Question about reading -- really??

imasinger

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 7:02 am

A good friend of mine is a second grade teacher who has learned a lot about teaching reading and reading skills. I generally respect and trust her opinions.

She mentioned to me that she strongly disapproved of parents letting or encouraging their children to read too far above grade level, because it promotes sloppy comprehension.

Most of the people in my house read books way above grade level and are glad. All of us in my family feel we benefited from being encouraged to "stretch." It helped develop ability to decipher words from context, made us more eager to sample challenges (like reading Shakespeare in high school), and gave us a sense of accomplishment. If the book were engaging enough, it would be reread later with greater comprehension -- and greater enjoyment for having appreciated something of it the first time.

How widespread is this limitation idea, and on what research is it based? Does anyone here know?

amother

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 8:15 am

I can hear this. I remember one son who read way above his grade level before he was ready. He didn't enjoy the books and didn't always want to try them again once age appropriate. Rather than be fixated on grade level, it should be the child's real level, not his or her presumed one.

Isramom8

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 8:50 am

I totally don't trust educators who attempt to hold children back from learning. I nixed one school because of this attitude. Encouraging kids to learn and grow sometimes means letting go of preconceived notions of control.

Let him read whatever he wants to, as long as you are okay with the content. He will learn in the way his brain is naturally wired to. No one has the right to hold him back.

little_mage

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 12:28 pm

I think some of it also may be the desire to keep children at a similiar level to their peers. If you have a child who is too far ahead, they will get bored in class. In the minds of many, I think bored equals disruptive. That being said, I think it's a silly idea.

busydev

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 12:35 pm

nonsense. It totally depends on the child.

I read books WAY above my grade level because the ones on my grade level were WAY below my level.

We had standardized tests and in 3rd grade my reading comprehension level came out as post high school. I wouldnt think that was my actual level tho... those tests arent completely reliable, but I for sure was on an upper elementary or low high school comprehension level.... now my spelling on the other hand. that left much to be desired. Even tho readers are supposed to be good spellers I never was. my mothers theory is that I read so fast (I do go through books pretty quickly) I never actually noticed the spelling of the words and was notorious for leaving out vowels.

I wouldnt trust the friend/teacher on this one. IF I had been limited to 3rd grade books in 3rd grade.... well I probably would hate reading.

seeker

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 1:06 pm

I would question whether by "grade level" she meant the grade the child is in or the level the child is reading at. Because if I have a 6th grader who's reading at a 3rd grade level, I consider that their grade level. What I'm saying is there could be a terminology mixup here.

If the latter was meant, then I partially agree. On one hand, as someone else said already, I wouldn't want to discourage a child from reading something they are very interested in, but on the other hand I would not encourage them in general to read things far above their level. Reading should be comfortably challenging in order to grow with it. You can't "stretch" to understand words in context if you don't know 5 out of every 7 words in the first place.

I have a kid with terribly low comprehension reading Harry Potter at home. He is very proud of himself for reading this big fat book that big kids read. He is mispronouncing all the hard words and has no understanding of who the good and bad guys are. Then he comes to me and says "I don't need your special ed anymore, see, I'm reading a book above my grade level!" Rolling Eyes

This has to be at least the third student I've had with this exact situation. Sigh. If it's only one or two levels too high, I'd approve because even if they don't get all the vocabulary and all the literary nuances, they'll still be engaged in a challenging text. But there is a point at which it is not even challenging but just pointless and possibly even destructive - at best, a waste of time and energy.

Rubber Ducky

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 2:03 pm

imasinger wrote:

...She mentioned to me that she strongly disapproved of parents letting or encouraging their children to read too far above grade level, because it promotes sloppy comprehension.

Maybe she meant reading way above their comprehension level rather than the number grade they're in.

Assuming she meant actual grade level, as in "children in second grade should only read books using a second or third grade vocabulary and simple sentence structures," that's absolutely ridiculous! I hate it when we try to make everyone equal by clipping the wings of those who can fly higher.

But I do think we need to be careful that our children read books that are thematically appropriate for their maturity level.

JAWSCIENCE

Fri, Feb 15 2013, 2:07 pm

busydev wrote:

Are you me? Are we twins separated at birth? Although I did not leave out vowels, I simply used them creatively.

Isramom8

Sat, Feb 16 2013, 4:26 pm

You can run into issues like when my young daughter read The Double Life of Chanie Greenberg (in Hebrew) and discovered waaaay too much about weirdness regarding shidduchim, and attitudes towards geirim, than I deemed appropriate for her age.

So, we just had to talk about it. Them's the breaks. You get an intelligent kid, you deal with it. Parents and teachers alike. It's our problem, not the kid's.

little_mage

Sat, Feb 16 2013, 9:27 pm

JAWSCIENCE wrote:

busydev wrote:

nonsense. It totally depends on the child.

I read books WAY above my grade level because the ones on my grade level were WAY below my level.

We had standardized tests and in 3rd grade my reading comprehension level came out as post high school. I wouldnt think that was my actual level tho... those tests arent completely reliable, but I for sure was on an upper elementary or low high school comprehension level.... now my spelling on the other hand. that left much to be desired. Even tho readers are supposed to be good spellers I never was. my mothers theory is that I read so fast (I do go through books pretty quickly) I never actually noticed the spelling of the words and was notorious for leaving out vowels.

I wouldn't trust the friend/teacher on this one. IF I had been limited to 3rd grade books in 3rd grade.... well I probably would hate reading.

Are you me? Are we twins separated at birth? Although I did not leave out vowels, I simply used them creatively.

I'm very much the same. I'm a voracious and advanced reader, but my spelling is awful. Even with spell check, I find myself censoring my language because my spelling can be so off that even spell check can't figure it out. However, in my case, based on the fact that I have pronunciation problems and can't spell in Hebrew or Spanish either, both of which are more phonetic then English, I suspect very, very mild dyslexia.

imasinger

Sat, Feb 16 2013, 10:41 pm

She seemed to mean actual grade level. But perhaps part of her issue was kids who tackled big books and had better decoding than comprehension skills.

I still find myself vehemently disagreeing with her perspective. The readers in our family read big books but also simpler things. DD and DS both read Harry Potter in first grade, and they sure seemed to understand it. She specifically mentioned Harry Potter as being clearly beyond the comprehension of second graders. And no, we're not talking about appropriateness of content, which is a separate issue.

It's nice to have the support for my opinion here.

amother

Sat, Feb 16 2013, 11:11 pm

untrue

really not good for kids to be held back...and sometimes that idea is (perhaps subconsciously)
for "teachers convenience" so as not to have to teach differentially to different levels.

if I had not been allowed to read at higher levels at my own pace I would have completely lost it from beyond boredom

imasinger

Sun, Feb 17 2013, 3:19 pm

I just talked to her again about it. She insists that she is doing what is best to create readers, and said that her classes have all turned into wonderful enthusiastic readers.

I made my point about Shakespeare, and she said, "Well, I don't think anyone really needs to bother reading Shakespeare, anyway."

At which point I no longer cared to continue the conversation.

wif

Sun, Feb 17 2013, 3:51 pm

imasinger wrote:

This is a teacher!?

Then fall Caesar.