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reading struggles

Jennifer - posted on 04/15/2011 ( 2 moms have responded )

1,419

1

My 7 year old son is struggling with reading. He is in the 1st grade, and falling behind his class mates. He has a wonderful teacher and even gets 1/2 hour every day to work one on one with another teacher, but yet he's not improving. I really think his biggest problem is that he isn't interested. He is so inconsistant and I don't know how to make it more fun for him. He is the type of child, that if he isn't good at something instantly, he wants to give up. Anyone know of any programs or even websits or anything that would help me work with him?

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Candi - posted on 04/15/2011

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13

This sounds just like my daughter. It was hard for us. When my son (1 grade ahead of her) was in 1st grade, he got placed into the gifted program and was on a 5th grade reading level. My daughter was below reading level in 1st grade. She got tutoring a couple days a week before school. It seemed to help enough to put her on grade level by the end of the year. Finally I asked her if she liked reading and she said "no. Its boring." I was shocked! SHe would read things on the computer and info tidbits that popped up while watching animal planet and could tell you anything about every animal....so I knew animal books would grab her. She started getting books about animals. We started out with short ones, then progressed to longer ones. She loved for me to read to her, so we would buy chapter books too and read a chapter or two a night. Last year (4th grade) she started becoming interested in Black History and nonfiction. Most of the books she checks out now are below her level, but she is capable at reading and understanding Middle School level books. I won't put up an argument about her checking out younger books as long as she reads something. Just try to find books on a topic that interests him..sports, animals, trucks, whatever. For longer books, read them to him as a bedtime story. Maybe he doesn't quite grasp the idea of getting lost in a story or the freedom reading will give him. There are lots of computer reading programs out there. My kids used to love Reader rabbit. I don't even know whats out there anymore. Good luck

Donna - posted on 04/15/2011

126

11

The quick answer is yes I do.

Ben went into what you call grade 1 at 5-6yrs, and is now 7 1/2 in grade 3. He is now reading beastquest, harry potter and Rohl Dahl himself at night, but this took some time and patience.

It depends on how skilled he actually is at the moment, so I appologise if I pitch this at the wrong level, but basically we chose some of the scholastic level 3 and 4 early readers because we easily found titles he would enjoy, that usually had to do with current TV or films. Namely Batman, Spiderman, Sharks, Madagascar...you get the idea. We started by reading a line each, and after a few weeks, it was 1 for me and 2 for you, and progressed. We always read at bedtime (because the other kids would disturb us) so if he got tired we would take over.

This worked so quickly because he could identify with it.

It will come, and do not worry or push too hard, as you may end up turning him off books. The other little thing I did was to tell him about books I was reading, and I made an effort to read in fromt of him. As I sometimes enjoy fantasy sci-fi, you can imagine the covers sparked all sorts of chat, and sometimes I would read a gripping paragraph to him.



You will get there I promise!

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