Thanks everyone for the advice. I feel that part of it is just not enough time was devoted to reading in school and having trouble transitioning to books without pictures. When I look at DD7's vs. DD9's reading instruction the differences are stark. DD9's class read dozens of books and her reading score actually surpassed the growth target.
DD7's class was so different in that the teacher did not even read to the class and they only covered 1 chapter book for her book club the entire spring semester. I feel there was just no focus on reading for DD. The teacher just did not care.
DD7 reads some outside of school and when she reads she doesn't seem to struggle with words, but I feel that the problem lies in the fact that she still seems stuck on the same level of books as last year and is having trouble transitioning to books without pictures. At the end of Kindergarten she was reading Magic Treehouse, A to Z Mysteries, and Geronimo Stilton. I feel all of these gave her the 99% score.
Now I need for her to move up a bit more but it's challenging because the books lose all the pictures and plain text is not as exciting for her. Because her teacher never read these types of books to the class, DD had no one to model after (is very important for DD as she models who she's around) and she is losing focus on books. We are spending this summer trying to transition to books without pictures and find ones DD can be interested in.
