What can your first grader read independently?

[Anonymous]

In my LO's 1st grade class, reading levels are all over the place. About a quarter of the kids are reading middle grade novels (Wings of Fire and so on). About half are slightly above grade level, starting in on easy chapter books. The remainder are still working on sounding out words and drilling their basic sight words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. There are some funny responses, but thanks to those who answered the question. I was asking not because I’m super worried but because her teacher is pretty vague and I can’t seem to get a sense of whether my kid could benefit from some focus on reading to build her confidence. My kid reports that she’s a “bad” reader and I want to help her develop confidence. It’s just good to get a sense from other parents as to what other 1st graders are doing. I don’t want to ask parents I know because it’ll come across as either competitive or insecure when it’s really just curiosity/information gathering.

There’s nothing wrong with asking if she is within normal range. And no teacher will tell a mother that their child is the best reader in the class, ignore those stupid comments.

You just keep reading those books together until she says she wants to read them herself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally anything she wants. She has read the entire Percy Jackson series and series made for kids mythology chapter books.

BUT THIS IS NOT NORMAL.

How are her reading test scores/what level does it say on her report card?

Cool

OP, you are fine. I had one of these first graders like the Percy Jackson mom. Guess what? By 2nd or 3rd grade, most everyone knows how to read, and nobody cares that your kid used to be the first one reading chapter books.

Barring the true cases of 99th percentile IQ highly gifted children who go to special schools for the highly gifted, the 7 year olds supposedly reading Percy Jackson and Harry Potter aren't fully understanding it all. My DD could also "read" such books, as in open the page and say the words without stumbling. But the vocabulary and the situations and the subtle humor went over her head many times. I've only met two kids who really could read-read these books in 1st grade without needing someone to re-explain anything in simpler terms. Always take the anonymous stranger anecdotes with a grain of salt when it comes to these 'what is your child reading?' threads.

Agree. My kindergartner is a good reader - not at HP level yet but maybe in the next year or two - and I won’t give them to her until 5th grade or so. They may be able to follow the plot at this age but nothing more sophisticated than that.

[Anonymous]

^ I still read exclusively picture books with her because I find them more beautiful and interesting and about a diverse set of topics. The early reader chapter books are so blah. They can handle those at school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine has read most of the classics. He’s starting to translate them into Greek now for a hobby

Oh, yeah? Mine finished the classics in preschool and now is reading the philosophers and ancient mythology, also for fun, when she is not doing differential equations or econometrics.

[Anonymous]

DS6.5 recently finished books from the House of Robots series. He's a bookworm.

[Anonymous]

My 1st grader loves Dog Man, Owl Diaries and Diary of a Pug series. She is a book worm and loves to read in the car and when she is having trouble falling asleep. It took her awhile to build up the confidence to read out loud. We used to take turns reading to each other. I have been trying to read "harder' books to her for more language comprehension. She loves The Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (though she needs explanations for some of it because the humor goes over her head sometimes).
Our school doesn't do reading levels, the kids get a dibels score. Her score is above benchmark. Her fall and winter scores were a little bit above benchmark and then her spring score was quite a bit over benchmark and I think that's because she is doing more independent reading and is more confident and willing to read aloud.

[Anonymous]

Wings of Fire, Percy Jackson.

[Anonymous]

My oldest tried to read a 400 page biography of Patton during first grade. I'm not saying he was entirely successful at it, but he tried. He was an oddball, but a good reader.

Basically, at this stage, you need to work on getting a solid foundation in phonics. Several of the local school districts have seen the light as of this year and started to implement phonics-based programs instead of ineffective balanced literacy ones, but unless the teacher is either old as dirt or a recent graduate from one of the universities in Mississippi, this is going to be entirely new and contrary to all previous training in the subject. So I would not rely on your school.

Work through a copy of "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" -- you should probably be able to blaze through -- or, if you are ambitious, McGuffey's Revised Primer, then First and Second. Pick up decodable readers at roughly your kids level. Be alert for skipping, guessing, or relying on context clues. Have him sound out the words.

[Anonymous]

Obviously kids learn to read at different times, and progress at different rates. Absent a developmental or medical issue (dyslexia for example), my personal view is that reading at that beginning age/grade level is just so individual based that advice has limited value.

So - having said it is of limited value- I would say that you should start or keep reading aloud. The point being to show reading can be fun. We did Harry Potter series, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe series and others. 30-45 minutes a night. Keep lots of good, easy reading books immediately on hand. Boy them second hand if you want. We have accumulated several hundred by now. The kids would go grab a favorite to (more or less) read after bedtime stories.

Our kids all learned at their own pace. The oldest finished first grade barely reading at first grade level. By early second grade he was reading book 3 of Harry Potter by himself because we were moving too slow. His younger sister took forever to read at grade level. But, she got into the Twilight series in 7th grade and blew through that and started others afterwards. Keep at it. Keep encouraging. Keep trying different books.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ I still read exclusively picture books with her because I find them more beautiful and interesting and about a diverse set of topics. The early reader chapter books are so blah. They can handle those at school

Agree the early reader chapter books are pretty blah, but I've found just sticking with picture books is tough with a kindergartener because they are short and we go through them too vast. Mixing in some chapter books that are at a higher reading level but where the content is okay or beneficial for a kinder kid has been useful to us.

So we do picture books but also ready a bit each night from books like Charlotte's Web, Edward Tulane, The Hobbit, and yes, Harry Potter. My kid has not struggled to understand what is happening in any of these books, and while she obviously cannot read them herself, I do think the exposure to higher level writing is ultimately good for her vocabulary and reading comprehension.

[Anonymous]

The Dragon Masters series is a great early chapter book. My 1st grader also enjoyed The Last Firehawk and Kingdom of Wrenly. All easier than Magic Treehouse with lots of pictures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Literally anything she wants. She has read the entire Percy Jackson series and series made for kids mythology chapter books.

BUT THIS IS NOT NORMAL.

How are her reading test scores/what level does it say on her report card?

Cool

OP, you are fine. I had one of these first graders like the Percy Jackson mom. Guess what? By 2nd or 3rd grade, most everyone knows how to read, and nobody cares that your kid used to be the first one reading chapter books.

Barring the true cases of 99th percentile IQ highly gifted children who go to special schools for the highly gifted, the 7 year olds supposedly reading Percy Jackson and Harry Potter aren't fully understanding it all. My DD could also "read" such books, as in open the page and say the words without stumbling. But the vocabulary and the situations and the subtle humor went over her head many times. I've only met two kids who really could read-read these books in 1st grade without needing someone to re-explain anything in simpler terms. Always take the anonymous stranger anecdotes with a grain of salt when it comes to these 'what is your child reading?' threads.

The 99th percentile isn’t that rare. To state the obvious, in an average elementary school that has 100 first graders, one will be in the 99th percentile. They don’t have to go to special schools for the highly gifted to understand Percy Jackson in the first grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine has read most of the classics. He’s starting to translate them into Greek now for a hobby

Mine too - he does Latin also but, remember, THIS IS NOT NORMAL

Loves “The Wall Street Journal”! This is not normal.

[Anonymous]

Mine is deep in a Magic Treehouse obsession right now. She also reads the Geronimo Stiltion books, but only the ones where he travels in time or the Kingdom of Fantast. She just picked up The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, a book we did as a read aloud last summer and is reading it independently.

I do think based on her reading aloud to us, that some of the words are getting skipped. Like she tried to read the back of a Geronimo Stilton book and got hung up on the word "compromise," because it just wasn't a word she's heard before. That said, if she's reading and happy, I'm happy.