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Memorizing reader books mean reading?My son has short readers that are sent home daily and when he can read them I sign off on them and diff. ones are sent home. My son had 4 diff readers this school year at the same time that weve been reading and I havnt signed off on any of them until this morning actually. He can 'read' them by memory. It would seem hes reading it but if u point to a random word he wont know what it is. He memorizes the books in order. His teacher had 3 of the books circled last friday to promt me to sign them so i did. But my question is can this be considered reading? Maybe a natural step to reading? I am excited when i hear him 'read' the books to me but he doesnt comprehend what hes reading or the seperate words at all. The closest i got was him stating 1 word a few weeks ago (go) correctly, i got excited and went back later to ask him it again and he didnt know it! So i think it was chance or something not sure. Hel follow the wrong words with his finger like hes reading but they will be pointing to the wrong word (pointing at I but saying AM) also he will add a substitute word in to the senstence cuz thats just how he talks all the time. He cannot even identify all the alphabets or sounds (only 4 or so) so i know hes not genuinely reading them. Should I bring this up to his teacher? I have kind of brought it up before (this was awhile ago when he wasnt even memorizing the books at home with me except for a few words here and there while IM reading it to him) and she told me he reads it perfectly in class. Now he does 'read' it perfectly but hes not really, if that makes sense. O well maybe this is just normal? I am still very happy at least hes memorizing the books better then me just reading to him all the time. NO -- my DH did that and it actually KEPT him from reading, until grade 4! Yes you must bring it up to his teacher, too. Please bring this up, it can hinder him in the future. I totally agree with Linda. Some kids do learn to read this way. By "reading" the books he is working on the concept of reading. He is learning the directionality of reading, left to right, and we read from top to bottom, the left page first then the right page. These are all important concepts a child needs to learn in order to learn to read. About 30% of children will learn to read this way. They will eventually recognize those words in other contexts. This generally is not the way kids in special ed learn to read. They require direct instruction. I don't feel that these reading exercises will harm your son, but he is most likely going to require direct instruction in order to learn to read. Most general education students learn to read in kindergarten. I have found in my class (special ed) most of my students don't learn to read until 2nd grade and some later than that.As part of his recent eligibility determination evaluations, your son was given standardized reading testing. That is the only way to know his exact reading level compared to same-age peers (not just peers with disabilities -- everyone). If his standard scores in all subtest areas in reading fall between 85 and 115, he is considered "average range.," 100 is dead average. Any subtest that falls below 85 is an area of concern. If you post his scores, we will try to interpret them. Many kids memorize books It's a sign that they WANT to read. Most soon learn to actually read. For kids with IEPs, learning to read may or may not be a problem. The standardized testing will give the true picture. Many children memorize books. This is often a first step to true reading. I wouldn't be concerned, but I would recommend supplementing his readers with sight words. In this case, I think this will hinder him from reading. What he has learned is that it will get him positive attention to memorize books - but he is not trying to learn the words. He is memorizing the pictures on the page and what words go with them. That is good problem-solving, but not reading - and I don't think it's a step toward reading (but I can always be wrong).My ds started memorizing books at age 2. Seriously. It about floored me one day to be reading a book and I stopped to sneeze. My ds kept going - word for word. I knew this wasn't reading, because I did the same thing - pointed to a word and he had no clue. He did start comprehending what he was saying/"reading" at some point as well. However, he did not learn letter sounds until he was 5 1/2 (still in pre-school as we held him out a year) and I bought the LeapFrog videos. Then he learned the sounds in about 2-3 days. Actual reading took longer, but he is now in an average reading class and doing well. I think the memorization really hindered him and gave him no interest in learning how to actually read. The fact that the teacher thinks he is reading REALLY concerns me. He quite obviously is not. Doesn't she know he only knows a few of the letters and sounds? The one good thing is that he is "getting" that something is expected of him and he is trying to "fake it" so that he is getting praise for it. Which is good problem-solving and perceiving that there is a problem to solve! And, perhaps this will spark an interest in his actually learning how to read. You have to be very careful though here - he thinks he's doing a good thing (which in a way, he is because memorizing is a good skill). But he has to learn a new skill to replace the one he thinks is functional, but in reality - it isn't. This will be very frustrating for him. Definitely bring it to the teacher's attention and if she doesn't respond appropriately - go above her or call an IEP meeting. Does your school have a reading specialist? Please post his scores when you get a chance, like tzoya asked. Good luck with this! I suggest working on the words in the book as well as the dolch 220 words...put each word on a flash card and review a few each day. good luck with the reading [QUOTE=snoopywoman]In this case, I think this will hinder him from reading. What he has learned is that it will get him positive attention to memorize books - but he is not trying to learn the words. He is memorizing the pictures on the page and what words go with them. That is good problem-solving, but not reading - and I don't think it's a step toward reading (but I can always be wrong). This was my concern, too, because it is EXACTLY what my DH says he did. His Grandma taught him to memorize bible passages, with ample affectionate reward ... he apaprently had and has