Post by anon4now on Mar 16, 2009 12:02:28 GMT -5
My 10 year old has always tested good. He's excellent in math and has always had his own way of doing math problems. My father, who is also good at math-it must be a family thing because so am I and my dad's mom- but I digress. Anyways, my father says that my son does math the same way he does it. My dad was the type to never do homework, and ace the test. I'm sort of the same way, but I was a good girl. I did do my homework, but I would cram before a test, and then get a solid B.
So back to my son. And of course, this has nothing to do with math. His reading comprehension has always been at or above par for his class. No one's ever complained to me. I've watched him read to himself, and he definately speed reads. (Unlike me) If he doesn't know a word, he just skips it. Where, if I don't know a word, I'll lose the whole meaning of the paragraph until I define that word.
Now that he's in 4th grade, one of his projects is a book report. I know he has organizational problems. So I'm helping him outline his paragraphs, and add detail to each paragraph, and then form sentences around his outline. And that seems to be working. BUT...
He's reading this book about William Kidd (interesting story) and he said he read the whole book. But his first draft (without my help) was horrible. It told me nothing about the guy. And a lot of his facts were flat out wrong. So I made him "skim" through the book to pull the facts. (Which at that point I decided I was going to need to read the book to make sure his facts were correct.) When I realized he couldn't skim for facts, I made him re-read the whole book. There were so many parts where he got stuck, and I had to stop and explain to him what the story was talking about. He didn't know what piracy meant but he knew what a pirate was. He didn't know what smuggling meant. He didn't know that a crew wasn't necessarily pirates. He didn't understand trading routes so I drew a picture of the world and talked to him about why london didn't want america to trade directly with india (it's a money thing btw). So all of these details were being lost on him, and once he hit the end of the book, he had no idea what he was reading about. Since I've gone through each chapter with him, and made him do the outline, he's reading the last two chapters last night and he was like, "Oooohhh, so no one knows if he was a pirate or not." DH and I were just like, duh! That's the whole premise of his story.
Do you think the book was just above his level, or he was just being lazy thinking he could fly by on this assignment? Or should I be worried about his reading comprehension. I know he tests well, but I'm sure he reads the question first, then finds the answer within the paragraph. Plus their multiple choice most of the time. So it's not hard to find the answer, and never even read the paragraph. And I don't even know what type of learning disability it could be.
He's also finding his vocab tests hard. He can memorize the "meaning" of words, but can hardly put them in a sentence. The vocab words are harder than spelling words. Things like Grimace, Palatial, Aggitate and even some words that I have to look up the meaning because they just aren't used in normal speaking.
Oh, and one other note, when he reads out loud, it's agonizing. He doesn't deduct what a word is by the meaning of the sentence. So even though he knows what the word is, and what it means, he's trying to sound it out and he can't say the word. I can't think of one of the top of my head. I used to swap reading pages with him at night and I would have to tune him out so it didn't drive me crazy. It's so laborous and slow. I could only handle one paragraph, or one page depending on the print size at a time.
What do you all think? Am I over thinking this?
Anon
So back to my son. And of course, this has nothing to do with math. His reading comprehension has always been at or above par for his class. No one's ever complained to me. I've watched him read to himself, and he definately speed reads. (Unlike me) If he doesn't know a word, he just skips it. Where, if I don't know a word, I'll lose the whole meaning of the paragraph until I define that word.
Now that he's in 4th grade, one of his projects is a book report. I know he has organizational problems. So I'm helping him outline his paragraphs, and add detail to each paragraph, and then form sentences around his outline. And that seems to be working. BUT...
He's reading this book about William Kidd (interesting story) and he said he read the whole book. But his first draft (without my help) was horrible. It told me nothing about the guy. And a lot of his facts were flat out wrong. So I made him "skim" through the book to pull the facts. (Which at that point I decided I was going to need to read the book to make sure his facts were correct.) When I realized he couldn't skim for facts, I made him re-read the whole book. There were so many parts where he got stuck, and I had to stop and explain to him what the story was talking about. He didn't know what piracy meant but he knew what a pirate was. He didn't know what smuggling meant. He didn't know that a crew wasn't necessarily pirates. He didn't understand trading routes so I drew a picture of the world and talked to him about why london didn't want america to trade directly with india (it's a money thing btw). So all of these details were being lost on him, and once he hit the end of the book, he had no idea what he was reading about. Since I've gone through each chapter with him, and made him do the outline, he's reading the last two chapters last night and he was like, "Oooohhh, so no one knows if he was a pirate or not." DH and I were just like, duh! That's the whole premise of his story.
Do you think the book was just above his level, or he was just being lazy thinking he could fly by on this assignment? Or should I be worried about his reading comprehension. I know he tests well, but I'm sure he reads the question first, then finds the answer within the paragraph. Plus their multiple choice most of the time. So it's not hard to find the answer, and never even read the paragraph. And I don't even know what type of learning disability it could be.
He's also finding his vocab tests hard. He can memorize the "meaning" of words, but can hardly put them in a sentence. The vocab words are harder than spelling words. Things like Grimace, Palatial, Aggitate and even some words that I have to look up the meaning because they just aren't used in normal speaking.
Oh, and one other note, when he reads out loud, it's agonizing. He doesn't deduct what a word is by the meaning of the sentence. So even though he knows what the word is, and what it means, he's trying to sound it out and he can't say the word. I can't think of one of the top of my head. I used to swap reading pages with him at night and I would have to tune him out so it didn't drive me crazy. It's so laborous and slow. I could only handle one paragraph, or one page depending on the print size at a time.
What do you all think? Am I over thinking this?
Anon
I was about to conquer the world but then I got distracted by something shiny.
