Help for a Struggling 3rd grade Reader

[bookmomma]

I need some advice for my struggling third grader. He has had great difficulty learning to read and I don't know where to go from here.

 

He was in public school in K and 1st grades, the school wanted to hold him back, but we had already decided school was not for him. I started homeschooling him in what I classified as 2nd grade. He is an extremely bright boy, and was advanced in math and science. Of course, his reading and writing skills were poor. I worked very hard with him last year (often times doubting my decision to homeschool) and he has improved. He went from barely reading simple "leveled readers" with a lot of mistakes and reading very slowly to reading more fluently and with accuracy. He loves books and makes up his own stories all the times. It's just so difficult for him to read. Now we are in "3rd grade" but I feel that his reading level is still in second grade. He loves the Magic Tree House books. We are working through reading most of them because they are high-interest and somewhat educational. (I know WTM says not to read these, but we do what we can)

 

He is always picking up new words when he reads. He still works at sounding out the words he doesn't know. He does guess at words a lot when he's tired or distracted (which is 80% of the time). I just don't know where to go from here. I can't find much information on what he should be doing at this age.

 

So here's the list of my questions:

 

How do I know what "level" he is reading?

 

How do we progress in his reading, now that he has the basics down?

 

Is there some type of reading instruction I should still be doing?

 

How much time should he spend reading daily?

 

How much longer do I need to sit with him while he reads and help him along?

 

What are some good books for boys that are struggling with reading and REALLY need coaxing to get it done?

 

If anyone can answer one, some or all of these questions, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Thanks

[EarleneW]

My oldest just flat out dosn't like reading. I let him read whatever he will read within reason.

[beansprouts]

How do I know what "level" he is reading?[Q

 

Reading level assessments

 

How do we progress in his reading, now that he has the basics down?

 

I used the Pathway Readers with my dd (they have cc). The stories are interesting and engaging, and it was a way to ease her into more difficult material. You can purchase workbooks and teacher manuals, but we just read the books and discussed the stories.

 

How much time should he spend reading daily?

 

I loaned out my WTM to a friend who is interested in homeschooling... I think it recommends working up to 30 minutes of independant reading at this stage.

[Stacy in NJ]

I need some advice for my struggling third grader. He has had great difficulty learning to read and I don't know where to go from here.

 

He was in public school in K and 1st grades, the school wanted to hold him back, but we had already decided school was not for him. I started homeschooling him in what I classified as 2nd grade. He is an extremely bright boy, and was advanced in math and science. Of course, his reading and writing skills were poor. I worked very hard with him last year (often times doubting my decision to homeschool) and he has improved. He went from barely reading simple "leveled readers" with a lot of mistakes and reading very slowly to reading more fluently and with accuracy. He loves books and makes up his own stories all the times. It's just so difficult for him to read. Now we are in "3rd grade" but I feel that his reading level is still in second grade. He loves the Magic Tree House books. We are working through reading most of them because they are high-interest and somewhat educational. (I know WTM says not to read these, but we do what we can)

 

He is always picking up new words when he reads. He still works at sounding out the words he doesn't know. He does guess at words a lot when he's tired or distracted (which is 80% of the time). I just don't know where to go from here. I can't find much information on what he should be doing at this age.

 

So here's the list of my questions:

 

How do I know what "level" he is reading?

I wouldn't worry to much specifically about this.

 

How do we progress in his reading, now that he has the basics down?

He should read aloud to you daily. Do repeated readings. Meaning, have him re-read the same material several times. He should gain fluency each time he reads. This type of practice is vital.

 

Is there some type of reading instruction I should still be doing?

Do some type of phonics program to reinforce the daily reading. I suggest Reading Reflex.

 

How much time should he spend reading daily?

As much as you both can stand. I'd do it 2 or 3 times for 10 to 15 minutes daily. This is him reading aloud with you sitting next to him urging him along, helping him with difficult words.

 

How much longer do I need to sit with him while he reads and help him along?

2 years

 

What are some good books for boys that are struggling with reading and REALLY need coaxing to get it done?

