Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional reading comprehension issues, please help!

Hello. Our son tested highly gifted when he was in kindergarten and then again at 2nd grade. He taught himself to read and write at 2. Now at 8, he is constantly researching things he is obssessed about...and there are many. He is also writing about whatever facinates him, we have learned so much just from reading the "books" he has written. However, reading non-preferred stories is quite a struggle. Whenever his teacher asks him to re-tell stories which he just read beautifully, he can't. His test scores are so poor in reading. His teachers can't figure out what the problem is, nor can we. We think that he either won't focus because he doesn't think it's worth his time or that he focuses so much on reading it nicely but forgets to understand the story. Does anyone have any ideas?

That sounds just like my DS6. He researches and makes books, too. I find it hard to get him to read anything that isn't a reference book. However, lately he has really enjoyed reading Roald Dahl books.

His reading level is high at school, but not as high as it should be. I am told by his teacher that he takes a long time to retell, and doesn't seem to comprehend the story. Whereas at home he has no problem retelling anything, and clearly understands the text since he writes a summary in his "book".

My son was starting to not want to read at all, so I asked his teacher if it would be okay if he just reads his own books for homework, and her choice at school and progress to the next level at a slower rate; this has helped my son feel less pressure to force-read boring stuff all the time. I also found it helpful to pick books that have relatable characters, or some grown up silliness.

Reading aloud followed by retelling sounds like a goofy test to me, maybe because I wouldn't be able to do it myself. My memory for a story absolutely depends on me visualizing it, then my narrative is quite complete (just don't ask for character names.)

I'm with Portia that there are so many other measures.

I'd be looking to narrow it down to just what contrast between what he does himself vs. this specific measure isn't working.

Some possibilities:
The material is so easy he can't engage with it.
He is so visually oriented such that reading aloud conflicts with his ability to store the information. Or speech takes an inordinate amount of concentration.
He is very factually oriented and actually doesn't have a good sense of narrative or storytelling.

So, casual contrasting tests:
Can he read aloud in a subject of interest and retell the content?
Can he read a piece to himself then retell it?
Can he read a piece to himself and then write out the content?
Can he name the parts of a story?
Can he generate a complex story himself (on any subject he likes) structured as a story with a main character?

(p.s. apparently I write slowly slow response too; as two more popped in as I was typing this.)

Zen Scanner, what would being able to retell after reading to yourself rather than out loud tell you?

That would make me think that speech processing is eating a huge chunk of processing speed. Whether performance anxiety or just a hidden and well compensated speech challenge or some similar factor.

Interesting. I'm now thinking about those easy books being read aloud, and the harder ones being read to himself... At least up until a few months ago; he can retell after reading aloud these days (admittedly, I never asked him to retell any of the hard books until a few months ago).

I have one like that.

It depends very much on the assessment; many of them are poorly designed IMO. We had "remedial" scores on both Fountas and Pinnell and DRA, but using the Reading A to Z benchmarks, far ahead of grade level. The latter test is more specific in what it asks the student to recall/retell, not just "tell me about the book."

DeeDee

My six year old son had the same issue at school. After meeting with the reading teacher, and talking to him about it, it became apparent that he wasn't really paying attention to what he was reading at school, because it was too easy and boring. They realized he was just decoding, but thought that he actually was unable to comprehend what he was reading. Since he reads high school level science texts at home and tells me about what he read, I knew that wasn't true.

We had a long talk about how sometimes one has to pay attention even if it is boring, and that he had to prove that he was comprehending by being able to retell the story in detail and answer questions. He thought it was hilarious when I told him that it didn't matter if they gave him book about princesses eating pink cupcakes - he had to pay attention. Then we practiced at home, and he learned how to do it. I let him cheat at first by looking at the pages, but after a day or so he was able to do it. He is able to retell at school now. Of course, they thought he just started comprehending what he was reading, but after he scored in the 99% in reading when he was being tested for the gifted program, I think they finally believe me.

We also worked hard to find fiction books that interested him for him to read at home. He was completely uninterested in reading fiction until we started reading Captain Underpants books aloud, and then he started reading it alone.

I also think it's important to not let them skip the easy work.

