What do her reading errors look/sound like? Does she have a good grasp of phonics, and does she attempt to sound words out? Does she rely on picture cues? Can she sound out words of two or more syllables if they are large and the only word on the page? Does she seem to "get lost" on the page, mixing parts of one word with parts of another word on the same line, or on a line nearby? Does she skip over words? Does she follow the words on the page from left to right with her finger? Does she prefer to read in dim light? Has she ever mentioned that there are colors on a page that isn't printed in colored ink or paper? Is large print easier for her to read than small print? does she read more easily when there is only one line on a page? Does she mistake lowercase b for d or p or q when reading?
She knows her letter sounds but gets confused with vowel sounds and the y sound. She attempts to sound out unfamiliar words but is completely off when trying. Meaning if the word is 'picnic' she may start sounding it out as if it starts with the letter r. Most of the time she's nowhere near close to sounding it out successfully. She frequently skips lines and words. Usually the little words like 'of, the, at, this' etc.... She has a fairly good recollection of sight words, but generally only the longer words. Little ones like where, there, that, what, then, when, he, she, she confuses. She may know one word on one page, and then not recognize that word on the next page. She tries to follow along with her finger but her finger doesn't seem to stay with where she's reading. She's never mentioned colors when reading, but she has told me that the words move around or if I ask her why she skipped a word she'll tell me she didn't see it. She does better when there are fewer words on a page however, she'll still skip words. And she'll also fill in words that are somewhat similar.
While reading she doesn't confuse b and d or p and q. But she will write them backwards along with some other letters. While spelling she'll often have the right letters but in the wrong order. For instance, where might be spelled wheer or best would be bets. She reverses numbers more frequently than letters and will even transpose a number like 42 and write it as 24 instead.
Thank you for the information on HL readers.. I've never heard of that classification before. I will definitely look for them the next time we head to the library.
