Still skipping words...

I call it a bad habit. Rod calls it sloppy reading. Basically, the student gets in the habit of rushing through to the end (one reason I am generally against speed drills, which often teach exactly the wrong thing.) If it’s OK to skip all the little words, if nobody complains about it or stops you, then you think this is the way to go to get higher speed grades.
When i tutor, I stop the student and make him go back and fix these things. I follow a pen under the words and stop him each and every time. If it gets really bad I cover the word with a card and uncover one letter at a time and have him sound it out. At first this is really annoying for both parties, but I stick to it. After a while he realizes that I’m serious and he slows down and stops skipping. A while is usualy a few hours, but I have to be very definite for those few hours, no letting it slip “just once”. The funny thing is, after a few more hours of reading slowly and accurately and really looking at what is written on the page, then almost all students speed up faster than they were before.

I agree with Victoria on this. Lots of kids are so used to guessing and skipping words that they are in the habit. Break it. You can use nonverbal signals or even throat clearing etc and even be a bit humorous about the whole thing.

One thing I have found helpful (though not entirely) is to tell the child what the difference is and what little words can do. For example, “a dog” is any old dog but “the dog” is one special dog like yours (my Torie was a good example), similarly the kid might say “in” instead of “on”. You coudl talk about being “on the alligator” vs “in the alligator”. This is useful as I said, but won’t entirely stop the habit. It will explain the “why” of why these little words are important.

—des

That’s what I figured. When he reads with me and does it, or decodes incorrectly, I put my finger under the word. He always re-reads it correctly. THis is basically what they want us to do at his school, not give him the answer, but direct him back so he can self correct. Thansk for the input!

I’ve had some students who just took a little while to work out of this, and others for whom it persisted. It helped (either case) to spend a reading session counting the little word errors and seeing if that could be reduced on the next page.
Basically, it’s harder to break the instant-misrecognition for little words; takes a bit more focus.
It also pays to take note of what kinds of mistakes he makes. I’ve had students persistently mistake Wh and Th words — when for then, what for that. (It made me realize how interchangeable those words are!) Those kiddos I went slower and did more review since they weren’t even grabbing the first letters before going straight to the “context clue” part of the brain. Since they probably had years of associating that spelling with the wrong word, thought, it was really not that surprising.

I noticed an increase in this behavior this summer, right when his ability and interest in reading more complex content took off. I didn’t notice it during the school year when he was reading out of his merrill readers. I suspect his teachers this year will address this , and hopefully the repetition of doing it correctly will break the habit. Truth is once school starts most of his out loud reading will be at school. : )

For remediating the problem of skipping words, I use the read/reread tactic - immediately intervening each time there is a skip. By using suitable rewards for the task being accomplished and by working on the skill area daily, most “bad habit” reading problems are quickly remediated.

The use of timers and “speed” goals do not always connotate “speed reading.” But speed is a critical area of reading, without it - even with 100% accuracy - the reading makes no sense - thus, our emphasis upon “speed.”

From a “mess” in North Central Florida - Ken