Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School reading speed - how fast is unusual?

Thanks for all the responses.

I realized after reading them and thinking on them that I'm just guilty of being arrogant. To me, "fast" reading is my rate. So because my son reads significantly faster (I think, haven't raced him!), his rate is odd. If I let that go, my recent observations of specific instances of fast reading don't change the overall picture.

"But as I am sure you have learned, library trips are MUCH more economical than the bookstore."

- intparent

Strangely, I don't use the library all that much. Somehow my kids don't get as much out of the library. Something about the way it's organized. I have trouble getting them engaged in the search for books, and there seem to be more comic books and garbage-y books in the library. At one branch in particular my kids always go striaght to the super hero comic books. WHich is fine, I let them read them for a while, but they remain distracted by them for the whole visit.

And in our local libraries the kids section is pretty juvenile and the young adult section is low quality and the topics not appropriate for a 9 y.o. (I'm not a prude and I don't mind my kids reading about real life, but IMO indulgent teenage angst novels aren't real life.)

When I search online before I go in to make a list of books with a certain theme or topic, half the time the good ones are checked out. Then when I get there, others are misplaced. Or they are there, but they just don't pique my kids' interest that week and then they are overdue before they are read.

I realize the library is a phenomenal resource and I do make use of it, I'm just explaining why I don't use it that much. I spend a lot of money on books, but when I look at it in the context of all of our expenses, I think it's money well-spent. We've got an Amazon membership so shipping is free and the search engine on the site is good, the reviews are helpful....

P.S. I should add that my children frequently prefer to re-read books. That, and the fact that we have been given several whole sets of Great Books-type collections lessens the amount of work I need to do just to "feed the fire"