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Reading still needs improvement…
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I’m not sure “Beginning” reading was the right topic group, but couldn’t decide where else to put this. My son recently turned 11 and his reading has come a long way. It seems he can read most anything as far as figuring out the words, but is very intimidated by chapter books and flat out refuses to even try. For his school work, he often has trouble with comprehension. When he finishes a short reading he’ll often tell me it didn’t make sense. But he understands it if I read it aloud. Any suggestions on how can I help him to improve in this area?
Thanks so much,
Melissa
I don’t have much advice, as we are also struggling – but have you looked into having him tested for dyslexia? Or looked at dyslexia resources?
My son probably has dyslexia. He is 10, in ‘grade 5’ and reads at aprox a grade 3 level (depends on the test). He has other signs of dyslexia. We use a LOT of audiobooks.
Thanks, Suzukimom. That is something to consider. In the mean time, I’m realizing that he’s not really doing any reading outside of school assignments this year. I think we need to go back to requiring afternoon reading, as we did last year – practice, practice, practice. We fell away from that with afternoons/evenings being so busy this year. But this is too important to let it go. I’m also going to try having him read school assignments aloud to see if that helps him. And, as much as he hates repitition, re-read things. I got those ideas/realizations from looking at this site:
Being CMers, we already tend to talk about what we read, another one of the suggestions. 😉
Thanks y’all! Sometimes it helps just having a sounding board helps get your thoughts together. If we continue to struggle with this after doing the above for a while, I may be back to ask about disability testing. Hopefully not. 🙂
Happy Monday!
Melissa
Could possibly be dyslexia. My daughter has it and at almost 11 is improving, but not to the point where she can do reading independently. I basically read everything to her, except the book she is reading for practice. I don’t worry so much about comprehension of what she is reading. I am more concerned about her just becoming more fluent. We do narration and comprehension questions in the other subjects that I read to her. When having your son read for practice, just do it in small segments.
A dad in our homeschool group is a teacher in a learning support class in a public school. I was talking to him the other day and he shared with me what he does in his class to make sure the students are learning the important parts of what he is reading. When he prepares, he comes up with 4 questions (no more) that have to do with what he feels are the most important parts of the story. One is a vocabulary word. He tells the students the word and then tells them to listen for that word (this helps with attention) while he is reading. He discusses that word with them after the reading. The other questions are to see if they picked up on the most important parts of what he read. This dad is also a homeschool evaluator. He is familiar with the CM style of teaching, and he thinks it is good. But, he also told me that children with LDs do better with concrete rather than abstract. So, he feels it is better to give them questions rather than having them just ‘retell’. I plan on trying this with my daughter. Maybe something like that would help your son with comprehension.
I don’t know how fluent your son is with his reading, but if you are in need of some other curriculum to use, PM me and let me know what you are looking for. Maybe I can help or maybe I can’t, but in our journey I have tried many different things becasue of my daughter’s struggles. Also, a mom on another board with a dyslexic son about the age of yours has been of great help with resources. I know how frustrating it can be when you feel like they just aren’t getting something. I hope something here will be beneficial:)
Thanks to you both for the suggestion. I’ve been doing some reading and decided to have a look at Dianne Craft’s website. I sat down this morning and did the assessment from her “Where do I start?” box and see we definitely have some issues. He is still about 2 years behind “grade level” in reading. I’ve never really been concerned with grade level, as long as he was showing some progress. So the problem with this is that is about where we were at the beginning of this year. It appears we have hit a wall and he has not progressed from where we started at this year. So, I’m going to try her suggestions and see what happens. If we need to, we have several options here for formal testing. But hopefully just using Dianne Craft’s materials will get us over this wall.
All that to say how much I appreciate you both taking the time to respond and give your .02. 🙂
Melissa
Check out these sites too….
http://headstrongnation.org/parents
How is his spelling? Writing? Memorization of Math Facts?
All right, thanks. I’m checking out those sites. Have not bought anything yet. 😉
Spelling is poor, but has improved. I’ve been using Spellwell by Nancy Hall. Not sure if that has helped or if he would have improved no matter what I used just working with the words.
Writing is a struggle. I’m not sure if you mean mechanics or coherent thoughts on paper, though. He has learned cursive this year (asked to) and did pretty well with the print to cursive Proverbs. But now hates the copy work for practice. :/ I’m looking at a letter he’s written to a friend (not in cursive) and can read it pretty easily. He’s getting better at spacing. I circled almost everything under the visual/motor heading in the assessment. But, his writing doesn’t look any worse than his pen-pal friend. Hmmmm. I also circled nearly everything under the Attention/Focusing/Behavior heading…
Math facts, ahhhh, math facts. How we hate them. 😉 Took forever, but he finally got addition and subtraction using Professor B. He’s currently working on multiplication using Timez attack. Hated xtramath and mathisfun. And also HATES when dad tries to drill him orally.
Did you mean for me to answer all those? Maybe I was just supposed to think about them. 🙂 Guess I tend to “think out loud.”
Now off to peruse those sites you gave me – right after I start some laundry.
Melissa
I haven’t bought anything either… 🙂 But I like their info.
It does sound like classic dyslexia symptoms…. obviously I can’t diagnose it. But he is likely working harder for what he is doing, and just increasing the amount of time he is expected to read is unlikely to help.
I just thought I’d come back here and mention that ds is having a dyslexia assessment tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon. He’s a little nervous, so we’d appreciate any prayers for him.
Thanks so much,
Melissa
Please tell him not to worry. There is no right or wrong. They’re just trying to understand how he learns or how he needs to learn. This testing is to help *you* know what to do. That might take the pressure off. Also, maybe use a word other than “test.” ?? Maybe?
My ds was tested for dyslexia but not diagnosed. His LD’s fall right there “next” to it, though. He has dysgraphia and some of the things mentioned above are very, very true for my ds as well. Materials geared for dyslexics, like AAS’s O-G approach, have been big helps. He is now 18. It’s been a long, learning time for both of us and he still fights some of it. I wish we could have learned it better/faster, but that’s not the way. Having an understanding of what’s going on after the testing is a HUGE help, though. Please share, if that’s OK.
Praying for him.
K
Best of luck! Testing was harder on me than the kids. That was when I started doubting myself as a teacher. So, I’ll pray for you as well!
Our testing lasted 4 hours, and they had a short break midway through the testing. I brought a snack and water for them during their break.
Bring a good book. I read Shaywitz’ Overcoming Dyslexia during their testing. It really helped me during the results review the next day.
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