Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Skipping around in books - thoughts?

DS7 (grade 2) has started skipping sentences, or portions thereof, when reading aloud. I believed he was reading those bits in his head, since he reads faster to himself than he does aloud. Then I saw him apparently finishing a book he was 1/3 through reading aloud to me. I asked if he'd enjoyed it and he said he hadn't been reading it, 'just looking at it'. Upon further questioning he said he 'read parts of some pages' and 'likes skipping around and only reading bits' in books, instead of reading from start to finish.

This may be developmentally appropriate (I'm here because I know I'll get excellent answers faster than I can Google!), but he's a very fluent reader and has appeared to be reading on his own quite frequently. Now I'm wondering if that's what he's actually been doing and if my dysgraphia concerns should be expanding to include other possibilities. His PS is low (42)compared to everything else (GAI is 99).

This book was one he chose, incidentally, not something he had to read for school. The school book reports he has to write for homework led him to pretend not have read books he had read in order to avoid writing about them. That seemed to resolve when I started scribing the reports, but maybe this is an artefact.

His vision seems fine (early tracking weakness is the only thing the optometrist has ever found) and he doesn't complain about any physical difficulty in reading.

Any thoughts or advice?

Try having him turn it upside down to read aloud. It slows them down enough that they can focus on expression.

My ds5 does this sometimes...but he can also read "normal". Sometimes I'll see him start a book in the middle then jump ahead and back...reading paragraphs in random order. I don't worry about it because on considering it...I realize I sometimes do the same thing. Sometimes I'm just previewing a book to get an idea if I really am interested in it. Nothing like flinging yourself around in a book to see if it is interesting. As long as he can read in a normal way also, in wouldn't worry about it. Not every book you pick up is worth reading in detail. This is also kind of a speed reading technique.. Getting the gist before you jump in.
If you know he can read well, maybe it's just a quirk.

Great metaskills for consuming non-fiction. He may be trying to find his maximum reading speed through active experimentation. Homebrew Evelyn Wood.

These thoughts are far more helpful than where my brain wandered (stealth dyslexia, anyone?!) - thank you all. I read newspapers and magazines back to front, myself, and skip around in non-fiction, but I'm a fiction fundamentalist so he's messing with my world view. Thanks again!