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Is Your Child The Slow Reader?

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bananaprincess
01/03/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
If you want your kid to read, just read to them when you put them to bed. I also write "this little book belongs to their name" and a random number of kisses which we read delightedly and count. No matter how bad the day, they always associate reading with happy kisses. Don't be afraid to skip some words if it is a long book and they are a bit restless. my 8 year old is a great reader and my 2 year old has lots of favorite books. They learn to speak well too. I always spoke very clearly when reading and it comes through in thier speech.
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Ultraprison!
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
my two youngest sisters have really, really struggled to learn how to read. they had to repeat kindergarten and are still in "homework club." it's really hard to watch them try and try and try to no avail, especially since i love reading so much.

i'd much rather have them be "skeptical readers" than still be struggling through Dr. Seuss books while their friends polish off chapter books and do their homework without any help.
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Aesop's Foibles. YES.
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
Interesting. I'm planning on spawning in the future and have thought of/worried about this very topic. I'm a big reader, like some of you, I learned to read before age 3. My parents have always been readers themselves and they read to my sister and I constantly. My mam would even read the road signs to us when we were in the car. Sis and I always excelled at reading and writing once school started. Reading, for me, has always been a favorite activity of mine. I'll read anything as long as I find it interesting. I've re-read certain books over and over, because I find myself thinking of a certain scene or paragraph in a book and just fixate on it until I can read it again. Truly cannot imagine being unable to read or unable to enjoy it. I was always reading way ahead in school, too, and had to pretend I wasn't to avoid getting in trouble.

Nowadays, my work schedule (and my Jezebel addiction-damn you all) prevents me from reading as much as I'd like. I do manage to get some page-time in in the evenings a few nights per week, though. It feeds my brain. Anyway, I don't know if a love of literature is passed along in the genes or a learned trait, but I do know that I will read to my kid(s) as much as possible and hope that they will come to see reading as an indispensable part of life. If they don't, that's alright, too. Maybe they'll like drawing or painting or sports or whatever. As long as they're happy, and they're not throwing rocks at animals, I'll be happy.
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prestocaro fears the culling
01/02/09

@terribletwenties aka Aesop's Foibles: I'm planning on spawning, too. And I hate to get rid of books because I re-read almost everything at least once. Some books, like the Dune series, Wharton, Austen, etc. get re-read every year.
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tscheese
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
GOD I'm late to this thread.

My older brother, who is barely more than a year older than I am, taught me to read when I was about 3. Mom and Dad just always had lots and lots of books around, and he himself was able to read with very little coaching from them. (He also asked my dad to help him make a big poster of multiplication tables to hang over his bed when he was 4 or 5. Today he is an engineer. He is terrifyingly intelligent.)

I remember vividly being 3 years old and crouching over one of those "Family Medical Guide" books--you know, the big dictionary-like tomes that give all sorts of information about various maladies? And they tell you when to call a doctor? I was absolutely immersed in the section about strokes. I thought it was absolutely horrifying, and yet I was riveted. Apparently I was sobbing as only a three-year-old can--tears running in rivers down my red little face, snot dripping everywhere, drool, the whole nine.

My mom came racing into the living room to see what my problem was. She comforted me, assured me that I was not going to have a stroke at the ripe old age of 3, and then she took away the medical guide and handed me a book of fairy tales. She gently asked me to read some stories about Puss in Boots and Rapunzel and then draw some pictures about them.

Today I work in the financial industry (fairy tales lolololol) and on the side, I'm an aspiring freelance cartoonist. My parents did something right, I guess.
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TheFormerJuneBronson
01/02/09

@tscheese: My parents had some sort of Time-Life Science series, and I was obsessed with those books. I don't think I ever read the text, but I looked at all the pictures. I think my mother was appalled until she realized that unless she let me read what I wanted, she was going to have to have The Talk with me.
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clevernamehere
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
My mom was an early childhood teacher and was pretty embarassed when I was put in the second to lowest reading group in 1st grade. Then she realized that most of the other parents had been teaching their kids to read since they were 3, something my mother isn't a big fan of because she feels it pushes kids when they should still be exploring, so we did things like talk about the life of MLK when I was 3 rather than learning sight words.

