Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Improving reading fluency-need ideas

Dd4.5 can read simple beginner books now. However, she hates reading because it takes effort and goes slow. She guesses a lot and gets frustrated when her guesses are wrong. She can easily read words like beautiful when they are presented in context but struggles with simple words like why, that, etc. I bought her sight word flash cards even though I don't really like using flash cards. She seems to have picked up many of the words and is happy when she encounters them in text as she can read those quickly. I read Peggy Kaye's Games for Reading book and really liked many of the ideas. I am now using them in the homeschool with mixed results. I also do shared reading with dd, especially the mo willems books where we can each be a character. All of these strategies are helping a little but not as much as I would like. I am wondering if there are other ideas to improve her reading speed and fluency so that it is not so much of a chore. Or should I just back off for now.

Given her age and the fact that she's already ahead, I'd chill out with getting her to read to me, and continue reading to her. It's a great way to build her sight word catalog while keeping it fun.

We did this with my own DD who was even more resistant to reading out loud than yours is. She refused to read aloud at all, even though we knew she had the skill (she'd randomly read us signs, names, etc.), until after I benignly shamed her into trying it at about 5.1 ("You're ahead of where I was at your age in all areas but one. I was reading books to my mom when I was four."). Within weeks she was reading to her pre-K class, and it was off to the races from there.

Thanks, Dude. I did not teach her to read but now that I know she can read, I just got wound up in getting her to read. So yes chilling out seems like a wonderful suggestion. I do read a lot to her but mostly chapter books. She usually is either watching my face intently when I read or running around in circle. So not really paying attention to the words to pick anything up. But she does love being read to.
Ps. Lol on your strategy of shaming your dd to read. I have to bribe mine to read just for 5 minutes.

I feel reading correct level is important. When they don't know many words in the book, they easily get frustrated. I try to choose books which 5 year old DS can easily read most of the words and increase the level slowly. There are some beginner books focusing on one/two sight words at a time. Learning sight words definitely helps to increase proficiency.
For my DS, we still read picture books every night, not sure if he would follow a chapter book yet.

I love these books

http://www.webothread.com/server/TreasureBay/website/main/scripts/default.asp

The parent reads the left side and the kid reads the right page. The lowest books the parent has the most words and the kid has one word sometimes a word that is highly predictable because it rhymes and the picture clues them in or maybe a color word or something. The gradually get harder as the book levels go up. Very fun snuggling up close to share the reading. After a kid has grown out of a level as a shared reader it then can be read by the child alone.

Here is a sample of the lowest level....they do get harder...

http://www.webothread.com/server/TreasureBay/website/main/scripts/samplepage.asp?idProduct=85

One of the best ways to build fluency is to have her read the same book over and over until she is not making errors. Make sure that the book is not too difficult. If she misses more than one word per sentence it is probably too hard.

When my DS6 was 4 he was reading the early readers (taught himself too), but he loved it when I read chapter books like Charlottes Web, Winnie The Pooh, lots of classic chapter books to him with a bookmark just below the line I was reading so he could follow along. There was no pressure on him, he asked me to do it. We did that for a long time and it was just enough for him to figure out more words so he could read the harder books to himself and it was a lovely, cuddling bonding time for us. He is a voracious reader now!

This was my DS9 exactly - the big, complicated words were easy for him, but he would confuse the simple words, like he'd confuse "was" with "saw." This was very strange for me since DD11 was a phonetic reader from very early on (she always was and still is a reading ace), so for me to watch DS read by memorizing words rather than by sounding them out was very odd.

Fyi I didn't really do anything to remedy the situation with DS... he was already a bit ahead of his peers (like, at a KG level when he was 3), so I let it be. Now the situation has taken care of itself - not only is he a phonetic reader now, but his fluency has increased dramatically.

Thanks, Sweetie. I like the shared reading books. We have done a couple of those, Emperor's new clothes, and the Frog prince and dd loved it. I should see if the library has more of them.

Squishy and Leyla, while I agree that she might be able to read simpler books more fluently, that strategy hasn't worked for us. She complains about how boring the book is and refuses to read. I have tried the bob and biscuit books without much success. If you have any recommendations on simpler books with more interesting stories, I would love to get them for dd. thank you for helping me.