Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Reading aloud fluency issue

Hello all, need some help! Recently our school switched over to IRLA reading assessment system when they used to do DRA. DS 4th grade was always way ahead with DRA . Now apparently with IRLA there is some pretty rigid read aloud fluency tests which is holding him back . It's almost like he is regressing . He does super well on all other aspects of the test (vocab, Latin roots, comprehension, etc) . He says reading in his head is no problem but he is struggling reading aloud. Should the reading aloud be a reason to make him read books (that he is reading silently at independent reading time, btw) below his true level? I'm not sure that is s good or helpful idea but that's what teacher is seeking to do. Also, what can he do remediate the issue? He has dyspraxia and dysgraphia , is that a cause/factor?

I'm not familiar with the tests, but my DS7 also has dyspraxia and also struggles with reading aloud. He skips words, lines, and loses his place on the page. He also tells me that it is easier reading silently.

He is currently doing vision therapy, and I think it's paying off. He now picks up books and reads them on his own - before he would try to read but give up quickly, or come and ask me to read to him. He still resists reading aloud to me, although when he does I notice fewer skipped words.

When I discussed the VT with our pediatrician, he was skeptical. However, he also said that with dyspraxia (DCD), DS will be able to learn motor skills but it will usually take more repetitions. I figured that the VT was at least giving him a chance to practice eye movements (a fine motor skill).

DS also is a perfectionist - So when reading aloud if it doesn't sound quite right to him, he'll go back and re-start a sentence 2 or 3 times until all the words have the correct emphasis. Not sure what to do about that one.

Thanks! Yes DS has had VT . Helped immensely . I asked him if he thinks he needs it again and he thinks because silently he's okay that's it's not his eyes... He says it's his mouth! Not sure wtd

I'm curious about the reading aloud fluency as a means of testing reading skills. It isn't really a skill that is used in many careers.... Hoping an expert weighs in on this one!

Personally, I find it far harder to read aloud than to read to myself. Often, it's because my mind wants to move much faster than my lips can keep up. In reading to my son, sometimes I find my mind on an entirely different train of thought while I'm still reading the story to him (that sounds weird, I know!).

Not weird - happens to me too. Usually with books that the kids have asked me to read a gazillion times - my mind wanders.

Well... it isn't used in many careers but .... I've seen it be a very helpful way to assess reading skills. Since I'm not a professional, I shouldn't probably even begin to answer this but I'll add just a few things I've seen with my kids:

1) When you measure a student's reading comprehension from silent reading, you may be measuring reading comprehension that relies heavily on reading from context, rather than reading and taking in meaning from each word. For some kids, depending heavily on reading from context works well when they are young and reading fairly simple passages but can be an issue later on as reading demands increase.

2) Reading out loud helps a teacher see where a child is challenged with their reading. My dd who had vision issues, for instance, could memorize sight words and pass tests on reading them, and she understood phonics well so she could sound out words as she read them, but when she read aloud there would be quirky odd things happening - she'd read aloud fairly large complicated words and then get stuck on a word like "far" and think she'd never seen it before.

3) Some kids simply race through silent reading and aren't really taking everything in. Reading out loud can help an adult determine what level they really are reading at.

Best wishes,

polarbear

For Irena,

I'd wonder about your ds' vision with the reading aloud issues. Have you had him read aloud to you at home? I hope it doesn't sound discouraging, but my dd who had vision therapy for muscle tone has had to repeat it once and also needs to still do exercises occasionally to keep her eyes working together. Eye fatigue can also be an issue for her.


LOL about the mouth! OTOH, is it possible it might be his mouth/speech? I'd wonder about that too with dyspraxia, because speech can be impacted.

I'd probably do my own investigating at home, try to see what you can figure out with our ds' help, then if you're able to tie it to his dyspraxia in some way advocate for more challenging reading material at school.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Has your DS's speech (oral/motor) ever been evaluated?

I'm not familiar with IRLA, however, both Dibeles and Aimsweb say their measures are not suitable for children with speech fluency disorders (such as stuttering and apraxia).

While it may seem like common sense that oral reading fluency tests would be problematic for children with speech issues and therefore not an accurate measure of their reading ability, my DS's school doesn't get it. My DS stutters and has other speech disfluencies. Despite my pointing out the section in the Aimsweb manual that says the tests are inappropriate for DS and DS's well-documented history of stuttering and other speech difficulties, DS's school still insists on assessing his oral reading. I'm baffled why anyone would insist doing any assessment that you know going in cannot give a valid score, but that's another story.

Oral reading fluency as a measure of reading comprehension is based on the data. When you look at correlations between various quick probes of reading skill and in-depth measures of reading comprehension, oral reading fluency actually has the best correlation. This is why it's used as a proxy for reading comprehension skill in elementary-age classroom progress monitoring probes.

Although it doesn't have as much face validity as some other measures, such as the cloze (fill-in-the-blank) reading tasks, or as much clinical richness as a direct measure like the WIAT-III reading comprehension subtest, or the TORC-4 (which is a multi-subtest measure solely of aspects of reading comprehension), it's quick, easy, cheap, objective, and surprisingly accurate. So good for screening, repeated measures, and collecting group data.

Of course, it's still a proxy, not a direct measure, and subject to all the caveats of a proxy.

My DS reads silently just fine and has a very high comprehension.

However, like many here have mentioned, he skips words. He changes verb tense. He even paraphrases as he reads aloud. It's almost like his brain is reading far ahead of his mouth so much so that by the time his mouth catches up, he's already sorted out unimportant words and paraphrased, while still maintaining enough content to comprehend.

Does your library have a Paws program where kids can read to a therapy dog? It's a non-judgmental reading exercise because the dog doesn't judge and sits or lays quietly and listens. If you have a pet, you could have him or her read to it also. I do think this is a skill, like any other, that sometimes needs work to perfect. (There are plenty lectors at my church that skip words or change them (completely changing context), so it's not just kids who might need practice!)

Also, I would note, too, that cadence while reading in your head is definitely different then reading aloud. If you are a fast reader, you might not pause too long at the end of a sentence, but if you're forced to read aloud, you do need to do that.

Good luck! My son hates to read out loud, so if we do read from a book or short story assigned as homework, I have him read one page and I read the other.