Good book for practice in reading aloud

[lulalu]

What is a good anthology for ds (almost 9) to practice reading aloud with? 

Would McGuffey be good for this? 

He does a great job reading aloud, I just want to keep the skill developing. 

We used Pathway Readers for this, but he got bored with them, and they didn't offer much of a challenge. We did 1st through 3rd. So maybe 4th will become more challenging and have more variety? 

[Miss Tick]

For expanding deciding ability i had dd read aloud Wise Owl Polysyllables, by Don Potter, 2 pages at a time. 

For read aloud we had a lovely year reading The Great Big Enormous Book of Tashi. Not for any particular reason other than it was fun, and dd felt she had really accomplished something when we got to the end.

[Lori D.]

Somewhat similar to @SusanC, as part of our daily school schedule, we just for 20 minutes or a chapter and slowly went through lots of chapter books of high interest/good quality aloud together, buddy style "you read a page, I read a page". Made for some great memories together. 😄 

[PeterPan]

Does he need to read aloud like that? I had my dd do it a bit with some pathway readers because I had heard it was the thing to do. But really, she didn't need to. Given that you're saying he's blowing through the books, he may not either. Your time might be better spent working on latin, Punctuation Puzzlers, whatever.

If you really really want something, we're enjoying the Reach series from National Geographic. Paired fiction/nonfiction, professionally written, great pictures, great for discussion. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1305493524/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

BJU, Abeka, CLP all have readers too. My ds is hard to please and the National Geographic are easy to win with. 

[lulalu]

51 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Somewhat similar to @SusanC, as part of our daily school schedule, we just for 20 minutes or a chapter and slowly went through lots of chapter books of high interest/good quality aloud together, buddy style "you read a page, I read a page". Made for some great memories together. 😄 

We did a lot of buddy reading as he was learning to read. But now he hates it as he says it takes too long to read a book this way 😂 He reads on average a book every two days. 

[lulalu]

2 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Does he need to read aloud like that? I had my dd do it a bit with some pathway readers because I had heard it was the thing to do. But really, she didn't need to. Given that you're saying he's blowing through the books, he may not either. Your time might be better spent working on latin, Punctuation Puzzlers, whatever.

If you really really want something, we're enjoying the Reach series from National Geographic. Paired fiction/nonfiction, professionally written, great pictures, great for discussion. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1305493524/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

BJU, Abeka, CLP all have readers too. My ds is hard to please and the National Geographic are easy to win with. 

He still needs work with read slow enough and pronunciation. More the skills that make people want to listen to the reader. You know what I mean? 

He is past the skill of learning to read. He reads almost everything I put in front of him. We started Latin this year, and he is doing well with it and enjoying it. 

I just want him to keep developing the skill of being an interesting reader out loud. Maybe I am reacting to those I know, but there are some people who have preached, read books to kids, etc. that are so hard to listen to as they just don't have the skills down. 

[UHP]

Have you thought about doing readings of plays?

[PeterPan]

2 minutes ago, lulalu said:

I just want him to keep developing the skill of being an interesting reader out loud

What you're describing is under fluency, and Rasinsky has some wonderful materials for that. We've been using his poetry program but I have and like some of his other programs too (fluency with high frequency word phrases, building fluency through practice & performance, etc.)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirect/picassoRedirect.html/ref=pa_sp_mtf_aps_sr_pg1_1?ie=UTF8&adId=A019967911696LA6EEKZS&url=%2FPoems-Building-Reading-Skills-Professor%2Fdp%2F1425802397%2Fref%3Dsr_1_31_sspa%3Fdchild%3D1%26keywords%3Drasinski%2Bfluency%26qid%3D1616962249%26sr%3D8-31-spons%26psc%3D1&qualifier=1616962249&id=4912549709627306&widgetName=sp_mtf

Here's the 5th grade level of his Poems for Building Reading Skills. Obviously back up a bit, lol. Or not, you can see the samples. I started my ds with the gr1, because his oral reading was pretty atrocious (monotone, ignoring punctuation, etc.). Some of these series also come with cds of audio for each piece they're reading aloud. The Increasing Fluency series uses Jim Weiss for some of the cds. The Poems for Building Reading Skills uses a woman. Her high pitch voice was driving my ds bonkers, but that's just some hyperacusis on his part, bummer. But poetry and singing are BRILLIANT for working on fluency because you get a lot done in a short amount of time. I attended a whole webinar by Rasinski where he was talking about using singing in his reading clinic to help kids build their confidence. 

