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

Like many kids, my 9 y.o. son is a voracious reader. He seems to have plateaued in terms of the level he reads at - Harry Potter, Jules Verne, the Ender Books, Little House books, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games...so he reads at a fairly high level, but given the choice will not choose anything more demanding than the young adult level that only if the topic is of interest.

What I am a little surprised at is the speed at which he reads. For a long time I assumed he was like me - a voracious reader (best, fastest in my small/medium elementary school) who got through a lot of books by reading every chance I got. But lately I've noticed a few instances where he reads at a rate that seems to go beyond this.

1. I bought him one of the Percy Jackson books as a treat. He said he'd already read it. Knowing they didn't have it at his school, I asked him where. Well, they had a book fair at the school and the kids were allowed to browse for a few minutes each day. He read it from cover to cover during these periods.

2. On a recent weekend I asked him around lunchtime how he was enjoying 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea, which he had picked up that morning. He was done with it. I'm not sure how long it took him, but I know he did more than just read that morning.

3. Most recently, I gave him a copy of The Hunger Games as we got into the car to take a trip we do frequently that takes almost exactly 1 hour and forty five minutes. He finished the book before we got there.


I'm curious to hear opinions for a few reasons. First, his writing abiities are FAR below his reading abilities and he tends to be uneven in general. I am not willing to put a label on him at this point, but I was told by the psychologist who administered the WISC that the discrepnacy between his writing and his reading could be considered a learning disability. SO am interested in accurately gauging the reading ability, as the differential between that and the writing may be indicative of problems.

Second, he is starting at a new school next year and they have an Accelerated Reader program. I am a little wary that he will be accused of cheating, especially as his social skills are not great.


So I'd be interested in hearing any opinion. I have no strong desire to be the mom of a super fast reader, so if his reading speed sounds completely average to you please feel free to state it plainly. He's a very birght boy and meets the minimum stated requirements for DYS, but I'm aware that there are parents here with children whose abilities are much more unusual.

Thanks

P.S. His absolutely is reading these books thoroughly and with good comprehension. He can answer very specific questions.

I was that kind of reader, although my writing skills were not below average. As long as he is comprehending, just keep feeding the beast But as I am sure you have learned, library trips are MUCH more economical than the bookstore.

However, I would say that the psychologist could be onto something regarding his writing. My D15 is also a voracious and fast reader, and lags in writing. Particulary organizing papers and writing in a manner that is coherent to other people. Super vocabulary, just had a hard time putting a paper together. She was diagnosed with a non-verbal learning disability (initial hints in 2nd grade testing, but we didn't really nail the diagnosis until midway through 9th grade, which is when it really started causing serious academic issues).

I agree, that's fast. When I was younger, I'd go through 3 novels a day - got one before school, and read mostly during passing periods, then one at lunch for the afternoon passing periods, then one after school for the bus ride home. Maybe 100 pages in 30 minutes, for light reading? The G&T program brought in someone to "teach" us speedreading, and the "10 times faster than average reading speed" demonstration was slower than my normal reading speed, but not hugely slower.

I tend to want to stretch books out now, so try to read slower. I find myself intentionally flipping back to slowly re-read pages that I automatically skimmed through without paying much attention - but without missing out on anything important. So I'm not sure that "can answer specific questions" requires the reading-every-word type of "thoroughly," at least in my own experience.

I was a good writer, and would also be concerned about a kid who seemed unable to organize his writing. Uninterested in organizing wouldn't necessarily concern me - it's hard to get your thoughts out fast enough to keep up with your brain, and organizing as you write makes it even worse. (My solution was to let everything float around in my brain until it organized itself. The organizational methods they taught in school worked so poorly with how I thought that it was easier to write the paper, then create the outline / notecards / whatever intermediate steps the teacher thought I should need.)

He sounds quite a bit like my 9 yo son. I wouldn't say that it's "average" though! I think my 9 yo reads faster than my husband age 48.

My 9 yo made great strides in writing this year mostly because he is now fluent at typing. I don't think the reading being well ahead of the writing is too surprising. It can be extremely frustrating to be able to think very fast, but not be able to get that down on paper.

My voracious reader son had a 9 month hault in reading progress at the same age. It drove me crazy because he kept complaining about not having good books despite any efforts. Finally, his sister was reading an above level book that surprized him and he started progressing again.

During this time I think he was studying humor in his easier books. Maybe he wanted to relate better to other kids.

Sorry, I can not offer advice in the other areas.

I agree that as long as there is full reading comprehension, there doesn't seem to be anything to worry about!

I can't remember if I shared this here or somewhere else, but I had the same concern about my older DS this past year. At 5y9m, he flew through the first Harry Potter book in 3 1/2 hours. I was extremely skeptical, esp since it took me at least that long and I'm an ol' attorney who can fly through the books. Nonetheless, I gave him a Harry Potter middle school reading comp. quiz, and he aced it. He then proceeded to argue a point with me by rapidly opening the book to where the passage was. That tells me they CAN comprehend that quickly! (He also tends to read an entire Percy Jackson novel in an evening.)

