Tell me about your 1st grade reader

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kiddo is reading at a 3rd grade level and won't stop reading. I didn't know kids could read too much but we need him stop in order to come up for air and interact with people. What do we do? He's into Dogman and Dragon Master books.

This sounds similar to my kid. Like tonight he devoured an entire Merlin mission magic tree house book before bed.

Truthfully, there’s a pretty wide range in 1st and it’s clear to us that DS is doing more than fine so we don’t really care at this point, just that he continues to love reading. One thing I have found helpful is to google Lexile and guided reading level ranges that are expected for his grade. I then compare the books DS is reading to that range to have an idea whether we should be concerned. This was helpful in K when trying to understand if he was on target for 1st. Now I do it to figure out what books to suggest to DS that are just a little bit more challenging to where he is at now.

Talk about obsessive - cross checking what your kid is reading and whether it’s where he should be and then trying to figure a way to push him past his limits. You need to relax and enjoy having a healthy kid who likes to read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine has devoured all the Harry Potter books so far this year

Sure but does she understand them? I seriously doubt it.

Some kids read them and do. One of mine did. The other read them later. There’s a huge range of reading ability at that age.

I read the first to my son at that age and he understood it and loved it. His reading ability wasn’t there yet though.

[Anonymous]

Mine is reading chapter books like Ramona, Magic Treehouse, Julie B Jones, Ivy & Bean etc. I believe she’s on the advanced side in reading as compared to her classmates, but isn’t a total outlier or anything

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Age and birth order makes huge difference OP.

My current 1st grader is reading simple chapter books like Half Magic. He also reads a lot of Dog Man graphic novels and Who would Win. He’s above grade level - but he also turned 7 in November and has an older brother which adds to the availability of books at higher reading levels.

My older child is identified as gifted and was reading things like Step into Reading Level 1 and 2 books in 1st grade. He turned 7 in July after 1st grade. He also had remote school for all of 1st grade and I used “Teach your child to read in 100 lessons” when covid ended kindergarten for him in March and he was just starting to sound out CVC words.

Your child turned 7 in Nov, and is in the first grade? Please sit down, you do not count in this discussion.

Haha err…why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kiddo is reading at a 3rd grade level and won't stop reading. I didn't know kids could read too much but we need him stop in order to come up for air and interact with people. What do we do? He's into Dogman and Dragon Master books.

This sounds similar to my kid. Like tonight he devoured an entire Merlin mission magic tree house book before bed.

Truthfully, there’s a pretty wide range in 1st and it’s clear to us that DS is doing more than fine so we don’t really care at this point, just that he continues to love reading. One thing I have found helpful is to google Lexile and guided reading level ranges that are expected for his grade. I then compare the books DS is reading to that range to have an idea whether we should be concerned. This was helpful in K when trying to understand if he was on target for 1st. Now I do it to figure out what books to suggest to DS that are just a little bit more challenging to where he is at now.

Talk about obsessive - cross checking what your kid is reading and whether it’s where he should be and then trying to figure a way to push him past his limits. You need to relax and enjoy having a healthy kid who likes to read.

Only reason I did it in the first place is DS is in a school system where we get very little to no information on his progress except during parent teacher conferences. He brings no work home ever, not even things he is doing in class (I currently have ZERO idea how well he can write).

I’m not pushing him past his limits, I am finding content that is adjacent or slightly above where he is at when we run out of magic tree house and dragon masters books to read and asking him if he’d be interested in X book (for example he loves the titanic and I asked him if he’d be interested in this book I survived the titanic and we got it from the library). If I was pushing him I’d be handing him the hobbit or diary of a wimpy kid and having him sit next to me, forcing him to read it aloud…it’s way beyond his level. And like others have said, he can similarly run out of stamina and get frustrated with a book that’s too high a level.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand all the Harry Potter responses. I don’t feel like the Harry Potter series is appropriate for 6 year olds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in 2nd now, when he was in first he was reading on the 5th-grade level. He loves to read and we started reading to him every night since he was 2 weeks old. He does read chapter books but prefers graphical novels. To check for understanding we make him write a paragraph about the books he read.

i

Weird AF

[Anonymous]

Honestly, my 2nd grader was struggling at this point last year in 1st grade. Teacher said he was fine, but he was not reading the types of books other PPs are describing. We were making our way through some decodable readers (the All About Reading ones). Reading books with a bunch of words he hadn't learned how to decode yet only frustrated him.

He's made a lot of progress since then and is on grade level, but still not reading Harry Potter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand all the Harry Potter responses. I don’t feel like the Harry Potter series is appropriate for 6 year olds.

It's definitely not. My 8 year old can read HP, but is a little hesitant because she thinks some of the content is too scary. When it comes up, I still encourage her to wait a bit longer to start the series. Just because they can, doesn't mean they should. Both because of the content, and because of the gap in comprehension. They'll get a lot more out of it if they wait until they're more mature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Age and birth order makes huge difference OP.

My current 1st grader is reading simple chapter books like Half Magic. He also reads a lot of Dog Man graphic novels and Who would Win. He’s above grade level - but he also turned 7 in November and has an older brother which adds to the availability of books at higher reading levels.

My older child is identified as gifted and was reading things like Step into Reading Level 1 and 2 books in 1st grade. He turned 7 in July after 1st grade. He also had remote school for all of 1st grade and I used “Teach your child to read in 100 lessons” when covid ended kindergarten for him in March and he was just starting to sound out CVC words.

Your child turned 7 in Nov, and is in the first grade? Please sit down, you do not count in this discussion.