[Publia]

2 minutes ago, lulalu said:

the skills that make people want to listen to the reader

Maybe some audio books read by really great readers would be a good way to approach this? I think that this is something that is best taught mostly by modeling and imitation. For example, I read Treasure Island better because I've listened to Alfred Molina. 😉

[PeterPan]

3 minutes ago, UHP said:

Have you thought about doing readings of plays?

Exactly. If she looks for fluency workbooks on amazon, fluency performance, she's going to find tons of stuff. Scholastic, everybody has these. You can get them on history topics, fiction, whatever.

https://www.amazon.com/Partner-Poems-Building-Fluency-Comprehension/dp/0545108764/ref=sr_1_18?dchild=1&keywords=rasinski+fluency&qid=1616962249&sr=8-18 This is adorable.

[PeterPan]

Just now, Publia said:

Maybe some audio books read by really great readers would be a good way to approach this? I think that this is something that is best taught mostly by modeling and imitation. For example, I read Treasure Island better because I've listened to Alfred Molina. 😉

She could step it up by handing him the text to read along or by using a device with immersion reading that highlights the text.

[PeterPan]

https://www.amazon.com/Fluent-Reader-2nd-Timothy-Rasinski-ebook/dp/B00BLR854E/ref=sr_1_24?dchild=1&keywords=rasinski+fluency&qid=1616962249&sr=8-24

Oh look, Rasinski has an entire book on fluency. His site has lots of great free stuff too. Your library system might have some of the workbooks.

[Lori D.]

33 minutes ago, lulalu said:

We did a lot of buddy reading as he was learning to read. But now he hates it as he says it takes too long to read a book this way 😂 He reads on average a book every two days. 

lol. Then a reader**, or a book of short stories, or a volume of myths/folktales/fairy tales sounds perfect. 😉 

You can still make great book memories together with your family read alouds. 😄 

**ETA:
You might also consider some vintage readers such as Ginn Basic Readers:
Roads to Everywhere (gr. 4 reader)
Down Story Roads  (gr. 4 enrichment)
Trails to Treasure (gr. 5 reader)
Along Story Trails (gr. 5 enrichment)

Or some of the volumes from the vintage multi-volume anthologies that go from nursery rhymes up through excerpts from classics:
My Bookhouse
The Children's Hour
Journey Through Bookland

Edited March 28, 2021 by Lori D.

[PeterPan]

15 minutes ago, lulalu said:

We did a lot of buddy reading as he was learning to read. But now he hates it as he says it takes too long to read a book this way 😂 He reads on average a book every two days. 

Very nice! So then short, just poems or something really targeting fluency skills. 

[PeterPan]

One of the reasons fluency is so hard is because of all the SKILLS they're doing at once to make it happen. The Poems for Building Reading Skills series is particularly nice, because they give you workpages to *dig in* on each poem. As he rereads the poem, he will IMPROVE his ability to do this processing. I call it "multi-processing" haha, because they have to process so many things at the same time. I think if you look at the samples you'll see what I mean. They're going to get him processing the reading on a bunch of levels, which will improve his understanding and what he brings to it. And he'll have the audio track to read with it, so he'll come out sounding good. 

Like your ds, my ds wanted like some kind of bat outta... and the audio track is so good for slowing that down and being really intentional. I throw the tracks onto my phone and then it's easy just to hit play for the next one. I keep the poem models printed in page protectors in a notebook and the student worksheets in a folder in the notebook. There may be an easier way to set it up, lol, but that's what I do. 

[Publia]

7 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

She could step it up by handing him the text to read along or by using a device with immersion reading that highlights the text.

Yes, I agree with this. I have had DS read along with an audio version for some books, and it works really well!

[PeterPan]

4 minutes ago, Publia said:

Yes, I agree with this. I have had DS read along with an audio version for some books, and it works really well!

Any particular books or types of books you found worked well with this? I remember being in 6th and listening to audio of novels while following along. However ds is not that skillful, lol. We tried immersion reading several years ago and flopped. Like the idea is there, but he wasn't quite ready to DO it. It's in my would like to make happen pile, sigh.

My dd would go back and forth, audio and reading of a book. So she did that with the Little House series, where we had all the audios and she'd go back and forth. Strong readers are often eye reading 3X the rate of an audio track.

Edited March 28, 2021 by PeterPan

[PeterPan]

I was just having a chuckle realizing we were essentially doing our own poetry for fluency program when dd was little. In the early years, she memorized or had as a focus a poem each week. So there are definitely lots of ways to skin a cat on this.

[domestic_engineer]

I’ll be a voice of dissent or discouragement.   😛

My kiddo is a strong reader and really doesn’t  like to read aloud, with expression, etc etc. I know he COULD read with expression when he was younger and just finishing up his “learning to read” years. And this kid has listened to many well done audiobooks, so he KNOWS what it  should sound like. When he’s horsing around with his siblings I hear him making voices up and varying his pace etc. So again, I know he is ABLE  to do it. And yet .... it doesn’t happen in his reading. 