Since my DS is still little, his writing hugely lags behind his reading. However, when my stepson turned 16, we discovered that he has a learning process disability where his brain isn't able to transmit his thoughts to his hand very well. (There's a book, but I can't find it here on our bookshelves!) He is MG and has also always been a voracious and extremely rapid reader. He now gets accommodations for his writing assignments at his Waldorf high school. He tried a voice-typing program, but I don't think that worked well for him. (He never uses it when he's with us.) It is considered a disability in terms of special accommodations for the SAT and other tests. I'm sure your DS is probably too young for that type of concern yet, but it isn't unheard of for the reading to be high but writing to be low.

Thanks for all the responses.

I realized after reading them and thinking on them that I'm just guilty of being arrogant. To me, "fast" reading is my rate. So because my son reads significantly faster (I think, haven't raced him!), his rate is odd. If I let that go, my recent observations of specific instances of fast reading don't change the overall picture.

"But as I am sure you have learned, library trips are MUCH more economical than the bookstore."

- intparent

Strangely, I don't use the library all that much. Somehow my kids don't get as much out of the library. Something about the way it's organized. I have trouble getting them engaged in the search for books, and there seem to be more comic books and garbage-y books in the library. At one branch in particular my kids always go striaght to the super hero comic books. WHich is fine, I let them read them for a while, but they remain distracted by them for the whole visit.

And in our local libraries the kids section is pretty juvenile and the young adult section is low quality and the topics not appropriate for a 9 y.o. (I'm not a prude and I don't mind my kids reading about real life, but IMO indulgent teenage angst novels aren't real life.)

When I search online before I go in to make a list of books with a certain theme or topic, half the time the good ones are checked out. Then when I get there, others are misplaced. Or they are there, but they just don't pique my kids' interest that week and then they are overdue before they are read.

I realize the library is a phenomenal resource and I do make use of it, I'm just explaining why I don't use it that much. I spend a lot of money on books, but when I look at it in the context of all of our expenses, I think it's money well-spent. We've got an Amazon membership so shipping is free and the search engine on the site is good, the reviews are helpful....

P.S. I should add that my children frequently prefer to re-read books. That, and the fact that we have been given several whole sets of Great Books-type collections lessens the amount of work I need to do just to "feed the fire"

If you can afford to buy the books (and can keep your house from becoming overrun... even as regular library users, we still accumulate tons of books), that is great. I will say that D had a hard time finding her own books at the library for a while. Sometimes I would go down the shelves with her, pull stuff out, and give her a quick summary. She would glance, say yes or no, and it would go in the bag or back on the shelf. She didn't read everything we brought home, but a lot of it. If I just left her alone with the bag in the kids section, I would come back later and find the bag empty. Then she discovered the teen section when she was about 11, and was able to find more stuff there. She rolls her eyes at teen angst (and vampire novels, except Dracula :)), so she just ignored that stuff. Now she does her own selecting.

One of the great pleasures of parenthood for me has been finding/sharing my favorite books with my kids. So sometimes I suggest something for her, too. I have learned not to take it personally when they don't like something I loved. I have also learned not to sweat it if they don't read all that they bring home. They can always check it out again later if they want it.

One other thing is that if you live in a metropolitan area, you could try some different branches of the library. Each one has their own "flavor" in my opinion. The librarians decide which books to purchase, and which of the older ones to keep. And how to display them. The library in the big suburb near our house has a lot of the "junk" materials you mentioned prominently displayed. But the smaller branch in the little town by the river that is an equal distance away has a much less flashy, and in my opinion more interesting collection of kids and teen fiction. Too bad if none of your local branches/systems have a good selection, though.

Regarding re-reading, I checked the same books out of the library again and again as a kid. We had those cards that you wrote your name on, and on some cards my name is the only one, again and again over the years. So you can re-read, and still save $ and storage space. Also, our library allows online searching and putting a book on hold. They e-mail us when the book is in, and we have 7 days to pick it up. Sometimes it is in our branch, and sometimes it is from another branch. Either way, they will get it to our library's hold shelf and hang onto it for a week. We can even search all over the state and request stuff our library system doesn't have (I use this sometimes for out of print things). There is pretty much always something waiting for us on the hold shelf, so even if we don't find the thing we want on the shelf, it is never a wasted trip. Again, too bad if your library doesn't have these capabilities.

It probably also helps that we have a library "habit". We go at least once a week (and frequently complain to each other that we wish they were open on Friday nights, as that would be the most convenient time for us!).

I've had generally-good results with "giant box of teacher classroom books" on ebay. For me, a good price is $1 per book, inclusive of shipping.

I do find that I need to pre-read, and sort for appropriateness. My piles are "fine for now," "you'd be able to read the words, but might not understand the motivations," and "IMHO this book is inappropriate to read without extensive guidance." The last category is mostly racist stuff - older Newbery books in particular tend to be stupidly racist (as opposed to intentionally racist).

We have the same issue with library books.

Jane S -
You seem to have a system that works really well for you - and finding books for advanced 9 year olds is really tough - but I have a suggestion for the library. At our local they have a secret method for seperating the trashy books for the classics. They put the classics on top of the stacks. There is also a group of YA novels that get selected by out state each year that the library buys multiple copies of so that many kids can read them - and those books are often tolerable - and all placed together on the shelves.

So the suggestion is to ask the children's librarian at the various possible branches and see if any of the branches have a similar 'secret organization' system. Cultivating a Children's Librarian can be a wonderful thing.

DS13's favorite book at that time was Eragon. He didn't like the sequal as well.

I like Lowis Lowry and Ursula LeGuin's Gifts series.

Love and More Love,
Grinity