Please help a rising 2nd grader struggling to read!
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Anonymous
It depends on the class. DD's second grade class had very few kids with birthdays in fall and winter. Most kids were April-August. In any event, OP suggested her child felt left our, and mentioned that immediately after mentioning the child's age. Thus, my question as to whether her child is indeed older than most of the other kids. |
Anonymous
| Plus, it is June. If your child had a March birthday, he was not 7.5 in June before second grade. |
Anonymous
| He was when he entered second grade. |
Anonymous
Yes, I second this. (We just received the report cards today.) |
Anonymous
| In our FFX county school we got the reading assessment (DRAS?) home on the last day along with the report card. |
Anonymous
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Scholastic has a great tool on their website which you can enter any book and it gives you the reading level. I am not an employee of scholastic- my son's 1st grade tracher mentioned it. Here is a link:
http://www.scholastic.com/tbw/quickSearch.do?Ntx=mode+matchany&Ntk=TBW_CustomBook_SI&Ne=1312&N=0+1860+1861 This search oulled up books that were "i" and "j" books. So start with "i" books to see where your daughter is. these should be for her independent reading . Pick more robust books that you read together. My son really struggled this year in 1st grade and pulled it together to end the year just on the cusp of "j". Does your school have a reading recovery program? The philosophy is that you recognize the things that the child can do - reinforce and build confidence in those areas and move to other items with different strategies. If you have worked with your daughter, just doing it more frequently (trying harder) is not going to enable the break through that she needs. Given her age, I would recommend either testing for a learning disability OR a reading recovery specialist. But if she is reading at "i" or "j" level - she is where she needs to be - just not as advanced as some of her peers. |
Anonymous
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I am another teacher, and here a few suggestions:
* Practice syllables w/ claps. (e.g. names are good.) * "Shared reading" (alternate reading pages. The advantages are that she will not fatigue/frustrate as easily, and you are also setting an example for how to read.) * Continue to also read ENTIRE books to her so she does not lose the "joy of reading," and this will also help motivate her to want to improve her skills. * Let her high lite phonograms from photocopied pages of the books she is reading. (Examples of phonograms include; OO, EW, SH, CH, EE, IE, EA, TH, OW, OU, LE, TCH, WH, GH.) This will help her with decoding skills.) GL! |
Anonymous
Yes, it is within the range of normal for her age. She is sounding out the first syllable and then guessing the rest of the word in context. She just needs help separating the 2+ syllable words into chunks, so she can decode each one. She needs to work on just that (forget about intonation, meaning for a while and have her just read nonsense words. Information on how to teach chunking http://www.sharonnegri.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/chunking.pdf abecedarian is a GREAT program. Here's supplmenetary practice decoding single and 2 syllable nonsense words: http://www.abcdrp.com/docs/ABCD_WB0_NonsenseFluency.pdf |
Anonymous
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OP,
My child was struggling mightily with reading at the end of first grade. She struggled in second grade too. I read to her. We picked difficult chapter books and I read a chapter a night to her. By difficult I mean above her reading level. Her willingness to read increased by leaps and bounds. Now she reads all on her own and she loves reading. |
Anonymous
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I have a rising 3rd grader who is an excellent reader now. As a rising 2nd grader, however, he was struggling and hating reading. I never expected him to struggle because he is a really smart kid. He understands so much and has a great memory. Learning to read was work and he wasn't interested in the work. Also, I think he wasn't interested in the books. See, he loved to have us read to him and we read higher level books. The "I Can Read" books are...well, do you like reading these stories? They are stripped down, stilted, lack flow and description. I was giving him these books to bring up his reading, but what I really needed him to do was get interested in reading on his own. The first step is to motivate DC to practice with harder texts and more interesting texts so that reading becomes easier and something to look forward to.
This is what worked for us: I found a chapter book at an interest/intellectual level appropriate for my son, but was much harder than the what he had been reading. It had easy to follow print with good spacing. If it helps, it was "My Life As A Book" http://www.amazon.com/My-Life-Book-Janet-Tashjian/dp/0312672896/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372768453&sr=8-1&keywords=my+life+as+a+book Then I gave him incentive to read beyond what had been previously required of him. In our case, he read a chapter to me after school and got a dollar toward a certain toy he wanted (a $10 toy, so the goal was achievable in a reasonable amount of time). Extra chapters read meant extra dollars. And since this was a chapter book with a story that interested him, he wanted to find out what happened next--i.e. the story wasn't complete when his reading was. I would read to him at night, but from a different book, so that if he wanted to continue the My Life... story, he had to read it. I was hard at first, and I absolutely had to sit with him while he read. He was skipping words like your DD (but he skipped all the connecting words and lost the meaning that way, but he'd do the guess-at-a-longer-word-and-move-on trick, too), so I would stop him and say "try again and this time read all the words." I'd use my finger to point to each word and slow him down. I'd only ask if he understood the sentence AFTER he'd read it correctly (so that he could succeed and grow in confidence). And if the content or wording was such that I didn't think he was getting a passage, I would explain it without quizzing him first. He really started picking up steam about 2/3rds of the way through the book. I still sat with him, but the corrections were much less frequent. Anyway, that got him over the hump of struggling with reading. The next ones we read were the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series. He flew through those -- maybe they are easier, too, and you might want to start with them, but they don't have clear chapter breaks that would work with the incentive set-up. Now, he reads on his own and we have to tell him to turn off the light and go to sleep. So, take heart, struggling now does not mean she won't be a reader. Just get books she wants to read and incentives to practice. My son and I have continued the exercise to increase his skills. He reads easier books on his own and together we read books above his level (currently, "The Name of This Book is Secret" series. They take work for him, but he wants to find out what happens, so he works for it! The chapters have gotten longer, so now I ask him to read for 20 minutes, then I'll finish the chapter. It's good for us. Hope that helps! |
Anonymous
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There are some books that are made to be read alternating pages-- the adult's page is more complicated and the child's easier. They are fiction and nonfiction, and some poetry/funny language books. We did that -- it breaks it up for the child. Also I would have her read to me a bit nad then I read to her a lot, like 45 minutes. It was never enough, she always wanted more and more, longer and longer. It was a nice time to snuggle, too-- I read to her through about 5th grade or so.
She also struggled in 2nd grade -- very halting reader. She wasn't dyslexic and now reads high school level texts easily but she was thorough and plodding, and a slow processor. It just took her a while to get it. Make it fun, make it snuggly and safe. Good luck! |
Anonymous
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Another teacher, here...
You might also want to consider stopping into a teacher supply store like ABC's & 1-2-3's in Rockville. I know they have early readers that will make your child feel successful, plus practice workbooks for reading comprehension. If your child says that the letters or words "jump around", you might try a reading guide -- it's a little bookmark-shaped tool that has a highlighted strip down the center. Basically, it highlights individual words or one sentence at a time, so the child keeps focused on smaller bits while reading. Another thought ... if your child has a particular hobby or collection that excites them, suggest going to the library or looking up info online. If you want to be an expert on something, you need to research and read up on it! You could do this together and keep a journal on the new material learned (get some writing in there, too.) Good luck! |
Anonymous
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Don't make her read to you before bed. At night, just you read to her. She's tired then, and this is stressful. Reading to her does help teach reading, just not decoding.
Those "baby" books are boring for her, too. |