Something I remembered, I think one problem my son had was trying retell a book that didn't have much to it. Each page would only have 20 words, and I think he found it hard to retell without just repeating word for word what was written. I think he was overthinking it lol. We would take it in turns so he could hear an example; I'm not sure if this was the case since he caught on quickly, but it's something I am now suspecting.

You've already gotten a lot of great advice from the other replies, so I'll just make a suggestion again - it's important to get the details of how the assessment is being done at school - ie, is he reading aloud or silently, what type/level of book/story, what type of questions are asked, how are they asked etc. If you could also let us know the name of the specific assessment the school is using that might help us give feedback.

I've had two of my children not test well on reading comprehension in early elementary - I'll explain what happened with them, just for food for thought - it might not be relevant to your ds at all, but maybe illustrates how complicated the answer to your question can be, because there are all sorts of reasons a child might not test as well at comprehension as you'd expect.

I'll also mention that my eg ds who was reading way way waaaay above grade level starting in K was only interested in reading non-fiction until 4/5th grade and even then it was a bit of an odd twist how he was motivated to read his first fiction book that he actually enjoyed. Although he did enjoy Captain Underpants when he was younger It's been much easier once he was in upper elementary and surrounded by other boys reading fiction to get him to enjoy reading some of the popular series (even though he had the ability to read them much younger). He's also enjoyed the books he's read in middle school too - so I think that part of what many parents of young boys experience in early elementary is simply that there aren't all that many interesting fiction books out there that appeal to young boys as independent readers, but there are tons of non-fiction books for that age range. Non-fiction is the type of thing a child with a high level of reading ability can pick up and enjoy no matter level, whereas fiction books tend to come with more age-appeal for older kids/adults at the higher level of reading that many of our kids are capable of.

Back to our experiences with testing comprehension - my EG ds' school only used DRA when he was in K-2 grade, and they weren't expecting kids to read way ahead of grade level. If your school is using something similar to DRA - where they work the way up through levels and the child has to pass level "whatever" test to get to level "whatever + 1" and be tested there - suggest they start at a really high level just to see if perhaps it's an attention/boredom/lack of interesting challenge issue.

That said, once he got past K-3 level books (DRA type testing)... my ds was not able to summarize what he'd read - not because he didn't understand and comprehend; he's got a memory of detail that's beyond amazing, and if you asked him to retell a story he would, when he was younger, start at page 1 and try to tell you every single darned detail that happened. When he realized that's not exactly what people are asking when you're asked to "summarize" he was stumped, and to this day (7th grade) this is still a skill he has to really work at. There's a disclaimer here - ds has an LD that impacts written expression, and this is a piece of that LD puzzle for our ds, but achild with no LDs might have a difficult time with an instruction to "summarize" if they are a child who remembers things in a very detailed way.

MY HG+ dd who is finishing up 3rd grade has a very subtle reading challenge (she has difficulty with sight-sound symbol recognition). Like your ds, she started reading early and she was at the top of her class in reading for the first year or so of elementary school. Then she started to appear less ahead and more "typical" in her reading skills. Her school uses AR reading tests which ask specific questions and you have to get a certain number correct to pass each test - and dd had the *toughest* time passing the AR tests... until she finally worked her way up to testing at a higher reading level, and now she finds the tests are much easier. It might be easy to chalk that up to a gifted child being bored with the reading and the test, but what was really happening is she's skipping or not understanding individual words and she's reading from context, and it is easier to pull together meaning when you have a lot more story to read.

I also have another daughter who has never had an issue with summarizing or retelling you what she's read. She has a fairly detailed memory and can recall small details in what she's read, but she's also not stumped by the request to retell or summarize. She also *really* likes to write stories. I think sometimes things like this simply are a function of who we are as individuals, so I wouldn't worry too much about your ds not being able to show his comprehension as long as you feel you know he's reading ok. If you have any concerns, or if you think the school is holding him back from where he should be placed because of it, I'd suggest you request (in writing) a full reading evaluation; this would include an oral reading test along with other types of tests - basically the type of eval a student would go through for dyslexia - an eval taht tests a broad spectrum of skills used in reading. If there is something that is holding your ds back, you'll find it this way. ALSO - if your ds doesn't have an issue with comprehension, the benefit to an eval such as this is comprehension will be tested in different ways and you'll most likely see he's a-ok but just has an issue with the one type of test he's taken so far.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I haven't seen this mentioned here, and it may only apply in higher grades, but DD sometimes gets reading comp questions wrong because she overthinks (classic gifted kid stuff). I keep reminding her that she needs to look at it from the angle of "What do they WANT me to put?", and "What is the simplest right answer?", etc, not "What other answer might possibly be correct if I looked at it from all angles, microanalyzed the meaning of the word 'is', and used my knowledge of speciation?"