By second grade I was way above my reading level, so it all turned out fine. Now my mother has a mini-kindgarden tutoring business teaching 5 year olds sight words so they don't end up in special ed. It is ridiculous. Reading ability predicts school success when you're 7, not when you're 4.
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AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover
01/02/09

@clevernamehere: I was actually put in a special ed class between kindergarten and first grade because it was suggested by my school. (My parents not knowing any better at the time consented.)It turns out I was just painfully shy/intimidated by the social aspects of early education and by third grade they wanted to "skip" me ahead to 5th. The notion that I "failed" kindergarten still bothers me (tests make me incredibly antsy even though I do well) and I graduated from college in 2006.

Your mom is doing great work.
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prestocaro fears the culling
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
Oof. I started reading before I turned three, and have always read quickly (if it were a contest, a teacher once smirked to me, I would've won). I did awesome in HS and graduated with honors, had a scholarship to a prestigious school, was a debate/latin club nerd, etc.

Then I got to college and hit this serious wall of depression. I dropped out and have been waiting tables here-and-there, and I'm actually currently unemployed, pining away for a job and the opportunity to go back to school. So it really, really doesn't matter if your kid is a good reader or not. Most of those asshats who couldn't read out loud in my sixth grade english class have degrees and careers and shit.

.../end rant
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Alys Brangwin can't stop the beat
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
Aren't parents not realizing their kids' full potential? Send them to the Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Want to Learn to Do Other Stuff Good too, and the problem will be solved. They will be one step closer to self-actualization!
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stonebiscuit rolled a 1 on initiative
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
I honestly don't know what I would do if I had a child who wasn't a good reader--or, God forbid, a child like my fiance, who doesn't like to read. I was the kid who had finished the book and five others by the same author while the rest of the class was struggling through the second chapter. I hid fiction in my text books, I read my history book four or five times like it was a novel, etc. I picked all that up from my mother. I honestly would not know what to do with a child who didn't like to read.
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Kivrin
01/02/09

@stonebiscuit: Yeah, I worry about that, too -- both the fiancé and I have always been huge readers, so if we created a child who didn't like to read...I think we'd be lost as parents. Like, how do we relate to this child?

So it's a good thing we don't want kids anyway. :)
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AnnoyingFemaleLeadVoiceover
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
Sorry if this reposts:

Pros/cons of these two approaches to reading aside, it is nice to know that there are parents who are willing to intervene on the behalf of his/her child when it concerns education. Balance and recognizing your child's strengths of course is key, but there are still pockets of communities who are too intimidated/feel inferior to do something when it concerns education.
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Eeva
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
What about people who lick their finger and thumb before turning every page of their book/newspaper? Every SINGLE page.

They are destroying the fabric of our society with their gross noises and saliva-y page corners. They are the true scourge.
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badmutha
01/02/09

@Eeva: ACK! Spreading germy germs and all manner of pestilence because they need help turning the page? I bet the black plague actually started because someone licked their fingers before turning the page. ACK!
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TheFormerJuneBronson
01/02/09

@badmutha: Wait, wait, we should have learned that lesson from The Name of the Rose, too!
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ceejeemcbeegee is not here
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
Former teacher here, with some important Ed advice:

If you think your child is having difficulty reading/counting/learning in general, request they be tested. Now the school will most likely say something like, "Wait until s/he is older (2nd or 3rd grade)..." but that's only because the testing costs them money and time and they don't want to do that.

While it is true that there are bigger discrepancies in achievement with older children, if your child is not reading by 2nd/3rd grade they are so far behind they are probably discouraged. IMPO it's way too late to discover your child has a learning issue such as dylexia.

DEMAND your kid be tested, no matter what the school says. It's your right.
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clevernamehere
01/02/09

@ceejeemcbeegee: While early intervention is great, it seems like there is a big push right now to put pre-schoolers who are even remotely slow into special ed. My mother has 30 years experience teaching early childhood and when she found out my cousin's son was being pushed into early intervention in nursery school, she put aside time to teach him every week. He's now above average in kindgarden and my mom is working with a few other kids in a similar position. I wouldn't rush to test before 1st grade. Sometimes a kid is below average because he hasn't spend as much time learning as other kids, not because there is an underlying problem.
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goodcheapfun
01/02/09

