Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion How rare

is it to have a 6 year old reading a 5th grade level book such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid? I had a meeting with our school principal today and she said it is very rare which surprised me. I realize my dd is advanced but I don't consider her abilities to be rare. Fwiw our school has actual self-contained gifted classes so I'm sure she's seen her share of gifted children.

That particular book (which is aimed at a much older audience), probably pretty rare. My DD's first grade teacher said she had multiple kids in her claim reading at fifth through seventh grade level at year end, so "reading a fifth grade book with large print and lots of white space," I wouldn't think would be that unusual for an older six year old.

I'd agree with AlexsMom that there are a lot of kids whose parents or others say that they are reading at a 5th grade level in 1st grade but that it doesn't necessarily mean the same thing it means in a child who actually comfortably reads at that level. My kids are girls and never read that particular series, so I don't know what exactly it looks like.

I do know, however, that my oldest was reading Harry Potter books pretty independently by 6.5 and that she was probably the most advanced reader in her 2nd grade class, which she started shortly before her 7th bd, so just a bit after that. There were definitely a number of other kids who were advanced readers, but more typical at 6-7 were the advanced readers who could read books like Junie B. Jones.

I think that type of "5th grade" level book is much easier than say reading a Harry Potter because of the way it is formatted( large print, white space and cartoons). I have learned to understand it is pretty rare- I did not realize it originally because it was all I knew!!! When they make the jump to the big novels is when I noticed the bigger shift. He took off reading at a completely different pace and level and really separated himself from his peers. So get ready! In fact friends would walk up to him with a " thick" book and say you will like this one- without even knowing the subject just because it was " thick" So you should love that your child is reading at that level and learn to love the library because I spend way too much money at half price books!!!!!

My 6.5 daughter has read all series of <> since she loves the story. I don't know how rare it is. But I think that in general girls are more advanced in reading especially at the early age. I know a girl who read Harry Potter at 1st grade.

My 6.5 daughter has read all series of <> since she loves the story. I don't know how rare it is. But I think that in general girls are more advanced in reading especially at the early age. I know a girl who read Harry Potter at 1st grade.

wierd, I typied Diary of a Wimpy Kid twice. But it didn't show up in my post.

Is Diary of a Wimpy Kid considered a 5th grade book? Most of the kids my kids went through school with were reading them by 3rd grade (and my kids weren't in a gifted-kids-only school). By the time they were in 5th grade they'd moved on to books with much smaller font and less white space like Percy Jackson etc (although those were also 4th grade books for in-class reading at school too).

polarbear

I'd disagree that girls are more advanced than boys in reading - but then I'm the parent of a boy who could read HP at 6, so my opinion is most likely very skewed

polarbear

To answer your rarity question.....On this forum? Not so rare, but it's skewed highly gifted. Elsewhere? Depends on where you live, the school population, etc. In our local school district, DS was the only one reading several grade levels ahead. Now, in his classroom of HG kids in 3rd grade, recently popular books include The Hunger Games, the cat Warriors, Fablehaven, Mysterious Benedict Society. DS said everyone's already read the Harry Potter books. Something for you to look forward to.

i also disagree with girls being better readers early on, having an early reading boy.

The Wimpy Kid series have accelerated reader ratings ranging from 5.2 to 5.8 and lexile measures of 950 to 1060. This does make them 5th grade books. Kind of (there are plenty of different ways to map grade level expectations to AR/Lexile, most of them slightly contradictory: http://library.springbranchisd.com/sbisd_library/reading_levels_comparison_chart.htm).

They are also short, clocking 3.0 AR point each (or about 20,000 words) which makes them sort of HiLo books -- they are harder than they look, but because they are short slower readers will be able to enjoy them.


But Percy Jackson *is* a 4th grade book -- the Lightning Thief has an AR rating of 4.7 and a lexile measure of 740. The difference is the length, over four times longer than the Wimpy Kid books.

I have to say that I don't completely trust these various rating systems. I find it odd that the Percy Jackson books are consider 4th grade while the Wimpy Kid books are 5th grade, especially when you compare them to other fifth grade books like Chronicle of Narnia and the early Harry Potter books.

Half of the second graders in DD/DS class last year were addicted to the Wimpy Kid books and reading them early in the school year.

I reviewed an excerpt of one of the Diary books and also found it easier than expected based on the Lexile rating. I've noticed plenty of other discrepancies with other books too. I consider the Lexile ratings to be only very rough indicators of reading level.

It really depends on where you live and keeping in mind that not all "fifth grade books" are created equal. The Wimpy Kid series I would say not that rare. If it were Harry Potter or Chronicles of Narnia, I would say kind of rare. There appears to be an extremely wide range of reading ability in K through 2nd grade, partly but not completely correlated to "giftedness". Even among my own children, the range narrows and widens depending on exactly at which point you compare.

