Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Elementary School Poor Reading Comprehension (when alone)

Adding on to my last post:

If it makes a different we read multiple books at a time. My children, always, have at least three different chapter books going at one time, plus one or two shorter stories/comics. This is their "free" reading. For school we have eight to ten books going at once. Narration has helped them to make connections amongst their books. Connections that they have been able to apply in various scenarios.

Also, my DD (~7) will meet "The Bar" where ever it is set. At home she knows that I won't let her get away with acting like she is clueless. She is currently reading, the first book in "A Series of Unfortunate Events", Pipi Longstocking, The Wizard of Oz, Dr. Doo Little (all unabridged versions), plus an assortment of little fluff books here and there, for fun at home. When visiting with her grandparents, she can barely get through a "Biscuit" book. She reads slowly, painstakingly sounding out each words.

I am still trying to work my way around this. DD knows that she will get fawned over by the grandparents if she makes a big *show* about trying. I have mentioned it to them that she can read quite well, but they scoff, since she makes such a big production out of sounding out words in front of them. She does the same thing with other people, too. As soon, as she realizes that they expect little to nothing from her and that they are easily impressed, she adjusts her behavior accordingly.

Perhaps, your child is doing something similar.

My big concern with a child who does this, is that it may become habit: only giving the bare minimum. I am still trying to figure out ways to work around it without becoming pushy, banshee mom. I am willing to push. It just doesn get a bit tiring and frustrating, at times.

Mizzou

This is my DD8.5, as well. She just got her report card to day and was in tears over her "B" in reading. One would think that a child who reads at a grade 6+ level would get an A in third grade reading, but not so for her. I tried my best to explain that the teacher can only tell how well she reads by listening to her read aloud and by how well she does on her comprehension exercises. Writing is a huge issue for her and her work is always sloppy and has a bare minimum of details. When reading, she doesn't even try words she does not know... she just sticks a random word in that starts with the same letter. Tonight, she read "Italy is the third most visited nation in Egypt" when I pointed out that the word was "Europe" she shrugged and ignored me. She didn't realize that word did not make sense and she didn't care in the least when it was brought to her attention. She had a general idea what the point of the sentence was, which was good enough for her. She practically needs someone to sit with her while she works through comprehension exercises. I used to wonder whether she was reading so fast that she was failing to understand well enough, but if she is asked the questions verbally she spews all the information easily. Again, writing is her Waterloo.... her hand just can't keep up with her brain and she can't make her letter look nice enough. She can't even get to the part where she worries about WHAT she is writing as the process itself is torture for her.



I think this describes my DD's problem perfectly. She also has ADD and speed reads at an amazing rate (72 pages of Little Women in less than 30 minutes yesterday. She has admitted to skimming over boring parts, as well. That being said, when questioned verbally about what she has read she has amazing recall and memory for minute details.

It is so difficult to tease out the cause when performance does not correlate with ability. Is it a concentration issue, a comprehension issue, a writing problem, performance anxiety, perfectionism or some funky kind of combination of any of them? These creatures need to come wtih manuals! I wish I could add words of wisdom, but as you probably gathered from the beginning of this post... we are in the same boat. Good luck!

I have no real expertise on how to deal with this issue in a gifted child. But Giftodd's post reminded me of a ex-boyfriend of mine who was a linguist. I would ask him to proof read an essay for me and when he had finished tearing through and fixing spelling and grammar I would ask "What did you think?". He would look at me, confused, and reply "Huh?". ME: "What did you think of the essay?" He: "Oh, I didn't READ it. I just fixed it. If you want me to read it you need to tell me first."

For him consuming content and processing the words & grammar were two totally separate interactions with a text. And words and grammar were WAY faster. He was no slouch at actually consuming the content either but the speed at which he "Fixed" was scary. And obviously he was interacting with the text in some sort of meaningful way in order to be able to make all the sentences grammatically perfect, modify paragraph structure, etc. And yet he would have literally zero recall of the content afterward unless he started with the intention of "Reading" it.

Same boyfriend was adamant that good spellers have a "visual check", which I have been meaning to go talk about in a different thread.

And I certainly know that I find myself randomly having NO recollection of what I just read to my child.

Also I clipped this from the amazon reviews of "the daily 5" "quiet 10" and " 6+1 traits of writing:"

These are just, I dunno, something in my notes I gotta think about later.
Copywork, narration, dictation,�


The daily 5:
The Daily Five is a series of literacy tasks (reading to self, reading with someone, writing, word work, and listening to reading).
The quiet 10:
"the Quiet 10"- which is 10 minutes where everyone... even the teacher!... is engaged in writing.�
6+1 traits of writing:
understand the qualities of good writing: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation
The writing traits classroom is an exciting and busy place where students, teachers, parents, and administrators use a common vocabulary to support the seven key qualities that define strong writing: ideas (the meaning and development of the message), organization (the internal structure of the piece), voice (the way the writer brings the topic to life), word choice (the specific vocabulary the writer uses to convey meaning), sentence fluency (the way the words and phases flow throughout the text), conventions (the mechanical correctness of the piece), and presentation (the overall appearance of the work). This is no easy concept for fourth graders, but when I read the lesson `What Did You Learn About The Writer?', I knew it would be perfect for her class and co-taught it the very next day. Immediately, the students understood what was meant by the term `voice' and we saw major developments in their writing.