I tried the McGuffey readers for a short time. I tried having him read picture books to younger siblings. But no success.  (Actually it led to anger on my part  because I felt like I was always correcting him on the same things  😞)

He’s a fast reader like your son. So I wonder if he gets really irritated by the slower pace that reading aloud requires. So he reads fast just to get the detestable, waste-of-time thing done. I don’t know. But I’ve basically given up on requiring him to read “with style” and hope that when he really has to or wants to read aloud with expression, he will choose to do it.   I still make him read some stuff aloud like the lesson portion of Writing and Rhetoric, and we’ll do it buddy style to save both of our voices ... but it’s no longer a goal that I’m actively pursuing with this kid. 
 

 

[Xahm]

Not exactly an answer to your question, but I'm having my daughter, who is a fantastic reader, read Anne of Green Gables aloud with me. I want to be sure that as she's learning more and more vocabulary through her reading, she's practicing saying those words aloud as well, and Anne certainly uses a wider vocabulary than is typical, while still being interesting for an 8 year old. I think many of us who were prodigious readers as children have stories of being completely surprised, and even embarrassed, by how words are actually pronounces, and I want to avoid that as much as possible for my kids.

 

[Publia]

27 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Any particular books or types of books you found worked well with this?

Harry Potter (Honestly, Jim Dale *makes* these books for me!)

Narnia series (the series that has Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, and Kenneth Branagh)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Dale, who is always good, but he's not quite as essential here as he is to HP)

We've done this with some Shakespeare too, although not a full play yet, just scenes, and sometimes I use a film clip instead of audio. I think the audio of plays tends to be faster than the audio for novels, especially the ones read for children, and I think it would be potentially hard to keep up with the words on the page at the same time unless you were already relatively familiar with them. We'd already read and gone over the meanings of the words before I turned on the audio/film.

Edited March 28, 2021 by Publia

[caffeineandbooks]

39 minutes ago, Publia said:

Maybe some audio books read by really great readers would be a good way to approach this? I think that this is something that is best taught mostly by modeling and imitation. 

This.  If the reading he hears done aloud is done excellently, he will be more likely to read aloud excellently, and in a situation like @domestic_engineer mentions, this can help him understand that the skill and purpose of narrating an audiobook (using volume, pacing, tone, etc to captivate an audience) are different than reading to yourself (for information or entertainment).

You might also consider having him memorize a poem, fable or similar specifically for recitation.  He says it to the mirror until he has it down, then he says it for the family at dinner or during school time, and then if possible, he might say it for a slightly larger audience.  Because it's memorized you're able to work on presentation/public speaking skills separately from decoding.

[lulalu]

15 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

I’ll be a voice of dissent or discouragement.   😛

My kiddo is a strong reader and really doesn’t  like to read aloud, with expression, etc etc. I know he COULD read with expression when he was younger and just finishing up his “learning to read” years. And this kid has listened to many well done audiobooks, so he KNOWS what it  should sound like. When he’s horsing around with his siblings I hear him making voices up and varying his pace etc. So again, I know he is ABLE  to do it. And yet .... it doesn’t happen in his reading. 

I tried the McGuffey readers for a short time. I tried having him read picture books to younger siblings. But no success.  (Actually it led to anger on my part  because I felt like I was always correcting him on the same things  😞)

He’s a fast reader like your son. So I wonder if he gets really irritated by the slower pace that reading aloud requires. So he reads fast just to get the detestable, waste-of-time thing done. I don’t know. But I’ve basically given up on requiring him to read “with style” and hope that when he really has to or wants to read aloud with expression, he will choose to do it.   I still make him read some stuff aloud like the lesson portion of Writing and Rhetoric, and we’ll do it buddy style to save both of our voices ... but it’s no longer a goal that I’m actively pursuing with this kid. 
 

 

Yeah, my ds reads aloud so fast. I think it is just hard to slow down when he can read so fast. 

He is an only so he has no one younger to read to. And we just moved at the beginning of the year, so currently no little friends either. 

 

[caffeineandbooks]

4 minutes ago, Publia said:

sometimes I use a film clip instead of audio. I think the audio of plays tends to be faster than the audio for novels, especially the ones read for children, and I think it would be potentially hard to keep up with the words on the page at the same time unless you were already relatively familiar with them. We'd already read and gone over the meanings of the words before I turned on the audio/film.

The film clip is a great option!  Also remember that many audiobook apps have a "speed" option so you can slow it down (or indeed speed it up if you have the opposite problem).