VERY good auditory memory. Of course, he transferred this "skill" to school ... UGH. I can see my youngest doing the same thing, and must encourage her ot look at the WORDS, not just the picture. Otherwise she makes up "text" to match the picture, every time. She is getting word recognition, but no point letting her be "sloppy" with it! My parents thought I was "reading" at age 3. I wasn't. I had memorized the words based on the picture. I have always had a good memory - although it is not as good anymore since I'm getting old! LOLI did read early, however - so it isn't necessarily all bad. But, I quickly learned that those letters had meaning and I wanted to know what they were. I don't think I would have been considered hyperlexic, since I was reading with comprehension and didn't have the other issues that go along with hyperlexia. This is not what's going on with your son. They need to be addressing the fact that he doesn't know the names or sounds of most letters at age 5 1/2. Especially that he isn't able to identify the names of the letters yet. If he hadn't been in school, I wouldn't be quite as concerned - but they are working on this every day in school, I'm sure. They go at an amazing pace, so I wonder if he just tunes out because he got too far behind? Don't wait on this - it is getting close to the end of the year and you don't want this issue unresolved before summer vacation. I'm not saying he should be reading by then - but they need to have a plan in place as to what to do to help him in this area. It should definitely include summer school (which you should not have to pay for). THanku everyone for ur thoughts and advice. His dibbles (reading test which indicates early readng failure) has come out 0 two x when given by someone he does not know (so not true scores) and came out extremely low when given by his teacher (5,9,4 i think i dont have it in front of me). On his standardized testing he got below average (forget the actual score) but higher than his dibbles for some reason. Theres proof hes not pickin git up but my worry is that his teacher thinks him doing regualr school work by mechanics (copying things) is totally fine and grades him fine as knowing it but its not and thats what irks me i guess. Even the sp ed teacher at his IEP eligibility meeting asked her point blank if he truley knows what hes d oing or IS just copying whatever cuz thats what he knows hes supposed to do and she admitted thats what he does. He has a new book weve been working on and he is catching on to this one tho i have to help him and i point to the pictures and that is how he is 'reading'. I always see him study the picture to boost himself too which inever thought was a problem mostly cuz his books are like this for ex. "Do you go to school on a bus?" and theres a pic of a bus above the word bus etc. Then its "Do you go to school on a train?" and a pic of a train above the word. He memorizes "Do u go to school on a ..." then looks at the pics but has no clue of the actual words. I try to have him sound it out but he doesnt even know the sounds and how to do it yet but who knows maybe this is a good indication but i am keeping my eye on it anyway. Thanks aga in guys! Do not just "keep an eye on it". This needs to be addressed NOW, before the end of the school year. He is not making progress and is not at a level that he needs to be. Most kids coming in to kindergarten can identify at least the letters in their names and spell their name. Can he do this? Can he recognize his name and/or write it? It is an expectation in all the schools that I have known that kindergarteners can write their full name (first and last) by the end of kindergarten. In our old district, there was a list of 45 sight words that the kindergarteners needed to know by the end of kindergarten - and that was half-day K. They absolutely needed to know all the letters and sounds - and they were tested on these quarterly. By the end of kindergarten, they were expected to know all of them. This was in our district as well. You need to be the one to push it as it clearly sounds like his teacher will not. And you need to get him help and tutoring (hopefully provided by the school) in order to help him start learning his letters and sounds. Like diddy said - reading and comprehension take years to learn and master. However, our kids aren't being given that long - they have tests on reading comprehension in FIRST GRADE. And standardized national test in 3rd grade that are amazingly hard (I've seen practice tests for them). They not only have to read the problems, comprehend them - but they also have to answer questions about them. Questions that are NOT easy. One of the questions involved adding up a list of items that were to be purchased and figuring out the change to be given from a $20 bill. Thankfully, no tax was involved!  This is for 3rd grade and is a story problem that was on a practice test. The teacher who showed it to me indicated that this problem was pretty typical of the types of story problems that are on this test.Anyway, get going on this - because before you know it, it will be summer and there won't be much you can do unless you've already got stuff in place for him for the summer and next fall! Does he have his IEP yet? Once a child has an IEP, they have to address reading issues if the standardized reading testing shows any. There has to be a research-based reading program and progress monitoring. I'd ask for an IEE if you disagree with the standardized reading testing.Snoopywoman is correct in that a child needs to be able to identify letters and sounds, among other reading techniques. My son was so lucky in that while he was learning his letters and sounds and how to sound out words, he was also doing sight words at the same time. Eventually he could sound out most words he came in contact with. When he comes to words he doesn't know, he is getting very good at sounding things out. The sight words allowed my son some instant success while he struggled with sounding things out. Regardless of the specific techniques used; a child has to be taught how to read. It doesn't sound like the child in question is getting any productive instruction. The teacher is allowing him to fake his way through reading. (Faking is actually a good skill in our kids. They want to perform like their peers.) I'm very dismayed that a teacher would either sweep this under the rug, or worse, not even realize the child can't read. |
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