Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school what to do about asynchronous development?

Graphic novels and comics have helped a lot with this at our house! My daughter that just finished kindy still prefers very visually interesting books.

I ditto the suggestions about graphic novels and comics; my dd3 is really into "monster" books right now (Loch Ness, terror bird, etc.) -- they tend to have big words, but you can find ones on the short-side. Another thing that is working with us is Hi-Lo books (high interest, low reading level; they're made for older kids who are struggling with reading, but the point is, they're not too long and the material will seem interesting to your ds even though the reading is easy, and it will introduce him to new ways of expressing himself because it can contain a lot of idioms, etc.) The one thing with Hi-Lo books is to make sure the topic is appropriate for whatever his mental development level is. My dd's obsession of the week is a Hi-Lo graphic novel called Tiger Moth: Insect Ninja. I also ditto the suggestion about not having to read the whole book in one sitting, and the one about getting magazines (National Geographic maybe, but there are plenty of others, too.) Then your ds can read as many bite size morsels as he wants. HTH.

thank you so much for all the wonderful suggestions! i'll be paying a visit to the bookstore this week for sure! i've never heard of Franny K Stein. i'll check it out!



just to clarify....i don't push him. at all. he LOVES to read...he picks up books on his own. we easily own 500 books between a k-5th grade level....so he will pick books on his own. he gets frustrated when he picks one that looks interesting AND short and opens it to see few words or easy words. so he will purposely look for a book with more words and harder words.... but then quickly realizes that books with more words on each page tend to ALSO have more pages. he is 2e...so when i say he gets frustrated about a book being too easy or too long...i mean he will throw a tantrum bc he can't find a book that is both hard (his words- although he will still read it like it is easy) and short. lol.

he is a fluent reader...reads with appropriate tone and pace...and does not struggle much even with difficult and unknown words. he reads like he was born knowing how to read. it seems to be simply a state of mind about how LONG it will take him to finish the story and nothing else.

to give you an idea of how much he LIKES to read...i was giving him the dra2 (a reading assessment- i used to be a teacher), and after flying through a few 2nd grade levels i wanted to give him a break....i told him, "why don't you take a break from reading before we finish." and he said, "YAY. THANK YOU! Can i go READ?" lol. he wanted to take a break from reading...so he could read. yeah. that's normal. lol.

thanks again! i love these boards!

That's great! I really think you have a non-issue, then. He already loves to read, reads fluently, etc. Just be supportive when he acts frustrated, to help him grow out of it, and take the rest of the good advice here, and you'll be fine.

I still think that some phonetic drills, if you can get him on board, might help worlds because they could increase his decoding speed. I'm not sure how to increase your child's attention span, but I think it will just naturally increase on its own for reading-- and I suspect that it's not his attention span so much as frustration level that's the problem right now. So I see your problem as mostly managing his stress level in the short term.

The Step Into Reading series can be hit-or-miss quality wise in my estimation, but there are decent books in the series. Some that my son enjoyed at various times:

"The Treasure of the Lost Lagoon"
"The Night of the Circus Monsters"
"The Secret of Foghorn Island"
"The Mystery of the Pirate Ghost"
"The Curse of the Cobweb Queen"
"Tentacles!: Tales of the Giant Squid"
"Monster Bugs"
"Tales of the Giant Squid"
"Hungry, Hungry Sharks"
"Dinosaur Days"
"Raptor Pack"

My son also has a bunch of DK readers (similar style of book), but the levels are different. Depending on your son's reading interest and ability these may appeal more to him. In addition there are several science-oriented early reader series that may be perfect.

If he starts getting more into comics, I can't recommend highly enough the duck comics of Carl Barks. You can find them in large-format reprints for about five dollars each if you hunt around, and each book contains multiple stories. PM me if you want titles of some of the best stories to get you started.

He might also enjoy some of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, especially the ones that were written for the younger bunch. The "older kid" ones are more like 4th-5th grade reading level and have fewer pictures. I'm thinking of the ones like these: http://www.amazon.com/Haunted-House...mp;s=books&qid=1277042852&sr=1-6

Non-fiction is your friend. Lots of books have tons of cool pictures and even short chapters on animals, science, countries. Whatever he is interested in.

We also really like the Flat Stanley books. My DS is 4 1/2 and I was pretty impressed with the shortness of the chapters and the quality of the vocabulary.

Maybe a cool book mark might help. That we he won't feel overwhelmed with having to finish the whole book at once.

Also, I don't know how he feels about being read to, but one way you can tackle longer books is he reads a few chapters by himself (or out loud) and you read a few chapters, then trade back.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! we did get some new books, and taking turns reading really helps to relieve his stress level! i can see that he is working on his endurance already because when we first started he wanted to read one page, while i read the next, and now he wants to read 2 pages in a row with me still reading 1. occasionally he will cut me off and tell me he wants to read more.

non fiction IS my new friend! just this morning he read this book about bees...now he won't stop talking about why he likes and does not like bees. lol.

i also found a set of leveled books where the chapter books still have colored pictures on each page, or every other page. thank goodness for that!

so thank you again for all the resources! you all are so helpful!