What level is my boy really at?

[hsingscrapper]

If this is on the wrong board, will the mods please move it?

 

I've often wondered if it's truly possible for a child to read at a 6th or 7th grade level but only really comprehend stuff at a Kindergarten or 1st grade level? He's 5.5 yo so I think he's really young for some of his abilities. We started OPGTTR a year ago this month so he went to Kindergarten ahead of the pack and was going to a first grade room for reading per the testing they did with both boys before the school year started.

 

Do you judge a child's reading level by the words he's able to sound out or what he's able to understand?

I'm just wondering how to really tell and how to proceed as I want to challenge the little guy but don't want to frustrate him. Here's where he seems to be at (to me anyway):

 

Reading: (see above)

Math: Late K/Early 1st (we're working through a 1st grade book but really slowly.

Handwriting: Letters & Numbers for Me (HWT, K) as his fine motor skills aren't quite there.

History: He can read SotW Volume 1 quite comfortably with very little help from us.

Science: we give him a break here and use dvd's and audio recordings of the Burgess Animal and Bird Books (www.librivox.org)

Spelling: I'm hesitant to start this as his handwriting skills just aren't there yet. We just started lowercase letters in handwriting today.

 

Any ideas?

 

Heidi

[abbeyej]

Yes, reading level is where *decoding* and *comprehension* meet. A child who can decode at a 5th/6th grade level isn't really "reading at a 5th grade level" if he isn't comprehending what he decodes as well as the average 5th grader would. (On the other hand, you can have a child who can comprehend and analyze well above her ability to decode, and that's normal too.)

 

Now, if you have a child who can decode at a very high level, it doesn't make sense to me to work on *decoding* at a lower level just because their comprehension skills aren't yet perfect. Find a way to challenge their comprehension skills instead... Ask them to think about what they've read, restate the meaning (starting with individual sentences and advancing to paragraphs, chapters, and whole books)... Ask questions about what they've read. Simple observational questions: "What color shirt was he wearing?" And then more advanced analysis type questions, "Why did she think he mother would be angry?"

[EKS]

Yes, reading level is where *decoding* and *comprehension* meet.

 

 

I agree with this except I would add one thing: fluency. So reading level to me is where the child decodes and reads fluently with comprehension. So to truly be at a 6th grade reading level one must be able to read and understand 6th grade text while reading approximately 150 words per minute (orally).

 

It sounds like your son is a strong reader and is working at grade level in other areas.

Edited January 30, 2009 by EKS

[Storm Bay]

Yes, they do have to meet, but usually the decoding skills come first. I have one child, however, who comprehended far above his decoding skills. Turns out there were vision issues, however (he needed to have one of his eyes patched--who knew? The differences weren't considered that bad by the eye doctor and he wears glasses).

 

If this persists, I'd keep an eye on it, as sometimes kids with learning differences or special needs are able to decode far above their abilities to comprehend, but I wouldn't worry about it at the age of 5, especially if everything else is going well.

[hsingscrapper]

Thank you all! My dh wants to ramp up because he feels ds is capable. I'd like to keep him little as long as possible. I'm not sure how to meet in the middle.

 

I don't want him to be bored with learning because it's too easy but I also don't want to frustrate him with something that's too hard for him.

 

Heidi

[ElizabethB]

Thank you all! My dh wants to ramp up because he feels ds is capable. I'd like to keep him little as long as possible. I'm not sure how to meet in the middle.

 

I don't want him to be bored with learning because it's too easy but I also don't want to frustrate him with something that's too hard for him.

 

Heidi

 

My daughter can decode at the 12+ grade level after working through Webster's Speller. Her understanding varies on the words used. She is learning a lot of vocabulary through her advanced reading skills.

 

But, she's still "little." She loves playing with children younger than her, and loves playing with her brother. I don't let her read depressing books with material for adults/older children. Emotionally, she's still little. She just reads big words, and has been able to for a while. Picture books are great--their reading grade level is for adults, they're meant to be read to children, not by children. She reads them to her brother. I am very selective in what I let her read, since a lot of what she "can" read is not age appropriate.

 

I also don't let her brag about her abilities, and for a while, she didn't realize she read better than most children her age. Now she knows, but she also knows that I'm good at teaching reading and that she's not as good at some things that other children her age are good at. (Throwing a ball, addition facts, etc. Her brother can throw better than her, and has been able to since he was 2!)

[hsingscrapper]

Picture books are great--their reading grade level is for adults, they're meant to be read to children, not by children.

