Hi
My DS6 is in grade 1. I am puzzled by his reading abilities and wondering if anybody has any insight...

He has been able to read since before junior kindergarten (at the observation day that year we watched as he read a picture book more quickly than the SK kids in the teacher-led reading group).

He _can_ read and understand passages that are well above his grade level (not sure what the ceiling is but at least grade 4 I would think). However he still resists reading longer text and struggles with reading out loud. When I have him read a longer text to me, it seems to me that he gets lost on the page; he loses his spot constantly and has to re-find it.

Although he is interested in chapter books he prefers being read to. He sometimes seems OK with comics, or books with shorter passages and bigger text but mostly he asks me to read these to him as well.

His class is currently using a program called Raz-kids for reading practice. He asked his teacher to put him at level 'Q' (which is grade 3 level), which, again, he can read the words (only a few he didn't know because of not encountering before) but he gets discouraged and gives up quickly.


We have had his eyes tested this year and everything is normal. He doesn't complain about his eyes hurting or being sore. But he does seem to to better with larger text.

My DD9 never had this issue, but I think reading is her 'superpower' - she reads faster than I do - so maybe not a good comparison.

I am wondering if this is a developmental thing and he will improve his stamina and reading ability over time? Or should we be concerned/have him assessed?

It's quite normal at that age for kids to have trouble keeping their visual attention focused on exactly the right spot as they move along. Have you tried having him track with a finger under the words, or with a bookmark or other straight-edge under the line that he's on? (I used the bookmark trick myself probably through 5th or 6th grade.)

Yes, that has been suggested to him. He doesn't think he needs to because he can already read!
Also, he doesn't really sit still enough to do this easily. I got him through one book by pointing out to him where he was, but it was an effort.

He may have visual integration issues - or just age appropriate visual integration. My middle child learned the alphabet at 2, but didn't learn to read until a bit before 5 and we had significant struggles with any book that was in a crappy font, poorly laid out, etc. Even at 8 she's still restricted by font size and text density on the page, what she's ready to read comprehension wise is well ahead of the amount/density of text her eyes can manage on a page. Tracking is just too hard for her otherwise. My eldest used a bookmark as MegMeg describes until about 10 I think, and did not become a prolific reader until that age. Youngest child had the alphabet and was sounding things out on signs in public at 18 months but still isn't reading at 4.5... I imagine she will take off shortly like her older sister did and I am pretty sure that physical eye readiness/eye teaming/tracking is a major impediment for them.

Thanks for the replies! It's helpful to know this happens with other kids.

Last night I tried doing the Raz-kids website with him and I covered up most of the screen with an envelope so that he only needed to look at the line he was reading. This worked much better than using a finger, or even a ruler! I think it's partly losing his place and partly being discouraged by the amount of text.

But working this way he was able to read much more quickly and we got through another book. Yay!

Oh, and when I mentioned this to DH he said that he used to do this as well (with books).

I'm going to email his teacher about it and maybe she'll stop implying he's lazy only wanting to listen to the books.

My ds never complained about anything vision related. However, the tester recommended a developmental optometrist because he was unable to do the block design subtest and his writing was so poor. As far as reading, he had low stamina and skipped words or lines a lot. (I was told it was developmental.) it was eye teaming problem (an opthamologist wouldn't necessarily test or find). After vision therapy, things are much improved and his reading stamina/ ability has soared.
Maybe something to think about?

Does anyone know - if it is developmental, at what age they would typically grow out of it?

I am not a professional, so take what I have to say with a really large grain of salt

Both of my older daughters lagged with reading with some of the same symptoms you've mentioned above - one was due to vision, one is an LD. The age that I have seen teachers across the board (both in their classes and in my ds' classes) was as easy as K and for sure by the end of grade 1. Children in our school district who are not on grade level at the end of first are recommended (strongly) to go to summer school to catch up, and if that doesn't work 2nd grade is where the schools start targeted reading interventions. Note - this is the age that the teachers were pointing out issues with typically developing kids, not HG/+ kids - my dd who has the LD slipped under the radar until late 2nd grade and even then wasn't thought to have an issue because she was reading at grade level.

If you're worried about anything related to reading, I wouldn't take a sit-back-and-wait-and-see approach - reading is such an integral part of academics and overall intellectual growth. My dd's vision issues weren't caught by her regular eye dr, but were obvious on a developmental optometrist assessment. Within just a few months of starting vision therapy she just skyrocketed in reading ability, and perhaps the most important gain of all, for her, was she turned into a kid who loves loves loves to read. I don't suspect an LD from anything you've written here, but fwiw, early understanding and remediation was really important for my dd with the LD. It would have been *so* helpful if we'd been able to pinpoint her challenges and start remediation as early as first grade.

Best wishes,

polarbear

My DS also has this problem a little, but it seemed to be somewhat related to scanning ahead while reading. How does he do with reading aloud in terms of speed and intonation? DS reads aloud very fast and with beautiful intonation, but will have to go back and repeat bits because he's scanning forward too much. I had to tell him to read aloud more slowly. It helps. However, he still skips an occasional line or word. He is 6.5.

Thanks polarbear
We have meeting at his school next week to discuss his IEP. I'll ask then if they think he needs further assessment in writing and reading. If they can't / won't assess we're considering a private assessment. So far he's only done the WISC IV (done by the school).

Re: reading aloud - he reads aloud OK but slowly, and often is guessing what the next word would be from the context rather than reading each word.

E.g. if the text said "I went in the house through the window", he may say "I went in the house through the door" (because that's what he expected). But then he'd go back and correct it. So I guess it's possible he's scanning ahead too far.

Intonation is correct unless it's a sentence structure he's not familiar with. Then he stops, and re-reads the sentence over and over until he thinks it's the correct way to read it. (Yes, perfectionist as well)

This was exactly the process by which mine learned to read. She is 7. She regularly reads books on a 4th-5th grade level (mainly biographies and history) but also reads books on a 1st grade level and enjoys them just as much. When offered those online reading programs, she'll read along with the book while listening to it and has done that on some science books marked for 8th-9th grade, but she would never read those alone. She can't decode and understand them at the same time.

One year ago I had the same concerns as you. She learned to read the same way as yours--not by phonics so much but by just knowing words and deducing the second part of the sentence based on the first one.

So what we were seeing at home was her going in her room and reading Captain Underpants and laughing and spending a lot of time, but then when her kinder teacher told us just to have her check out books her level and fill out a comprehension worksheet afterwards, we had a lot of trouble with her reading those denser text books by herself. She was skipping text and not reading everything correctly. So she wasn't reading correctly enough to really enjoy most books but she wasn't reading incorrectly enough to stop reading.

I think we found that we encouraged her to read the high density text too frequently--we should have pushed her a little but also encouraged her to read books designed for younger kids so she could relax more.

She also needed stronger glasses, and that made a big difference.

Our way to help her with reading has been to encourage her to read below her level, as well as at her real level. This has helped her a lot. She listened to a lot of novels on one of those reading programs, and it was phenomenal for her fluency. I was shocked at how well that worked. She now reads like an actor. I also sometimes read those bios and older kids books with her (not always, but sometimes) because I do find that while she understands a lot, she doesn't understand all of the context. Those things put together have really helped her.

Reading at her school is actually difficult because the material they are reading is so simplistic that it is actually difficult to follow, but really, we don't get involved with reading at school at all, we just support at home.

But I do think it takes a while for them to get comfortable reading dense text, even when they're grade levels above the ability of that dense text and focusing on actively encouraging her to pick picture books out of the library as well as Cam Jansen as well as harder books has really worked out for her.