Emerging Readers and Child Expectations

[mommybelle]

First, I write this post with much joy and excitement as my 8 yo daughter just completed The Reading Lesson today! We were using another phonics program that she also finished this week, but I had opened The Reading Lesson back up in late January to help with fluency and to also cover any phonics rules missing from the program we were already using. I am so excited for her as this has been a long journey!

So this evening I had her read the first lesson for The Beginner's Bible to me. She did fairly well, but she still missed (or basically guessed) at a few words either because she has not been taught the phonics rule or because the word looked similar to another word. Here are the ones that she actually missed for those 10 pages.

"swishy" was read as "squishy"

"squiggly" was read as "wiggly"

"creatures" was read as "critters"

How normal is this? At this point, I am not sure if it is more important to build her fluency using the ER's or continue on with more advanced phonics rules and hold off on the ER's. I am leaning towards spending 15 minutes on the ER's per day and another 15 minutes on the next level of phonics. I just am not sure if the 15 minutes per day on the ER's will greatly improve her fluency or if I should step it up a notch to 30 minutes per day on the ER's? I do suspect she is at least mildly dyslexic. Right now, I do try to get her to read to me for at least 30 minutes a day, and I will split this into 15 minutes lessons. However, even with (2) 15 minute lessons, she tires very easily. I guess I just worry that she is getting farther and farther behind as she is almost 8.5 yo.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Jennymommy]

My youngest ds did this also, and I learned to have him point to the word he mis-read and sound it out. It sounds to me as if she just needs to read more often. Maybe read the ER pages during schooltime, and then re-read them later. Also, lots of books that she finds interesting should be available for free reading herself...if she makes mistakes there it shouldn't matter as you want her to have fun and know reading as a source of pleasure and information.

[StephanieU]

I think this is the main reason they are reading aloud to you. You can correct as necessary, normally at the end of the reading. I don't stop my daughter unless the way she says the word will affect the meaning of the sentence. And in those cases I point to the word and remind her to sound it out. Normally that is all she needs, but still she some times will switch the order of letters when reading. She finished the ER books and is reading some of the supplemental titles as well as books from Carrie's Sample Book List right now. Normally it is names that she messes up, and to be honest, I am guilty of that at times. For example, I have Jairus's name pronounces Jairius in my mind. I think it is totally normal to make those "mistakes" when reading aloud.

[bethelmommy]

Those type of mistakes were totally normal for my oldest 2 when they each transistioned to the Emerging Readers. I think I remember Julie stating in a thread once that it is ok if children need help with 2-3 words per page as they move into the ER's. Over time that number should decrease as their fluency increases. I'm pretty sure it took my ds most of the Beginner's Bible to begin cutting down on his number of mistakes, but it did eventually happen. I think your dd did well for her first ER reading .