 

That helps with reading in terms finding things that are definitely age appropriate. I'm afraid well-meaning dh might be tempted to push a bit too hard.

 

While he doesn't brag, big brother's reading level isn't on par with his age and I think ds9 feels bad about it. So I find myself encouraging ds5 to keep going at the rate he is but also having to give ds9 a boost as he feels, because he's older, that he should be ahead of his brother everywhere.

 

I'm a little lost as to what to do there.

 

Heidi

[Northernmom]

If a child can read and comprehend War and Peace, and wants to, (and you have no objections) then allowing them to do so is not pushing them and is not forcing them to grow up too fast. You can keep them "little" and meet their needs - it is not mutually exclusive - just individualize it to your child. We each have our own interpretation of what age appropriate means.

 

What I think you cannot do is allow one child's progress to dictate another's. It can be tricky, I know, but if a younger child is much more intellectually advanced than an older child it will play out eventually, no matter how hard you keep the brakes on the younger one. I think the concept of individual strengths and weaknesses is more easily accepted by a younger child (say now when he is 9) than an older one (like when he is 12 or 13).

Edited February 3, 2009 by Northernmom
clarification

[Nan in Mass]

Can you find something the 9yo can do that the younger one can't yet, either because of natural talent or size or age? A driving 16yo for example won't feel nearly as worried about having a 10yo in his algebra 2 class, since he is obviously more grownup than the 10yo is a way that is important to him. My older one was much, much better at people than his more academically advanced younger brother, and traveled by himself, and was generally much more grownup, so having his 4 years younger brother answering the physics questions faster and reading the same books for literature, didn't bother him much. We just said over and over again that one was better at people and one at academics. And it was obvious enough to both children to be ok.

 

About challenging and letting them stay children... I did this when mine was little by adding more subjects, rather than pushing the basic academics faster. Not that I held him back, but I let him do lots of stuff orally until he could write well, and we didn't do much in the way of textbooks, and I didn't start spelling or anything like that until he was about 7. Later, in middle elementary school, I let him use textbooks and materials meant for a much older child (to keep the input high enough) but didn't expect him to answer all the questions, or give as long answers, or write papers as well as I would have if he had been older. I didn't try to finish textbooks or expect him to concentrate on a subject for very long at a time. I was careful to keep "capable of" separate from "wants to". For example, I could, if I wanted to, sign my son up to take classes at the community college next year, and enter the engineering transfer program at the community college the year after. This would mean that he would be halfway to becoming an engineer before he turned 18. But does he want to work that hard? No. He wants to do other things, too, like play piano and do dungeons and dragons with his friends and mess about with his legos and do gymnastics and go sailing and snowboarding and hiking. He doesn't want to spend all his time with his textbooks. Because I haven't pushed him, he is willing (and always has been) to concentrate for me and work hard, but he does not want to be "rewarded" for doing hard things by having to do them longer and having to work much harder. Finding the balance point where he is working hard but not unreasonably so, and working for a reasonable amount of time, no matter at what grade level, has been a tough balance to find sometimes, since you have to figure out what reasonable is for this particular child, what is a reasonable amount of laziness and what is a reasonable amount of boredom and what is unreasonable struggling and what is being challenged.

 

I chose to challenge mine by adding in more subjects like art and music and foreign languages and sports and games. I got tons and tons of library books, all sorts of fairy tales and folk tales and geography and science and nature books and ones about people in the community, and told him to read them. I taught him to draw. I taught him to read music and play recorder and then he had piano lessons. We did chess. We got the more complicated lego sets with gears and then the robotix set. He learned to type. He messed about with programming computers. He learned to speak French. We did Latin. He did gymnastics. And I always made sure he had a few hours of free time each day to just sort of roll around on the floor and think about things, or build something, or play a game. He was learning all the time, but it didn't mean he was completing textbooks. Perhaps you can think of some things your husband would think it would be fun for him to be able to do, like play chess well or speak Spanish or play a musical instrument, and suggest adding those to challenge him, rather than more formal academics, if you are worried about it?

 

Some children are profoundly gifted and can go farther AND deeper AND do lots of subjects. And some are fine just doing one or two of those three things for "challenge".

 

-Nan

[Storm Bay]

If a child can read and comprehend War and Peace, and wants to, (and you have no objections) then allowing them to do so is not pushing them and is not forcing them to grow up too fast. You can keep them "little" and meet their needs - it is not mutually exclusive - just individualize it to your child. We each have our own interpretation of what age appropriate means.

.

