grow up a bit for literature and much of the humanities to make sense. 

 

 

Edited October 28, 2019 by dmmetler

[drjuliadc]

32 minutes ago, kbutton said:

While gifted kids and 2e kids can be uneven, in our house it's been a red flag. Our mismatch was not as big as yours...

Vocabulary and background knowledge can be a problem for younger kids, but a lot of times, gifted kids are already picking up those pieces.

I was surprised and the teacher was surprised that his comprehension lagged so far behind decoding. He is a quiet boy, so sometimes it is hard to tell what someone knows when they don’t say much.  His two brothers are so verbally precocious.

I haven’t really had red flags with him yet, other than his emotional regulation isn’t great and he hates school and has always hated school.  I assumed he was a little anxious and very bored.

I’m very busy and not the most observant person, so I could miss something right in front of me.

Where would I look to get that testing done?

Edited October 28, 2019 by drjuliadc

[kbutton]

Your best option (most quality option if available) is a speech therapist that specializes in literacy. They may have other tests or similar tests to run that are also fine--you just want to be sure the tests are open-ended questions, not multiple choice, as it's easy to miss a subtle problem.

We didn't have an SLP who had those tests, so our educational psychologist ordered them to evaluate if she'd like to use them in her practice. I know she now has the TNL, lol! So, sometimes a psychologist will do this testing too. The narrative language test looks at both expressive and receptive language. The TOPS looks more at using language to transfer insights, solve problems, etc.

It's really dependent on what you have locally available. 

He could be anxious and bored and still have an issue with language--we have had that here. Anxiety can also be an early manifestation of a learning challenge that hasn't quite become obvious yet.

Don't be afraid to post on the Learning Challenges board. Lots of parents of 2e kids hang out there, and you'll usually get frank and extensive answers.

[kbutton]

If you are able to get TNL testing, watch the testing session if they let you. If there is a problem, it helps to see the testing to understand what parts and pieces were working or not working. 

[gstharr]

On 10/27/2019 at 11:30 AM, HomeAgain said:

I don't think there's any usual when it comes to ALs.  They all develop differently.  Like, my 9yo is still working on putting his shirt on the right way the first time.  (We're getting there. 😄 )  But I would say that it would not be unusual, especially if you spent a significantly larger amount of time working on sounds than on understanding.  Or if you aren't reading aloud regularly.  Or if it isn't a topic he has had much exposure to or is interested in.  There are a lot of factors to consider.  The more he finds things to read and wants to read, the better his comprehension will become.

Agree.My kid started a 1st grade phonetic class when he was around 3 y.o.  By the time he got to kindergarten, he could read any book at  the elementary school.  It seemed impressive, but I knew he did not understand anything more than The Cat  in the Hat. 

[Frances]

I’d say it was the opposite for my son. He could comprehend many adult level non-fiction books at that age, especially in his areas of interest, and had enjoyed listening to fiction chapter books since age three. But he had always been immersed in a language rich environment with tons of adult conversation, hours of read alouds every day, and lots of audio books. He simply loved verbal stuff and ate it up. I didn’t start teaching reading until six, almost seven, so until he was reading fluently several months later, his decoding was well behind his comprehension.

It sounds like math and piano are bigger passions for your son than verbal stuff. But I wouldn’t hesitate to push for further testing if you have concerns.

 

Edited November 3, 2019 by Frances

[Frances]

57 minutes ago, gstharr said:

Agree.My kid started a 1st grade phonetic class when he was around 3 y.o.  By the time he got to kindergarten, he could read any book at  the elementary school.  It seemed impressive, but I knew he did not understand anything more than The Cat  in the Hat. 

My sister said she saw this all of the time when she lived in Japan. Because non-character Japanese is such a phonetic language and lots of parents taught their kids it from a young age, many little kids could read way beyond their comprehension level.

[SKL]

Not only advanced learners, but IMO all learners can have widely different scores in decoding and comprehension.

It makes sense in your case for the comprehension to be well behind the decoding.  Aside from being young in terms of life experience, a 1st grader hasn't yet picked up on the "what are the writers of this test trying to get at" part of comprehension tests.  And that is totally fine, as you said.

I think you will get a better feel for his comprehension by asking him to explain stories to you after he reads them.  Preferably good literature stories, not the stilted weird passages they put on tests and worksheets.

[Cake and Pi]

Add me to the "there is no usual" camp. All three of my ALs have had comprehension scores 2-4+ years higher than decoding level (biggest gap for my dyslexic AL). I get these scores and am like, "HOW can they comprehend it without decoding it!?" And the psych just says they unconsciously fill in the gaps for words they can't actually read.