5th grader reads on grade level but well below ability

Hi, Lil,

You of all people probably can tell them best! It sounds like he would benefit from PG to me…maybe even an intensive. Any of the multi-sensory structured programs would help him, but PG is likely the fastest.

Janis

It looks like some work on short term memory may be in order.

Thanks Janis,

I know my kid pretty well, and I’m confident with him! :-)

I’ve been pondering this, and as you know there is a big shortage of qualified reading tutors in this area. So, I think I’ll give it a go - still pondering. But I’ll know whether what I’m doing is going to work for him within a couple of weeks. I was just looking for some back up, I guess.

I am really insecure because I know when I got to the multisyllable words in PG with my son, he already knew them all by sight - and it was a huge battle. And I’m sure this kid knows more than my son did at the end of third grade when we were working on it. They’re both in 5th grade now. :-)

I think I can work with this kid. But I’m at a loss as to know where to start. His sight vocab is going to be so good, he’ll already know most of the PG stuff - and won’t really be decoding. I guess it’s time to make up a list of nonsense words. :-) But I’ll need to test him to see where he needs work, and introduce the sounds per the PG format - and work with blending and segmenting.

I think he’s going to be a reallly tough nut to crack since his coping skills are so good, and so ingrained.

And, Guest, thanks, it does look like he needs some work on short term memory.

Lil

With students who are just too good at guessing, I read together a book that is just a bit too hard for guessing to be successful. One example (there are many others) is Harry Potter. It is popular now and most kids want to read it. There are all sorts of unusual names and long words and it just cannot be memorized.
We alternate pages. I read one page, with lots of expression, moderately slowly, and I point as I read with a ballpoint pen. I insist that the student keep his eyes on the page and follow— check frequently.
As the student reads, each time he stalls, I *refuse* to give him the word — he has to sound it out. I do help with the sounding, as I’ve described before, first sound, first syllable, sound beginning second syllable, etc. (notes in detail available by email.) I also absolutely refuse to accept misreadings, geusses, and other inaccuracies, especially including leaving off endings (the endings give information and how can he become an accurate writer if he doesn’t even know these things exist?) I make him go back and re-read the word; if he insists on his error, we go back again and re-do the whole sentence until it makes sense. At first the student finds this hard slogging. Sometimes there are arguments and even tears. However the error rate drops very fast after the first hour or two, when he realizes that yes, *this* teacher isn’t a pushover for faking. After the first hundred pages he has the idea, and after five hundred pages he is beginning to get a grip. I would strongly recommend doing a few thousand more pages to make the habit permanent, but at that point (one Harry Potter or two to three other books) the student is on the right track.
Parallel to the real reading, I do paper-and-pencil phonics, a cumulative planned series working through digraphs, vowel patterns, syllables, less-predictable vowel patterns (ea as in bead - read / bread - read; ow as in blow, bow / cow - bow, etc. etc.), silent letters, and other advanced phonics topics - I feel that many phonics programs fail because they concentrate so much on only single consonants that the kid doesn’t learn enough for it to be useful.
We do about twenty minutes of this advanced phonics, a page or two, at one session, and we read for at least half an hour. As time permits we also work on vocabulary/comprehension/spelling; if I can get the kid to cooperate, I write down the error and new words from the reading and work on them in isolation. I always stop the reading for a second to discuss new advanced vocabulary.
The majority of kids start to really enjoy their sessions and to look forward to their reading lesson — they are reading something both interesting and age-appropriate, so they can be proud instead of ashamed to be going over baby phonics. This does take time to establish of course!

Lil,

If he has a strong sight word base, then I’d recommend using Michael Bend’s ABeCeDarian materials instead of PG. He has something called Level A short version which is for kids reading at 3rd grade level but who need advanced code with lots of nonsense words. The manual is wonderful and easy to follow. Not too expensive either. I can’t remember if I’ve ever sent you the samples, but email me if you are interested.

Janis

Thanks all for the suggestions. I should be talking to the parents some time this week, and see where we go from here. :-)

I’ll send you both e-mails for more info if we do decide I should tutor this child!

Thanks again for your help and support,
Lil