DS8 was reading DoWK @ 6 but he also was reading Tom Sawyer, Robinson Crusoe, The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, Pinocchio, and Dr. Doolittle.

When he was being tested @ 6.5, the psychologist said Chapter books were a maturity boundary as opposed to a intellectual boundary even among gifted children

I consider the ratings on these books to be a good example of why Lexiles and AR ratings are flawed. IMO, you just can't realistically claim that these are 5th-grade books on a par with the first Harry Potter, the Lightning Thief, etc. I don't just mean "because they're sophomoric." They just don't require as much of a reader--indeed, they are designed to hook reluctant readers.

This is not to say that your kid is not a really advanced reader, though. What else is she reading?

FWIW, I would say 80-90% of the 2nd graders DD knows, designated gifted or not, have read this series. Most are bright, though. It is a pretty typical third grade read, I think?

Regardless of whether Diary of a Wimpy Kid is "truly" a 5th grade book, it's advanced for a first grade student.

I think it is an expectations thing. Our kids can generally read ahead and they also get the humor.

But we forget how many of their peers do not read that well in grades 1, 2 and even 3.

We know a develop challenged girl at the beach, a month older than DD and she did K twice, so is currently in grade 1. She is promoted to grade 2 (NJ) because she is starting to read words. I was rather shocked that she would be promoted. The math is also poor. DD's class has multiplicatin and division in grade 2, so I do not know how this kid will manage in grade 2 but she cannot be the only one reading at that level.

Ren

This is a sidetrack, but developmentally disabled or LD kids can't be held back grades forever with the hopes that they will eventually catch up. It is far better to go ahead and promote them and have them enrolled in special ed classes to remediate their LDs as best as possible. Some kids may never catch up. They can't stay in school forever.

Re whether DWK is a 5th grade book, I don't know. The relevance of that discussion is how rare reading it in 1st is, which is the original topic of the thread. I did get the impression that my dd who was reading HP & the Goblet of Fire at the end of 1st and going into 2nd was reading significantly better than most of the kids in her grade, but I do think that is legitimately a book that one would expect to be read in late elementary.

The kids whose parents gushed about how advanced their kids were in reading and how they were reading at 4th or 5th grade levels at age 6 or 7 and whose kids were reading Junie B. Jones were more likely falling victim to poor book leveling systems. I didn't get the impression that that level of reading in 1st was extremely rare in my area.

If the OP's child is one of the few or only kids reading the type of books he is, though, it is rare for their area and he probably needs more than his grade peers. DWK may be a challenging series, but I don't know on that one as well.

The closest thing to a widely-known scientific measure of grade-level in terms of rating reading material is probably the Flesch–Kincaid readability test. However, it has been noted that whether the student is interested in the material has a huge impact on whether they can read it.

Another approach to determining whether reading material is appropriate for the child is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). A ZPD rule of thumb is that a child will learn the most from reading material where they recognize about 90% of the words. Gifted children rarely encounter such texts in school, but usually manage to learn to read by reading what they enjoy.

In summary, don't look for reading levels to be mathematically precise. It's not a particularly helpful quest.

Not wanting to wander too far OT here, but since I was the poster who questioned DWK as a 5th grade reading level because most of the kids my kids went to school with read it much earlier, I just thought it might be worth noting my kids were attending a school which let kids choose whatever books they wanted to read and never tested or compared or drew lists from lexile levels past the point kids were reading anything on the level of very very early chapter books... so basically we had a "free-range" library and classrooms. I'm sure the students read DWK before choosing Warriors simply because of the cover, humor, and large font.

Re early reading and rare, I still think it would be helpful to know what the principal's interpretation of "rare" is - is it one or two kids per grade or 1 kid in 10 years. As others have posted above, general reading levels can vary a lot depending on the area you live in or school district emphasis/philosophy etc re pushing early reading... and there is a huge variability among when children learn to read, as well as a lot of "leaps and bounds" type progress among early readers of all abilities. It's jmo, but where we're at, I don't think finding a first grader who is reading DWK would be "rare" - it would be advanced relative to most of the kids in their first grade class, but I'm guessing that there would be at least 2-3 kids in each class my kids have been in who could read it. There were also at least 2-3 kids in their K-1 classes who seemed to be on the low end of the learning-to-read curve who were sensational way-ahead-of-grade-level readers by the time they hit 3rd grade.

polarbear

My verbally gifted twice-exceptional son could read his Alice in Wonderland script (5th grade level) before he turned 5 and started kindergarten but there were spaces between the lines on his script so it made it easier for him to read. It was the same with song lyrics. If he read anything with small print he would only read a sentence or two and his eyes would be too tired to continue but I could spell out the words in the next few sentences and he could name the words. When he had just turned 7 he read a paragraph from a Newsweek magazine for the developmental optometrist but he lost his place when he didn't keep his finger underneath the words. Vision therapy helped. His early reading ability was rare where I live. His comprehension was always very good and he picked up new vocabulary easily and liked to use it in his speech. I talked to several teachers and they had never seen another kid like him. We were told by the principal and some teachers that I asked for advice that we needed to homeschool him.

