reading fluency vs. comprehension

[jenrav82]

Hi all, I am new to HOD and using Beyond with my 6 1/2 year old son with the emerging readers. He is my oldest, and this is our 2nd year HSing. He is reading the Beginners Bible and is having a lot of problems with fluency. He labors to sound out several words per page, and it is SLOW. I rarely have to help him, usually 2 or 3 words in each assigned reading. He really enjoys reading the Bible and doesn't want to read anything else. I see a lot of improvement in his abilities and we are only on unit 7. He is able to answer the discussion questions with no problem. Should we just continue as we are, and see what happens? Or should we stop the ERs and do something else to work on fluency? I just don't know what to expect at this stage, and any insight will be appreciated. TIA!

[Nealewill]

Since you don't have to help him figure things out, I would keep on with the emerging readers. My question though, does he like to read during the day other than school time? The more your child reads, the more fluent he will become. I am not saying that a 6 year old needs to spend oodles of time reading but having them read things that are easier than the books they read for school help with fluency. My youngest is a really good reader but at 6 she was still kind of choppy. Because she loves to read, she would read things over and over and over again. We used to have our kids read right before bed as a nightly ritual. I think that helped some too. I have forgone that ritual at this point as my kids will now read on their own when not forced to do so. But when they were young and weren't wanting to read as much, we just set up a few other times during the day for them to read. Also, I had read on here at one point that Carrie would have her younger son read the ERs multiple times over each day to "prepare" to read it to her. That would also be a thought. Have your child read it once or twice and the prepare a formal reading. Maybe he could "practice" it with you and then give perform his reading for his dad.

But fluency does eventually come. I wouldn't be stressed out about it at this point.

[Hope]

I am new to HOD as well, but we are in our 7th year of home schooling.

I noticed that Carrie has both the Early Reader's Bible and the Beginner Bible in Beyond for emerging readers. I have used both and the Early Readers Bible is easier to read then the Beginner Bible. I would say the Early Reader is more a late first / early second grade reading level whereas the Beginner Bible is more of a late second / early third grade reading level. Those are really rough estimates, and kids can vary vastly in reading ability in the early elementary grades.

I always had my children read out loud to me at the level they could read fluently and at a normal reading pace. If it was SLOW, as you are describing, I backed down to material that they could read more fluently and then came back to the harder material when they were ready for it.

The Early Reader's Bible would be one idea that would be easier and go with your program.

[my3sons]

I second Hope's idea of getting "The Early Reader's Bible!" If you think he needs more phonics work, I would check out the amazing new phonics program Carrie just selected for kiddos who have had phonics but need more help with them. It is called Sound Bytes Reading...
http://www.heartofdakota.com/phonics.php

In Christ,
Julie