Whatever he WANTS to read. The Magic Treehouse, The Boxcar Children, books written by Clyde Robert Bula.

 

If anyone can answer one, some or all of these questions, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

Thanks

 

Firstly, it sounds like you're doing a great job.

 

I had a very similar situation. I began homeschooling my oldest in the middle of second grade. At the end of second grade he wasn't able to fluently read a Dr. Seuss book like Hop on Pop. Fluency has always been his major struggle. He read slowly, sounding out each word, frequently forgetting words he had just read. He read like this from roughly Kindergarten through the end of 3rd grade. During the 4th and 5th grade his ability started to accelerate. He was and is a very strong math student. Generally, a bright kid.

 

Fastforward, Today he's a enthusiastic 6th grade reader. He independently reads at grade level school books with no problems. He reads for pleasure on his own time daily. Teaching him to read was a long hard slog. :confused:

 

Don't forget to work on his handwriting and spelling. Spelling will probably also be an issue for him. I suggest the Apples and Pears program or Spelling Mastery by SRA.

 

HTH, Stacy

[chiguirre]

Now we are in "3rd grade" but I feel that his reading level is still in second grade. He loves the Magic Tree House books.

 

If your ds is enjoying MTH books, I wouldn't worry too much about it. I know they say RL 2.0 on the back, but the text layout is much more mature than typical 2nd grade readers (like Sonlight's regular 2nd grade that uses Frog and Toad, Arnold Lobel and an easy-reader Bible). The vocabulary may be second grade, but lots of kids need a while to be able to face a whole page of text with a fairly small font and space between lines. If your think this is the problem, you could try something like DK Readers or Step Into Reading's last level which are for 2-4 grades.

 

We use Pathway readers, too and they're very useful for increasing fluency. There's no cc through 3rd grade although the older books do have some. You could also look at McGuffey's Readers for practicing reading out loud. They have short passages, so it's easy to read the same material repeatedly.

[bookmomma]

Handwriting was a problem last year, but I'm very strict on him. I watch him while he writes, and if he gets sloppy, I make him redo it. His handwriting has drastically improved (I think he just picked up bad habits when he was at school and nobody paid attention). He is now finishing a cursive writing workbook and writes SOOO much better.

 

We have had issues with spelling at times. I think it was because I assumed that he would memorize the words easily like I did as a child. I have gone through three different spelling programs. We now use Natural Speller and he does great. I realize that he needs a lot more practice and breaking the words down than what I was previously doing. When I tell him to create sentences on his own for his spelling words, he spells almost all of the words right (I mean words that are not spelling words).

 

He loves grammar! And he's a natural word wiz.

 

Thanks for your reply.

[bookmomma]

I bought McGuffey's Readers and have been using them as short reading lessons to make sure we didn't miss anything along the way. It's been a rough and winding road.

[bookmomma]

The guessing bothers me. How was he taught to read in school? It can take a lot of phonics instruction to undo the bad habits of whole language and it's aliases.

 

The school stressed sight words a lot in k and 1st grade. He would memorize the words and know them for quizzes, but then didn't know them when it came time to read a book?

 

I think he also has issues with tracking. He has a slight astigmatism (I didn't look up the spelling of that).

[mktyler]

How do I know what "level" he is reading?

Level is not important, skills and knowledge are. The important ones are:

1. Read each spelling (letter or group of letters representing a sound) once all the way through the word.

 

2. Sound-spelling correspondences. In my analysis of the words in 2 children's dictionaries, there are over 400. The typical adult level book has 300-350. Most reading programs explicitly teach less than 150.

 

3. Word parts that have meaning (morphemes) Prefixes, Suffixes, root words, etc.

How do we progress in his reading, now that he has the basics down?

Fluency comes about when word reading is quick and painless. Its a good sign that he is slowing down and working through unfamiliar words. Continue emphasizing this skill.

Is there some type of reading instruction I should still be doing?

