help in reading/lang arts, 10 year old boy

The book is available at most bookstores for $16 and contains all the information you need to tutor your son this summer. This approach is easy to use and tends to work rather quickly. (With my then 8yo dd who was reading at a preschool level when we started Reading Reflex, both of us could see significant progress within the first 3 hours of one-on-one we did.) Reading Reflex would likely help his word attack skills a lot, and also boost comprehension and fluency. Most children get spelling improvement while mastering the advanced code portion of Reading Reflex. (I wouldn’t bother to cut out the manipulatives first, as you probably won’t need them at his age. Just get a white board and use that first. Saves a lot of time on your part.)

What has helped us with math is Singapore Math (http://www.singaporemath.com). What I would suggest is getting the level 3A package (one textbook and two workbooks, covering half a year of approximately 4th grade U.S. math, which I think runs about $25) and starting with that. When that’s finished, move right into level 3B. My dd took about 6 weeks to get through the first workbook we did in level 2 (complaining the whole time), then whipped through the next one in less than 2 weeks. If your son can work through something like 12-15 pages of level 3 per day for the rest of this summer, he will have a really ***solid*** foundation for 5th grade math in the fall. My dd did only half of level 2 SM while in 4th grade (no public school instruction in math), and her math scores on the Iowa jumped from something like 1st percentile to 37th percentile. Her math reasoning score went from below average to above average! The trick is getting those 10 to 15 pages done *every* day.

I would wait on the writing for the moment. It would probably be a good idea to have him tested for a possible writing disability in the fall (be sure to make the request to the school in writing so they don’t put you off!). If he does have a writing disability, you could waste a lot of time this summer doing stuff that doesn’t help him. Also, developmentally, writing skills come after reading skills, so it makes a lot of sense to focus on developing his reading first.

Mary

You could get different answers to your good question but this would be mine. Summer is short. Do you know a good reading tutor? His word attack are not strong but past that he has a very interesting scatter pattern and from these scores I would think your son is a bright young man who has a few gaps.

You could try to address his reading through tutoring. You could also do this. Find him books that are easy for him to read and hopefully that he has some interest in. Have him read easy read books for 15 to 1/2 hour every day. Reading easy books helps to build speed and fluency.

I also always suggest books on tape. www.listeninglibrary.com and recordedbooksontape. com both sell and rent tapes. Let him listen to books he otherwise could not read but that would interest him.

Here’s another suggestion. Choose a book just a notch above the level he can read or right at the level he can read and you read that book outloud to him. But stop fairly often and ask him what might happen next. Have a running discussion/conversation about the book as you read it. Even stop at the title before reading the book and puzzle through together what the title might mean and/or what a book with such a title might be about.

This kind of intentional conversation about a book can help children to connect better with the book - help them to better comprehend the book and others that they will read as the learn to make connections, to make predictions, to consider the possibilities.

I’d also read a non-fiction book to him after explaining the difference to him. Find a biography written for children about some famous person. Help him to feel the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Some of the things a reading tutor would do can be done at home.