When my son was five and in kindergarten he had to bring something once a week for "letter of the week" show and tell. Since he was reading at a 5th grade level and I thought he needed to be doing more than letter of the week, I had him read a one-page report with his show & tell. We worked on the report together. He would dictate what he wanted to say and I typed it so that he could read it--it had to be double-spaced. I always checked the Flesch-Kincaid level after I typed it. The report he read when he brought his GPS for show and tell was about 12th grade level but he forgot two of the words when he read it to the class. I saw the report on the teacher's desk with the two words circled. I don't remember what they were but they were big words.

He was very interested in the things he chose to bring for show and tell so it makes sense that he wouldn't have any trouble reading his reports.

Fwiw she's a kindergartner... until tomorrow that is. Than she will be officially on her way to 1st grade. *sniff*

For our area I wouldn't personally consider it 'rare' as the principal suggested. In fact, that's why I had to ask here b/c to me it doesn't seem rare. Especially considering our school has self-contained gifted classes for the district starting in 2nd grade.

I merely presented it to the principal's attention to point out the differences between my two dd's who have had the same reading instruction and attention from me and are at two completely different trajectories and take this into consideration when looking at my older dd's dyslexia and her lack/rate of growth in reading.

Amazon lists DOAWK for ages seven and up. School Library Journal calls it "grades 5-8". Personally, my experience skews somewhere in the middle. Most of the kids I know who read it did so around 3rd-4th grade. Neither of my kids were into them; ds was more of a classic sci fi fan, and dd...well...her taste is kind of odd. She's the one who was reading Sylvia Plath in elementary school. (I blame her older sister.)

This.
We have friends who are fellow homeschoolers whose son was an extremely late reader: he really didn't "click" until around fourth grade. Three years later, he's reading as well as my son, who was your typically-aged early reader and progressed at a pretty standard pace, and my daughter, who read early and promiscuously (everything from Franny K. Stein and Frances the Badger to Sylvia Plath and Sharyn McCrumb).

For another piece of anecdata about rarity of higher-level reading at that age:

When my child was in K at a school for gifted kids, he and one other child were the only ones that I knew of who were reading books like Harry Potter. Most kids were either not reading or were reading at the Magic-Treehouse level.

For some reason, OP, I was thinking "6" = first. (Don't ask me why sicne I know most K kids end as 6yos).

For K, yeah, it's pretty rare to be able to read a real chapter book of any kind. DD was reading easy chapter books in K (mostly things like Puppy PLace and Rainbow Fairies, though she also delved into things like Judy Moody and Ramona; she was not at a Harry Potter level) and that was pretty unusual at her school and in our peer group. By first, though, a few kids were reading chapter books.

This is a great idea.

When Mr was in school he had to do the letter of the week thing as well. He would write a sentence or two on the paper as well as do the "craft" thing. The "craft" thing would get pretty elaborate with the various pictures conveying a short story. When I saw the other older kids' papers they would have the letter and one figure and nothing else.

This is probably not the best place to ask if early reading is rare. It seems less rare as we have met more families with HG+ kids. Although some very smart kids read much later.

DD now 7 read very early and it was hard when she started school. By 1st grade she had begun to choose books to try and fit in with the girls which were way below her level. After putting her in an HG program this year this has gotten a little better. I was very delighted after struggling to decide if we should let her read Hunger Games, because of content, that several other kids in her class were reading it as well! This was encouraging to us, and exciting for her. I worry about DS5 starting K in the fall. The school here seems to find early reading very unusual but we have met more and more kids who read from an early age. A lot of them don't go the traditional schooling route. Our school has an HG program at 2nd grade, pull outs in 1st and ability grouping and limited pullouts in K. It is still a big challenge to keep them engaged, and we did not meet other families with early readers until after DD7 was in the HG program. There were two kids who were reading in DDs K class which she started at 4.5, but they were not reading the kinds of things she was reading at home.

The AR test for Diary of a Wimpy kid is 5th grade, but it's not a very intimidating looking book due to the format. It's actually a good book for kids who don't like to read. A lot of kids I know have read them in 3rd grade.