[lulalu]

We have done a lot of audiobooks. And not to toot my own horn, but I read aloud very well. And we have read everyday of his life. 

He knows what good reading sounds like. He just goes quick. And still needs some practice. Punctuation will get him sometimes. 

[lulalu]

He has followed along with Harry Potter as he listened to the audio. 

That one got us through lockdowns last spring! 

[PeterPan]

15 minutes ago, lulalu said:

He just goes quick.

The other handy thing about poetry is you can put an index card under each line and control the pacing. And with my ds, that's fine if he wants to read like a rocket, but he's just going to reread till he is doing it along with the audio track and doing it right, lol. Eventually they pick up the clue phone and they're like fine, I'll just read it right.

Are you thinking he's got some ADHD going on? That's sort of that impulsivity piece showing up. Means you can also use some self awareness and mindfulness strategies to calm it down.

Edited March 28, 2021 by PeterPan

[lulalu]

52 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

 

Are you thinking he's got some ADHD going on? That's sort of that impulsivity piece showing up. Means you can also use some self awareness and mindfulness strategies to calm it down.

Yes, he has a lot of signs. And it runs in the family on both sides. 😂 Ds never stops talking all day long! He talks a mile a minute! 

[domestic_engineer]

2 hours ago, lulalu said:

Yeah, my ds reads aloud so fast. I think it is just hard to slow down when he can read so fast. 

He is an only so he has no one younger to read to. And we just moved at the beginning of the year, so currently no little friends either. 

 

Just brainstorming some options here ....

Does he have younger cousins with whom he could have a zoom storytime?  Or record and post on a private YouTube channel?  (Hmmm  maybe I should try these ideas that just came to mind!  Hahaha)

make him “volunteer” to read for librivox?

 

you asked for an anthology .... the kiddo I mentioned enjoyed memorizing and reciting Jabberwocky and Shel Silverstein (of his own accord!).  So maybe some silly poetry would motivate your son?

I’ve always wondered in the back of my mind, too, if this refusal is a bit of perfectionism on kiddo’s part. “I can’t do it as perfectly as Jim Dale or my mom, so I won’t do it.”  Again not helpful on my part, just commiseration.

[PeterPan]

1 hour ago, lulalu said:

Yes, he has a lot of signs. And it runs in the family on both sides. 😂 Ds never stops talking all day long! He talks a mile a minute! 

So what happens if you do some mindfulness and attention to breath or heartbeat for 5 minutes before you start into this? 5 minutes of mindfulness gives you a 30% EF bump. Might put him in a better place to slow down, be calm, attend to the goal, hold it in, get it done.

[lulalu]

30 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

So what happens if you do some mindfulness and attention to breath or heartbeat for 5 minutes before you start into this? 5 minutes of mindfulness gives you a 30% EF bump. Might put him in a better place to slow down, be calm, attend to the goal, hold it in, get it done.

Good idea- I will try it tomorrow 

Mindfulness has been hard for him, but we have been working on it, and he is getting better. 

[lulalu]

44 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said:

Just brainstorming some options here ....

Does he have younger cousins with whom he could have a zoom storytime?  Or record and post on a private YouTube channel?  (Hmmm  maybe I should try these ideas that just came to mind!  Hahaha)

make him “volunteer” to read for librivox?

 

you asked for an anthology .... the kiddo I mentioned enjoyed memorizing and reciting Jabberwocky and Shel Silverstein (of his own accord!).  So maybe some silly poetry would motivate your son?

I’ve always wondered in the back of my mind, too, if this refusal is a bit of perfectionism on kiddo’s part. “I can’t do it as perfectly as Jim Dale or my mom, so I won’t do it.”  Again not helpful on my part, just commiseration.

Good ideas, I am sure his cousins would like a video call with him reading. 

[Creekside5]

One idea is to give the activity a purpose or reason.  My fourth graders regularly recorded picture books for the kindergarten and first grade classroom.  This was before "audible" existed.    Is there a younger cousin or neighbor she could create an audio version of a picture book for? My students had to practice reading the book out loud 3x. Then, they had to read it out load for me before they could record their version. They really enjoyed giving this gift to the younger classes and it improved their fluency! 

[PeterPan]

On 3/28/2021 at 8:23 PM, lulalu said:

Good idea- I will try it tomorrow 

Mindfulness has been hard for him, but we have been working on it, and he is getting better. 

It's a little pricey, but this curriculum is the BOMB, HIGHLY recommend. https://www.kelly-mahler.com/product/the-interoception-curriculum-a-step-bystep-guide-to-developing-mindful-self-regulation/