The top part copywork, narration, dictation is another thing. I read in TWTM a nice lady's post that c,n,d practice now leads to successful note taking during a college lecture. Anyway, here's my cliff's notes on what I've googled about that so far.

Thank you, Grinity. Sorry for the delay in reply. I wanted to share all the comments with my wife. We discussed last night.

My wife believes, among other things, our daughter is suffering from lack of practice. Last year, in 1st grade, we had a brief period where her reading comprehension was dropping off. The teacher jumped on it immediately with some practice tools and the problem went away.

This year, the class is more focused on math and my wife believes our daughter has simply gotten sloppy due to a combination of reading too fast, jumping to conclusions and lack of practice.

We have her eyes and ears checked regularly and no problems have been reported.

As to her choosing to read below her level, she shows maturity on many levels (such as interpersonal relations, being polite, considering feelings, et cetera), but she is less mature than her classmates on things like boys, music, activities. She is an only child, we are 50, and there are no children in the neighborhood for her to play with after school. So, other than school, play dates with friends, and weekend activities (gymnastics, swimming, Mandarin language class, Sunday School) she is around adults more than kids during her free time and her development has probably not been as complete as if she would be outside playing in the yard with kids her age.

We are going to follow your recommendation and practice inferences when we go places. That is a great idea. We are also going to follow your recommendation on graphical organizers, as that will probably help.

Thank you, DeHe

She is definitely reading too fast and skipping words. She read for me last night and missed the key points completely in the story, due to skipping words. She also jumps to a conclusion. She will read a bit, think she knows where the story is going, then fills in the blanks herself.

She does not appear to be doing this for adult attention. She is not pleased at all when she learns that she read something wrong. She is, to put it simply, stunned.

To your point about her being a perfectionist, yes, I would say that is correct.

JJ's Mom,

We do not think she has eye tracking issues, but will have her tested. As to the balance of your list of symptoms, they certainly sound familiar - she has a strong vocabulary; but I suspect she only reads what holds her attention. We tried her on the early Nancy Drew books (that were for her age group) and she had no interest.

To your question about us, we are not Asian. Blond hair and fair skin (Germanic/Norse tree). We have always spoke openly about her adoption/heritage, attend annual reunions of the adoption group we were part of (she is an email pen pal with 3 of the girls that were adopted when she was), attend the local Parents of Children from China events with similar looking families (non-Asian parents), have Chinese festivals, et cetera. But, in the end, we look different. Fortunately, her friends are a rainbow of colors and we remain in direct contact with the other parents to hear if any kid-talk turns ugly or painful. So far, we have detected nothing. But, I am sure there is much we do not see.

If she is skipping words when she reads, she could be having issues with visual tracking or convergence, which would not be caught in a standard vision screening. You may want to have her evaluated by a developmental optometrist or an OT who specializes in visual issues. Our son had had regular vision screenings as well, and was a voracious reader, but when his regular OT noticed him skipping words when he read aloud and referred him to a visual OT for evaluation, we found serious problems with tracking and convergence, as well as near-total left-sided visual neglect, all of which have since been successfully rehabilitated to near-average levels.

One of the interim strategies that we used with my son was to have him use a plain, opaque place marker (like the back of a bookmark or an unlined index card) that he could slide down the page as he read, keeping it just under the line he was reading, to help him avoid skipping back and forth from line to line while he was reading and to make the page less visually confusing. It might be something to try with your DD.

Goody
Don't beat yourself up so much about opportunities with other kids. A lot of the things you reference, boys, music and activities are driven by shared pop culture. Our kids often aren't interested in that - so even if she was surrounded by other kids she might still be interested in whatever she is interested in. Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right reading niche - I find I am often switching around between fiction and nonfiction, finding the right level of where he is now, or where he is going. And I spend a lot of time reading the book threads on the site!

Plus its typical for the gifted to enjoy adults more than age mates. My DS 5 makes up these elaborate games to make their ordinary games more interesting to him - like tag - they are all playing tag - he is firing shark torpedoes and bringing evildoers back to his lair. Some other little boys make up his "team" and I am not even sure they know he is doing this or are actually playing with him!

My younger DD (also 7 and in 2nd grade) struggles with reading comprehension as well. She can understand and relate to books well beyond her grade level if she listens to them, but often can't answer even simple questions about the story if it's something she's read. DD has problems with tracking, tends to read too fast and miss words, and sometimes focuses more on the pattern the words make on the page than on the words themselves.

She enjoys crafts, so we made a bunch of bookmarks for her. Like aculady's DS, she puts them under the line of text she's currently reading. It slows her down and keeps her focused on that part of the page. I don't know if it would help your DD, but it might be worth a try.