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-She makes 'sloppy' mistakes when taking tests (not paying enough attention to the question)
-She appears to need more guidance/support than average (again, if she is reading to someone and getting feedback, she is fine, but if she is on her own, she bombs)
This is my DD8.5, as well. She just got her report card to day and was in tears over her "B" in reading. One would think that a child who reads at a grade 6+ level would get an A in third grade reading, but not so for her. I tried my best to explain that the teacher can only tell how well she reads by listening to her read aloud and by how well she does on her comprehension exercises. Writing is a huge issue for her and her work is always sloppy and has a bare minimum of details. When reading, she doesn't even try words she does not know... she just sticks a random word in that starts with the same letter. Tonight, she read "Italy is the third most visited nation in Egypt" when I pointed out that the word was "Europe" she shrugged and ignored me. She didn't realize that word did not make sense and she didn't care in the least when it was brought to her attention. She had a general idea what the point of the sentence was, which was good enough for her. She practically needs someone to sit with her while she works through comprehension exercises. I used to wonder whether she was reading so fast that she was failing to understand well enough, but if she is asked the questions verbally she spews all the information easily. Again, writing is her Waterloo.... her hand just can't keep up with her brain and she can't make her letter look nice enough. She can't even get to the part where she worries about WHAT she is writing as the process itself is torture for her.
Your description of your daughter is very similar as to how I would describe myself. I always liked to read as a child, but I was never good at comprehension.
My problem with reading comprehension is 1. an eye tracking issue, 2. I hate to read anything that *I* am not interested in, 3. I skip "boring" parts, 4. Anything with length either can't hold my attention (ADD) or is filled with too much "fluff". 5. I am not good with vocabulary, and I very often refused to look up meanings of words.
I think this describes my DD's problem perfectly. She also has ADD and speed reads at an amazing rate (72 pages of Little Women in less than 30 minutes yesterday. She has admitted to skimming over boring parts, as well. That being said, when questioned verbally about what she has read she has amazing recall and memory for minute details.
It is so difficult to tease out the cause when performance does not correlate with ability. Is it a concentration issue, a comprehension issue, a writing problem, performance anxiety, perfectionism or some funky kind of combination of any of them? These creatures need to come wtih manuals! I wish I could add words of wisdom, but as you probably gathered from the beginning of this post... we are in the same boat. Good luck!