ABeCedarian is a solid program. It is based on the concepts in Reading Reflex, but is much more thorough and presented in a more user-friendly format. The website is abcdrp.com has an assessment to help you pick the right level. This program also helps with spelling. And its reasonably priced. Later stages of reading are covered by REWARDS which helps with multisyllabic words and common affixes.

How much time should he spend reading daily?

If he is still struggling, I would make sure that he is reading aloud. That way you can correct him. Be sure to work through the word, not just tell him the word (the old If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish feed him for a lifetime phenomenon:)). You can just point to the part of the word he missed, and say, "this spells the sound ____, try it again.) If there are multiple parts he missed, sound out the whole word then read it. Then have him do it. Slow laborious work, but it retrains the brain.

How much longer do I need to sit with him while he reads and help him along?

Until his reading is smooth and accurate.

 

What are some good books for boys that are struggling with reading and REALLY need coaxing to get it done?

Just reading books may not be enough, and may exacerbate his proclivity towards guessing. Follow an intensive advanced reading program.

If he is reading fairly well (its hard to tell from the post) sometimes non-fiction books and comic books are more popular. Compendiums of comic book heroes can be found in the library. They tend to have short sentences but high levels of vocabulary --perhaps just the ticket.

I know it can be frustrating. I had to teach my daughter over 300 sound spelling correspondences explicitly, then how to read with prosody to help her comprehension. But now at 10 she reads anything she wants. Her tendencies are still there, and I still have her read out loud occasionally to make sure she reads her suffixes correctly, but she's confident and accurate.

 

You did a good thing taking him out of school. When he's reading well, he won't have any stigma attached to how long it took, he'll just enjoy reading. Just be patient and consistent (I know, easier said than done;))

 

Melissa

Minnesota

Reading Program Junkie

dd (10) dd(6) ds(4) ds(1)

[hornblower]

Have you had his eyes checked by a developmental optometrist? Both my kids have vision problems which required some vision therapy (which we did at home) & both of them are late readers. It could not be diagnosed by a regular eye exam - it's a special developmental optometry exam.

 

My ds had tracking issues and some of the exercises were reasonably easy - I just had him look at me and moved a pen with a bright cap slowly across (about 18" away from his face) and had him track it. I watched his eyes to see how he was doing. We did simple left to right, right to left and up and down. (the right to left was just as imp. as the left to right as he tends to lose his place from line to line - he needed to learn the 'carriage return' movement on old typewriters). His eyes used to jump ALL over the place. He wasn't focusing on one word long enough to do anything with it, and of course he was totally lost on the page.

 

Once straight lines were reasonably good, we incorporated waves & little 'bunny hops' for the eye exercises. There were some other exercises too. My dd actually needed special lenses & 'flippers' she needed to look through until her eyes focused, then flip them and again look until her eyes focused .... over and over again. Her eyes were just not able to focus quickly enough at the distance we use for reading, but this would not be caught at a conventional eye exam.

 

For reading ds continues to use a business card (a blank index card would work too) with a rectangular notch cut out of it in the top left corner. The notch is about 1/2 inch long and initially he used it to focus on a word at a time. Now that his reading has improved, I let him rotate the card so it's more of a V notch & he can see the whole line of text.

 

We still use it to chunk a word if he needs to sound things out.

 

For resources, for him I've used Phonics Pathways (just orally), Explode the Code (for written phonics) and the "Key Words with Ladybird" series (reading & writing) for sight words.

 

The Phonics Pathways Pyramid Reading Exercises book is very good as well for extra work on this.

 

The other thing you'll need is patience, patience, patience. It really does take years for some kids for everything to fall in place. At this stage, I'd try hard to ignore the levels and grades. Keep working, and as long as you're seeing progress, it's good. Obviously you'll want to reasses once in a while to see if you need to change approaches/resources, but this is one area where I think it's too easy to get caught up in a panic about it.

 

And of course keep a rich literary environment by reading out loud or getting audio books of things which are beyond his reading ability now. And I would encourage him to read whatever books he likes - I'd buy him more MTH books if he likes them.