I have a daughter with no identified LD’s who recently complained that the reason she does not enjoy reading is because it takes too long. She says she feels she reads slowly and it makes the reading less enjoyable. She also says sometimes it is the vocabulary she finds difficult. She is going in 6th grade. She is currently trying to read the book Watership Down. On achievement testing her scores range from the 69th precentile to the 95th percentile. Her lowest score is on vocabulary. The scores are from group testing on the MAT7. When I look at her reading scores they dont look that bad to me. She correctly answered 5/5 for the 3rd grade, 9/10 for the 4th, 18/20 for the 5th grade portion, 11/15 for 6th, and 4/5 for the 7th. Her independent reading level was determined to be 5th grade, her instructional level 6th grade, and frustration level 7th. Do you think maybe she is just trying to read books that are too hard? Or could it be that reading speed is interfering with comprehension during such long stories? Her comprehension score on achievement testing was the 82% percentile. These achievement tests though are just short passages. What are your all thoughts?
Re: ideas please
You may want to first survey the books that she is checking out and review the content and vocabulary words with her prior to her actually reading the book. Have her define the words that she does not know and this may help with reading comprehension and her reading enjoyment.
Re: ideas please
I wonder if it’s that her thinking speed isn’t faster than her reading speed - or if she’s just having trouble with harder reading because she doesn’t have fluency with that level of reading (so it’s the mental effort rather than the speed itself that’s the problem). I have known kids who did really well with whole language approaches but then had trouble with harder reading because it just wasn’t as predictable as what they were used to and the context-based strategies were slower and less effective.
It’s neat that she’s identifying the problems. Sounds like she’s ready to tackle some work on vocabulary — and if she did it through Greek & Latin & Anglo roots that might make the reading easier too. There are lots of vocab. practice exercises in the “Reading comprehension” section at my site (www.resourceroom.net).
Re: ideas please
Thanks Sue! that does make a lot of sense. Her highest score on achievement testing was the thinking section scoring at the 95th percentile. This may also explain why science is her best subject and greatest joy at school. We will visit your site and work on some of the vocab exercises there. Thank you for the insight.
I think Watership Downs is maybe too hard for her. I think she could read the words but the concepts in that book really require a thorough knowledge of history. I would encourage her to read books at her independent reading level. Help her look for books that are about things that interest her. I think it sounds like she is right on track as far as grade level reading. She might like A Wrinkle In Time or Holes. Both of those books are at about 6th grade level or Maniac Magee. Maybe the Harry Potter books. I read them and I loved them.
Nan