 

 

I agree and yet not 100 percent. If my very young child could read War and Peace and comprehend it, and wanted to read it, but I knew that that particular child wasn't emotionally ready, I'd make that child wait. It wouldn't be pushing that dc intellectually at all, but I'd have to deal with all the questions and emotional issues that could come up. Of course, this eg wouldn't hold in our house, because I haven't read that book yet, so I'd actually have to preread it first to check on that part of it.

 

Each child is different--I have one who can read about phsyical brutality in history, but not about sad relationships in novels (actually, she's outgrowing that), and have other combinations in my other children.

Edited February 3, 2009 by Karin

[Northernmom]

Karin,

 

We're in agreement here. Taking into consideration each particular child's sensitivities and maturity is what I meant by "and you have no objections".

 

I just don't think anyone should be ruled by "he's 6 so therefore he should read 1st grade books". I have an extremely mature 11 year old who has been able to understand, handle and enjoy adult level fiction since he was very young. Allowing him to read those kind of books was not pushing him or taking away from his childhood. I have another child who's 9 now, and though he could read adult fiction, he would not enjoy it or be able to emotionally deal with the topics. At age 9 the older child was reading his way through Tom Clancy, Dean Koontz and the like. My current 9 year old reads Artemis Fowl and the Percy Jackson stories. My 11 year old would have hated reading the Artemis Fowl books at that age. My 9 year old has no interest in reading Clancy's "Without Remorse". They're each "little", and they're each enjoying and experiencing a childhood that is appropriate for them.

[ElizabethB]

 

While he doesn't brag, big brother's reading level isn't on par with his age and I think ds9 feels bad about it. So I find myself encouraging ds5 to keep going at the rate he is but also having to give ds9 a boost as he feels, because he's older, that he should be ahead of his brother everywhere.

 

I'm a little lost as to what to do there.

 

Heidi

 

You could try Webster's Speller and/or my phonics lessons with your 9 year old to try to get him up to speed (Webster's Speller diligently followed should get a student able to read at the 12th grade level when completed. My lessons make it easier to figure out how to use, they teach syllables as well, although in a slightly different format.) I'd also emphasize that he understands a lot more than your 5 year old, even if he can read the words, and that everyone has areas where they excel and areas that are tougher for them.

 

My daughter cannot throw well, but is very good at the monkey bars. She's also short, so she looks 4 or 5. She makes the little boys mad and when she can do far more rings than them. I always tell them and their parents that she's almost 7 and that I was a gymnast, and she inherited my talent (and body type.) The competitive boys with a football type build take it the worst. One little boy practiced for 30 to 45 minutes straight, very serious, after watching her. Eventually, they give up and get over it.

[Storm Bay]

Karin,

 

We're in agreement here. Taking into consideration each particular child's sensitivities and maturity is what I meant by "and you have no objections".

 

 

 

 

Got it. I was thinking of objections in other ways, I guess.

[hmschooling]

There's a great program to help improve oral reading fluency, comprehension, and is a step above phonics (in fact it goes up to 8th grade at least). It's from http://www.heartofdakota.com . Once done with phonics, a child does the emerging reader set. The "Beyond Little Hearts" guide has the schedule and comprehension questions already planned out for you. Then you move into "Drawn Into The Heart Of Reading" once you have an independent reader ready to read aloud. My dd7 has been an advanced reader all along. We did 6-7 weeks of MFW K phonics lessons and that's it...she's been reading ever since. She too read SOTW Vol. 1 by herself at age 6 with reasonable comprehension. She is doing Drawn Into the Heart of Reading this year and since there is analizing in it, I just got the Level 2 book pack to go with it. you can use your own books or get a book pack. I have seen wonderful improvement in her reading aloud, fluency and overall tone as she reads aloud, comprehension and analyzing for deeper understanding and enjoyment. It covers 9 genres and IMHO, it's amazing!

[Tree House Academy]

I agree. I consider my son to be reading at a 5th grade level. He is currently reading a book for 4th-6th grade levels and he is doing well...but he doesn't know every word when he comes to it and he doesn't always understand each word he reads...especially if it is a word that he didn't have in his vocabulary to begin with.

 

I did an online reading test with him and he scored a 5th grade reading level. I took the test myself and scored a college and above reading level. I know exactly where the disconnect was and it was in the ability to read and understand each and every word in the literature he was reading as it was given in context to the sentence. You had to choose the meaning based on the word and how it was used in the sentence.

[alexfam]

My 7 yo ds has been tested and he can decode words at a 12.8 grade level, his comprehension is 9th grade, however even through he can do these things he still wants to read books with pictures.