Where do I go from here?

Your son: “He tells me his reading deteriorates when he has to read outloud, that he reads more accurately when he reads to himself. But how do I know that for sure?”

I suspect you know the answer to your question. His silent reading is likely to have about the same percentage of miscalls as his oral reading.

He doesn’t read smoothly and often misreads prepositions and might read “his” for “he” or changes the endings on words.
What is the best intervention for this kind of issue?

I suggest making an inventory of your son’s miscalls and investing enough practice time reading miscalled words in sentences to improve accuracy.

Claims to read better silently than out loud: I hear this all the time from my students. Unfortunately a lot of them have been allowed to believe it — if nobody catches you out in a mistake, it never happened, right? This is a very poor attitude for life in general, and is a dead-end for learning reading.

Many teachers encourage this, thinking they are helping the students’ self-esteem. I believe strongly that you don’t do anyone any good by propping up self-esteem on a lie — it is going to come crashing down and leave them a lot worse off.

The first thing that has to happen is that the student has to re-connect reading and writing to spoken language. Many students who speak perfectly normally say things in their oral reading *and* (the proof that there is a real problem here) write things that they would never say.
Working on this reconnection you are unfortunately swimming against the current of common teaching practice, which prefers silent seat work because it is easy and which accepts any more or less close answer to keep things flowing along. You are going to have to convince the kid that yes, accuracy is important, and yes, you are going to hold to it.

I read alternate pages with the student, choosing a book that is moderately challenging for him, preferably as interesting as possible. When he slips up, I stop him and make him re-read every single word until he gets it right. I particularly insist on the “little” words like of and from — the meaning does change, and if you can’t get the little easy common things right, how are you going to do the hard stuff?
At first this may seem like slogging through quicksand. In fact some students may make more and more errors in order to get you fed up so you’ll stop correcting, and others rush through the sentence at a gabble in hopes you won’t catch them. Be patient and insistent. Point at words or word parts with a pen and keep insisting that he look at the word (many kids focus on the ceiling and imagine what they think it is instead of looking at what is actually there) — watch his eyes and pull him back. When you read your page, read with lots of emphasis and expression — you want to teach him to read meaningfully — and follow with the pen, checking his eyes often to see that he is following with you.
After a few hours, most students realize first that you mean what you say and they start to get more accurate (you want to make it easier to be accurate than to guess, this is the point of the slogging through) and second that in fact reading makes a whole lot more sense and is much more interesting when the sentences have the right words in the right places. You don’t quit because you see improvement however; you keep at it for at least a couple of books, and you practice every weekday for at least a full school year.
In every case I’ve worked with, real fluency (understanding, expressing, etc.) and also speed (which is NOT fluency) picked up automatically after the student started reading accurately and relating the words read to real spoken language.

I would get a developmental vision evaluation. See http://www.childrensvision.com for more information. Undiagnosed developmental vision problems, which are not checked for in regular eye exams, can interfere with reading fluency and accuracy. If this is the problem, vision therapy — especially if followed by a cognitive skills training program — should be very helpful.

Also, you may want to consider using the Rewards program (http://www.rewardsreading.com ) from Sopris West. It is a scripted program which is very easy for a parent to pick up and use, and the 20 lessons work on decoding skills, accuracy and fluency. If vision is not the problem, Rewards is likely to be dramatically helpful.

Nancy

My nephew, who is dyslexic, frequently makes these claims that he reads better silently. Given how severe his dyslexia is, I would doubt that. He no doubt just doesn’t realize that he is making the mistakes at all.

BTW, I have found that dyslexic kids frequently have better comprehension reading out loud. My guess is that the “audience” can then correct their errors and they will then get the words right. Naturally I don’t recommend this in front of their age peers.

—des

An excellent post. Clearly stated, and from the heart.

Students experiencing beginning reading difficulty benefit measurably when tutors insist on accurate word recognition.

What is the best intervention for this kind of issue?

He should be reading at least 20 minutes every day on his own in a book with a very comfortable reading level. He needs practice to build fluency and speed. Certainly continue to pursue having him read outloud to you but he should also be reading on his own and at least 20 minutes - 30 minutes a day.

Good luck.

Reading independently — depends on how bad the problem is. If I have a student who is guessing so wildly that what comes out is nothing like what’s on the page, or a student who is “reading” for hours and then can’t say a word about what he worked so hard on, I recommend against solo work since it is obviously having no worthwhile results and is merely reinforcing the negative habits that we want to get rid of. Stopping the hours of counterproductive time leaves time to do more valuable activities, reduces stress, and allows the student to get in the habit of meaningful reading. Solo work can come back after he is getting the idea.