Uh, what? That is a normal 1st grade age. Kids are turning 7 anytime from Sept on..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand all the Harry Potter responses. I don’t feel like the Harry Potter series is appropriate for 6 year olds.

It's definitely not. My 8 year old can read HP, but is a little hesitant because she thinks some of the content is too scary. When it comes up, I still encourage her to wait a bit longer to start the series. Just because they can, doesn't mean they should. Both because of the content, and because of the gap in comprehension. They'll get a lot more out of it if they wait until they're more mature.

If they are like my kids they’ll read them hundreds of times between 6 and 16, so if they miss things the first time it doesn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Age and birth order makes huge difference OP.

My current 1st grader is reading simple chapter books like Half Magic. He also reads a lot of Dog Man graphic novels and Who would Win. He’s above grade level - but he also turned 7 in November and has an older brother which adds to the availability of books at higher reading levels.

My older child is identified as gifted and was reading things like Step into Reading Level 1 and 2 books in 1st grade. He turned 7 in July after 1st grade. He also had remote school for all of 1st grade and I used “Teach your child to read in 100 lessons” when covid ended kindergarten for him in March and he was just starting to sound out CVC words.

Your child turned 7 in Nov, and is in the first grade? Please sit down, you do not count in this discussion.

The cutoff in my school system is September 30th. He is not redshirted. I am not sure when you think I should have sent him to school? He started K at 5 and turned 6 in November.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand all the Harry Potter responses. I don’t feel like the Harry Potter series is appropriate for 6 year olds.

It's definitely not. My 8 year old can read HP, but is a little hesitant because she thinks some of the content is too scary. When it comes up, I still encourage her to wait a bit longer to start the series. Just because they can, doesn't mean they should. Both because of the content, and because of the gap in comprehension. They'll get a lot more out of it if they wait until they're more mature.

If they are like my kids they’ll read them hundreds of times between 6 and 16, so if they miss things the first time it doesn’t matter.

The first few books are also not that scary. The first 3 books, and especially 1 and 2, are written to a level that early elementary kids can understand and will not find too scary. Actually, at that age my kid was totally unfazed by the kind of fantasy elements you find in the first Harry Potter (a troll is loose in the school, a wizard is trying to steal a stone that makes you live forever, a goofy caretaker discovers dragons don't make good pets). But I remember trying to read the book Fringle to my kid in 1st grade and she made us stop because the idea of kids who seemed realistic and familiar trying to test a strict teacher hit too close to home for her -- it was like her worst nightmare come to life (she's a huge rule follower and hates being scolded by authority figures). Harry Potter was not scary to her -- it was exciting and fun.

I would not let a kid under around 3rd grade read past book 4. I think it would be too upsetting for kids that age to read about the deaths in those books, and there's also a teacher who is straight up abusing children and a lot of scary political themes about fascism. I think those subjects all require a kid mature enough to be able to discuss those real life subjects, and the vast majority of 1st and 2nd graders can't do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand all the Harry Potter responses. I don’t feel like the Harry Potter series is appropriate for 6 year olds.

It's definitely not. My 8 year old can read HP, but is a little hesitant because she thinks some of the content is too scary. When it comes up, I still encourage her to wait a bit longer to start the series. Just because they can, doesn't mean they should. Both because of the content, and because of the gap in comprehension. They'll get a lot more out of it if they wait until they're more mature.

If they are like my kids they’ll read them hundreds of times between 6 and 16, so if they miss things the first time it doesn’t matter.

The first few books are also not that scary. The first 3 books, and especially 1 and 2, are written to a level that early elementary kids can understand and will not find too scary. Actually, at that age my kid was totally unfazed by the kind of fantasy elements you find in the first Harry Potter (a troll is loose in the school, a wizard is trying to steal a stone that makes you live forever, a goofy caretaker discovers dragons don't make good pets). But I remember trying to read the book Fringle to my kid in 1st grade and she made us stop because the idea of kids who seemed realistic and familiar trying to test a strict teacher hit too close to home for her -- it was like her worst nightmare come to life (she's a huge rule follower and hates being scolded by authority figures). Harry Potter was not scary to her -- it was exciting and fun.

I would not let a kid under around 3rd grade read past book 4. I think it would be too upsetting for kids that age to read about the deaths in those books, and there's also a teacher who is straight up abusing children and a lot of scary political themes about fascism. I think those subjects all require a kid mature enough to be able to discuss those real life subjects, and the vast majority of 1st and 2nd graders can't do that.

Sure. But my 8 year old is afraid of death so the idea of dead parents for Harry would be very disturbing for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Age and birth order makes huge difference OP.

My current 1st grader is reading simple chapter books like Half Magic. He also reads a lot of Dog Man graphic novels and Who would Win. He’s above grade level - but he also turned 7 in November and has an older brother which adds to the availability of books at higher reading levels.

My older child is identified as gifted and was reading things like Step into Reading Level 1 and 2 books in 1st grade. He turned 7 in July after 1st grade. He also had remote school for all of 1st grade and I used “Teach your child to read in 100 lessons” when covid ended kindergarten for him in March and he was just starting to sound out CVC words.

Your child turned 7 in Nov, and is in the first grade? Please sit down, you do not count in this discussion.

The cutoff in my school system is September 30th. He is not redshirted. I am not sure when you think I should have sent him to school? He started K at 5 and turned 6 in November.

This must be crazy anti redshirt lady that insists the cut off everywhere should be Dec 30 like in NYC (and like it was 30 yrs ago when her kids where in K) and if your district is earlier then you should get a waiver and send them early anyhow.