@clevernamehere: By 5 there is a pretty clear indication. Learning letters should not be difficult. If there is a problem, whether due to an attention issue or learning disability, waiting is simply detrimental. The laws have changed in GA and now they have to wait almost a complete year to go through painfully slow classroom accommodations. Thankfully, this wasn't the case when my son was younger. Wasting a whole year of remediation in elementary school is really detrimental.
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ceejeemcbeegee is not here
01/03/09

@goodcheapfun: That's exactly what I'm talking about. Here in CA, it's become common practice to dismiss a 1st grader who is struggling to learn their ABCs as a "late bloomer" and wait until the child is in 2nd, 3rd, or starting 4th grade to test them because they want strong discrepancies between the benchmarks and the results. Yes, it makes sense in theory --they are just 5 and 6 years old, after all-- but in practice it just creates a child who is far behind in other subjects. Can you imagine being in 4th grade and not knowing your alphabet?

Coincidentally, the bulk of these "late bloomers" often are also Latino or African American and male.
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clevernamehere
01/03/09

@goodcheapfun: But people here are worrying about 3 years olds, not 5 or 6 year olds. Plus, many students don't start school until kindergarden at age 5 and may not be on the same footing as their peers. Remediation is great, but lots of people are rushing into labelling a child as LD or AD. In many districts it is very hard to get out of remedial programs. If there is talk of having a kid repeat kindergarden or he is noticeably behind that the start of 1st grade, then look into testing.
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Lymed
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
I was reading when I was 3 because I watched my mom teach my older brother. Then I hit kindergarten and pretended I couldn't read so the kids wouldn't make fun of me.
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Sukie in the Graveyard
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
A friend of mine was such a good reader in second grade that he would always read ahead of the class during group read. When it was his turn to read a paragraph, he would have to go back to find the paragraph they were at.

His moronic teacher thought that he had a reading disability just like his two older brothers, she made a serious assumption.

He was placed in the remedial reading class. At 7, that's pretty painful. He felt like a failure. That feeling stayed with him through high school. Even though he was getting the highest grades in Advanced English...

Now, he's a teacher. And Brilliant.
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TexasCrude
01/02/09

@Sukie in the Graveyard: It's always the bonehead teachers. I could read when I was 3 but when the school asked me to come in to see if I was really ready for school, the teacher conducting the little 'What color is this? What is this? What does this say?' test laughed at me because I said "Rabbit" in spanish.

I ran under a table and cried and my impressive reading ability was never known. I was put in the slow class.

That bitch. I think about that incident and I think about all the possibilities, had she not laughed. I'll hate her all my life. I could've gone to that women's college I had badly wanted to go to.
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ucelluccia
01/02/09

@Sukie in the Graveyard: Omigod, I had that problem, sort of. I wasn't a good out-loud reader as a kid because I could read really quickly to myself, so my eyes would be way ahead of where I was reading from. I seriously think that the stutter I developed in elementary school was caused or at least made worse by the whole reading-aloud thing. Strangely, I'm now reading aloud to Husband a lot to try and fix that stutter, which still pops up occasionally.
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Kivrin
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
Shit like this is a big part of why I don't want kids. WAY too much stress. I'd rather just keep reading books myself, thanks.
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LaComtesse
01/02/09

In reply to Is Your Child The Slow Reader?
This desire to rush your children to be readers and mathletes and all that stuff super-early is a trick you could get a particularly intelligent monkey to do. Once these kids are reading at 2 (some kids do this on their own, most who read at 2 are pushed by parents), people think of them as gifted and everyone ooohs and aahhhs. But then their peers catch up to them by 5th grade or so and they are no longer remarkable and then these same parents start blaming the schools or cry learning disability. No. There's nothing wrong with your kid. S/he is perfectly normal, and I'm sorry if that breaks your heart. There's nothing wrong with NOT over-achieving

Actual conversation with Mr. LaComtesse--

Mr: Know what I always hated in grade school? Slow reading kids. It was bad enough we couldn't just work on our own, but the slow, bad readers?! BLAGH!
Me: ... they were CHILDREN, sweetie. Some kids have trouble reading, like I had trouble with math.
Mr: Don't care. It STILL annoys me when little kids can't read. I just want to take the book from them and read it myself.
Me: ... again, CHILDREN. What if our kids have difficulty reading?
Mr: They won't. If they do, I'll hate them.
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