Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School reading speed - how fast is unusual?

I agree that the usual "youth racks" at the library are hard to filter through. Does your library system allow you to search online or request them that way? I use that most of the time for our "school reading." I'll take the SOTW reading list, Caldecott, Great Book list, or whatever we're working through and order the books through the search engine. The library sends me an email notice when the books are in, and I can just run in to the front desk and check them out.

When our kids run through a book an hour, even cheap books add up fast. I'm constantly carting old books to our attic, but they still take over their rooms!!

One suggestion on the library, from parents of kids (10yo twins) who reads like yours - sometimes several books a day. For us, the issue is partly the $$ to buy books, but also the space. Even though we buy maybe only 15% of the books read in our house, they still accumulate like crazy.

Our kids only browse comics and graphic novels at the library and won't look at regular books. At the bookstore, they only look at the toys and Klutz books. However, our library has an online catalog where we request books - things we've seen at the bookstore, or found searching on authors/series/subjects the kids are into, etc. We also use Amazon to search for books and read reviews, and then request from the library. Our library even has new book lists once a month and I find some good ones there sometimes. We request the books online and have them sent to our neighborhood branch, and then stop at the library a couple times a week to pick up whatever has come in. We typically have ~50 books checked out at a time. The kids don't read everything we pick out, but we always have new material on hand and sometimes they surprise us by reading something out of their usual zone.

I wonder if kids are ever given a speed of reading test that also includes comprehension. It would be interesting to have that type of comparison to the norm.

I'm glad some people buy lots of books. I really stock up at garage sales.

I've also found this http://bookmooch.com/
you can list books you will give away and get some for free. This sounds good but I've never tried it.

Thanks for all the libray/book procurement suggestions!

I have used Ebay in the past for out of print books I wanted (like the older version of How Things Work and an old Jr Britannica) but I never thought to buy in bulk there. I bid on some stuff yesterday.

Our library system does allow you to search and reserve online. You can have the books delivered to the branch of your choice. But what happens is that the order comes in piecemeal and they only hold them for a few days. Also, there have been several instances where a book that is listed as available and waiting for me is nowhere to be found. In the past I have used the function to try and get several books in a range of difficulty on a particular theme. And if I end up with only half sometimes they are all too hard, or all too easy, or I get the first and fourth book in a series......

So maybe the solution is to go with quantity, not a targeted theme. Just order a whole boatload of decent books and let the boys read them hit or miss. It's obviously a good tool, maybe I have just been trying to use it with too much precision.

The idea of trying to cultivate a relationship with a librarian is also a good one. ALthough I've found the system a little lacking in practice, all of the librarians I have spoken with have been very kind and helpful.

I probably sound very impatient and lazy, but I work full-time so that makes it a little harder to stay on top of this stuff.

I missed this detail the first time I read this post. My son also exhibits this type of recall - knowing the location of material in the book. I remember only the story, not the location of the words. The day my son read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea I picked up the book to quiz him because I was unconvinvced that he had read it cover to cover since he just hadn't had that much time to read that morning. I don't remember the story and in looking for something to ask hom about, I noticed a footnote. When I asked him about the content of the footnote, he rolled his eyes and said, "Mom, I don't read THOSE parts." Further inquiry revealed that "those parts" are footnotes. So despite his contention that he doesn't read them, he obviously recalled not only the content, but the location of the content.

This seems like a more...??visual?? approach to reading than my own. He also can't sound anythging out. His spelling is atrocious and his pronounciation of words he knows from reading and not from conversation it pretty funny at times. My other son isn't like this. He tests higher, but he doesn't read as compulsively and I don't think he's as fast.

Well, strictly speaking, he didn't recall the content of the footnote, did he? How could he, not having read it? And are you saying that he remembered the page numbers of all the footnotes that appeared in the book? (Or did he just tell you he doesn't read footnotes?)

An interesting memory if so, and certainly fairly visual in nature. I am similar, and often remember the page layout of many pages, even just the paragraph breaks if there's not much of visual interest. I have detected the same sort of thing in our five-year-old son. I would guess that these sort of memory attributes point to a weak form of eidetic memory-- like photographic memory but through an imperfect lens.

I wasn't clear - he did recall the content - he was just annoyed at being quizzed and was making the point that the footnotes ought to be off-limits. Obviously he had read it, otherwise he wouldn't have know the source was a footnote. I didn't preface the question with "This is from a footnote...." I guess he could have deduced that it was from a footnote if he had perfect recall of the enire book and could rule out any other location by elimination. But I am pretty sure that's not the case! I was just surprised that he knew the source of the content was a footnote. If someone asked me questions about a book I don't think I would be able to distinguish between what I had read in the footnotes and was was in the text. But maybe most people can?

I've never asked him about page numbers but I am sure he wouldn't recall them. If he had a memory like that I would have noticed by now. He has good memory, but I don't think it's exceptional. I *do* think there's something a little "off" in his wiring but it has not caused any real problems. I am just concerned about his writing, partially because he is starting a new school and i don't think it's a great fit and I am feeling guilty and anxious.

Ah, gotcha. Well, I hope that things turn out well at the new school. I am sure that his reading talent will stand him in wonderful stead throughout his life.

I wouldn't worry too much about mispronunciation of words he's already read-- I still every couple of years find out I'm mispronouncing something I learned from context in my early reading. It's probably a natural side effect of his greater reading level. Maybe you could encourage him to quickly look up on dictionary.com a new word if he's unsure about the pronunciation-- it will only take a sec, and there's a little icon that will actually pronounce the word if you click on it.

My DS still mispronounces a fair amount of words that he reads, which I still think is cute. Mine is clearly very visual and is a gifted speller, which must come from reading. In fact, when he mispronounces a word and we ask him to say it again, he just spells it for us. (When he was 3 and 4, he had trouble with his "ks" and "cs" so he'd just spell words to his friends and teachers. You can picture the eye-rolling from his little friends! LOL)

We'll have to look for that icon on dictionary.com. Thank you so much for sharing that!

Btw, I also learned the new word "eidetic" from this post! That was how I did so well in undergrad and law school, by mentally skimming the visuals of my notes for tests. I had a minor head injury shortly after that, and now it's not nearly as good. It was a great tool, though!

"Epitome" is the one that sticks out in my memory. I recognized and understood it as a read word, and recognized and understood it as a spoken word, but was well into my 20s before I realized they were the same word.

Last night I mentioned to DD that the "tsk" she was pronouncing as "tisk" was actually a clicky mouth-noise, and it was only during the conversation that I realized that "tut" has got to be the same clicky mouth-noise written differently.

That "er" as a placeholder noise is pronounced the same as the placeholder noise I'd normally write "uh," just written for non-rhotic speakers, was also a late-in-life surprise.