Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school "reading-to" levels

Hi, folks, here's a wierdish question...

DS3 likes to have books from the 12+ section read to him. He doesn't read yet. DH is worried he'll have trouble learning to read because of the mismatch in the level of the content he's interested in, and the level of the content available to beginning readers. My guess is that he'll learn to read at 6 or maybe 5, and by then I fully expect him to be requesting adult-type material read to him as a habit (or, like, maybe by the end of the week or so ).

(DH read at 2, and was really taken aback by the idea a kid might have an interest in more complex content than they could actually read to themself. He could always read ahead of his interest level.

(I did have in interest in much more complex content than I could read... and I had an auful time learning to read, and had to do remedial reading in grade 2 because I failed grade 1... I'm G-LD [aka 2e], though)

Anyone have any experience with this?

No rush, I'm just feeling social tonight, and I haven't got a good brag at the moment .

-Mich

My son is four and is very much the same. It caused me to post something a few weeks ago about him being bored with the content in preschool science and social studies but not being able to read and write well enough to handle actually doing a class with older kids.
I do not have an answer. We'll just keep reading whatever interests him until he wants to read it himself.

We'll have to invent a new line of books with an easy-to-read format - large print, a few sentences per page, and quality illustrations - but non-traditional content. My son is currently interested in mummies, but I don't think I'll be able to find any easy readers for that.

Yes, we experienced the same mismatch, too. I had the same worry. Our read-alouds had progressed to the 5th-6th grade reading level before she started to read first grade level books. I remember at one point I had intended to get out all the simple board books I had packed away. I never got around to it. She learned to read using books like "Frog and Toad" and is now reading her way through the "Henry and Mudge", "Poppleton", and "Mercy Watson" series.

Perhaps, had we stuck to age-apropriate books she would have learned to read those earlier. But, would she have progressed through the next few levels as fast as she did? I don't think so.

FWIW I have yet to see her have trouble comprehending anything she is able to decode. And, I actually think her comprehension boosts her decoding skills. So, I totally recommend reading more developed books to your young children. My DH continues to read a few chapters to DD each night because of the wide berth of benefits.

Now, writing is another story. She will be reading fluently before she can print more than her name.

Our littlest DD3 is like this. She likes books with more content about more adult topics. I try to ask her what occasional words are and to try and read the titles and captions. She is not very interested in trying early readers.

I have found that she really likes comics. I think the story line in comics which is visual with short blocks of text is a good combination. The plot line in the comics are more engaging that most early readers but the words are few and the pictures also tell a story. She will look at comics and this is a good way for her to enjoy books independently and build skills on her own. She also likes us to read fiction chapter books to her.

Also our DD7 who was reading at 2.5 will still bring us things to read to her, particularly if the subject matter is very complex. I think they are able to comprehend more when they hear it and are discussing it, than when they read it alone. She also likes to listen when we read the younger one chapter books.

Our kids definitely have an interest in more complex subject matter than they can read alone. They have always been like this and I think their desire to learn more and our time constraints contributed to their early reading.

If your son really enjoys being read to and craves more complex material he will probably figure out how to read just so he can get more, if you keep reading to him and keep him interested. One day that reading switch will go off and he will probably read whatever he is interested in over night.

We have a friend who has a DD8 that is very smart and his comprehension is very high but he did not read much besides comics, then around 6.5 he went with in a couple of months to reading everything. Now it is hard to keep track of what he is reading. His mom just kept reading to him until he took over.

My DS now 8 was like this. He exhibited very little interest in reading really until first grade, but he absolutely loved to be read to from infancy. I have always been a great believer that one of my jobs as a parent is to teach my kids the joys of reading not just the mechanics of it. If I had tried to force him to read on his own, I don't think he would have enjoyed it. So I kept reading to him and just waited him out until his ability level crept closer to his comprehension level, which it eventually did. He always read at or slightly above grade level, but this year in second he just took off! I really think the exposure to more complex writing was a great benefit.

I say read the more complicated stuff to him because that is what his mind is craving. And he is gaining exposure to more complex ideas, plots, themes etc., which ultimately is the "harder" part of reading, so it will serve him well later on.

FWIW, I also am suspicious that he may have a visual-motor LD, but he compensates so well for it at this point that it is hard to say. But he still doesn't have a huge stamina.

I started writing a set of these when my son was 4 on topics he was interested in at the time, like the solar system and the American Revolution. Each one also incorporated practice with one or two particular word families. I finished writing and illustrating 5 or 6 before we identified his vision problems and his reading took off enough that he didn't need them anymore. Sadly, the computer they were on and all of the backup media fell victim to the 2004 hurricanes. It occurs to me that now, with POD available, that I might actually be able to market a non-fiction hi-lo series aimed at gifted kids instead of at low-reading level older children and adults. One more thing to add to the list...

ETA: My son loved being read high-level content even when he couldn't read it to himself. It didn't cause him any problems learning to read - his visual processing did, though.

I think so much of this is personality. Our dd8 was like your dh, and when we tried to read to her when she was little she only wanted us to read books that she could follow along in because she knew how to read the words. Our dd10 and ds12 both loved loved loved to be read to. When we were first starting to really read to ds when he was 2-ish, we started out with the children's versions of classics like Journey to the Center of the Earth etc. We'd read one of those books to him in about 1/2 hour time, he'd be mesmerized by the story, remember every detail, and ask for another book after each was finished. Once the "asking" turned into insistent demanding we realized we'd quickly run out of children's level books so we just started reading him adult level books and he understood and remembered everything. He didn't start reading until he was 5 (as far as we know, he didn't exactly "tell" us then either, we just happened to find out). Our dd10 isn't EG like ds and she was also much more easily frightened by "scary" things (Harry Potter for instance) - but we still read to her from the classics starting when she was very young. She loved loved loved Jane Eyre - to this day it's her all-time favorite book. I'll never forget in kindergarten the teacher had the kids sitting in circle and wanted each child to tell what their favorite book was (none of the kids were really reading yet so she was expecting it to be books read to them). The other kids apparently were all mentioning typical early reader books and then dd said "Jane Eyre". The teacher pulled me over after class and told me this, and then said "That was so cute - where on earth has she heard of 'Jane Eyre'?" I told her we'd read it to her - about 100 times and it really *was* her favorite book... and the teacher gave me one of those looks, you know, the look where she's looking at you like you have bells and whistles and monsters or whatever growing out of your head.

I think that the most important thing is to take the queues from your child - from our experience there's a wide swing in what any child wants and whether or not they somehow relate to when and how well they will eventually read, I doubt that it will in anyway cause delays or challenges with reading when your ds is ready.

Best wishes,

polarbear

DS started reading at 2 but has always loved higher level books. We didn't bother with early readers because even at 2 they were not interesting! He would read the words he could in non fiction books, picture books etc but would track along with the harder books too. I think the higher level reading has given him an amazing bank of vocabulary that has made reading so much easier. He reads indep now but still loves us to read higher level material to him.

It was a happy day for me when DS's interest in books went higher level. I was so sick of reading those little kid books, over and over... Though I never minded Dr. Seuss. Although my DS was an early reader, I don't think what we read to him had any negative effects on how he progressed with reading. I think that any exposure to language, higher level or not, is only going to help a kid to learn all aspects of a language, including reading. But this is just my own opinion, and I am not a teacher. For my kid, who was a whole-word reader rather than a phonetic reader, exposure to more words meant he could recognize and read more words early on.