Thanks to everyone. I never thought that reading aloud or silently made a difference. I will ask him to read silently next time, then retell as he usually reads his books that way. However, he only prefers factual books like Ancient Egypt and snakes, etc. Fiction or stories are just so hard for him. He retells facts and stories associated to the facts. His teacher says he is definitely better when the story is read to him.

I have no idea what level they have him reading and are testing at but *I* failed multiple comprehension quizzes at the back of my kid's lower level readers. I would read along with my DD, be too bored to retain anything and then get to questions at the end that half the time weren't even about the text but were about extra details from the pictures!! ("What colour is mama bear's scarf?").

Is it possible to test his comprehension at the level he reads at home just to see what happens? They don't test 5th grader's reading comprehension skills on kindy books, but kindy kids reading at a 5th grade level have to be able to prove they still have "comprehension" skills that they either never needed or have long since forgotten.

Our son also taught himself to read at 2, though he is not really an avid reader, certainly not of fiction. He does well on most parts of a reading test but not on the DIBELS "retell" portion. I could probably train him to pay attention to the boring stories, but it hasn't seemed worth the bother yet. In any case the OP's situation is evidently common in the gifted population.

but achild with no LDs might have a difficult time with an instruction to "summarize" if they are a child who remembers things in a very detailed way.


This.

My DD had a really awful time with "summarize" because even if you tried to gently explain that she needs to "leave out all but the most important details" then she'd claim, well-- but if it wasn't IMPORTANT, then it wouldn't have been part of the story.

LOL.

She still gets multiple layers of meaning out of more advanced literature, which is problematic since this is a higher order literacy skill than recall or simple analysis...

and wowie, do the lower level Bloom's questions lay her out sometimes. Multiple choice is the. worst. that way for kids like her.


"Choose the answer which best represents the passage's meaning:"

(Augh)

Because they can LEGITIMATELY argue that two, none, or all of the answers are equally correct; and be right about the logic. It's just that the level of questions is so far below my DD's reading level that they miss the mark completely.

We've also run into problems that I'd say are far more directly related to asynchrony there. My DD, by virtue of being a VERY young reader relative to her peers, has a different set of life experiences than her more typically developing peers. This can show up in some surprising ways when she assigns a completely idiosyncratic connotative meaning to something that was supposed to mean something specific to everyone. Well, not to her.

It's really opened my eyes to just HOW flawed multiple choice assessment actually is, and why it's profoundly toxic to use it to assess learning or achievement. I never realized how much they hurt outliers until I watched it in action.

Yup--this is my DD, too. Yes, well, that's TRUE...I really see your point...and YET...what did they WANT you to pick? (I refrain from adding, "Think like a not-very-smart person...")

BTW, at least once this year, DH, DD, and I ALL picked the wrong answer on a reading comp question. Third grade, people. Lots of brainpower in the room. We puzzled over it together. All of us were quite mystified. I still don't know what the right answer was! (They all seemed wrong.)

We worked VERY hard last year with DS9 on "retelling" and event order, and summarization. These are all things that show up on the state end of year tests, so it was important that he understand how to give the expected answer. He would have rather basically re-told the entire story to you, but he's learned, thankfully, how to identify the types of events that most people consider important in retelling a story. (Granted, he personally still prefers to emphasize other parts of the story, or retell the entire thing.)

All this retelling stuff is interesting to me because I don't feel like we've ever encountered it. At least, I've never heard anything about it from DD or a teacher. I don't know if this is variable by state. DD doesn't seem to be evaluated for reading level like other kids here are (in fact, I don't think I've ever been given a reading level for her, not that I care). She does have to summarize a lot on assignments, which is not an issue for her, so maybe it's a strength and that's why it doesn't come up.