Kindergarden Reading comprehension....help!

Read, read, read!!! Every night read to him.
If he is memorizing sight words he is on the right track. Many kids don't read until 1st grade anyway.
One day it will click.

Kids learn to read at different times. I would not be worried. My oldest didn't truly read til he was in the 1st grade, then it just clicked for him. He also has yet to miss 1 spelling word and he is now in the second grade.

It's hard to say how to proceed but all you guys can do is practice, practice, practice!

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Do they teach phonics along with the sight words? I think it's very important to learn the sounds for the blends, the vowel sounds and all in the right orders, etc. You may be able to find someone who can teach that if he's not getting it in his school. Reading is so fun you don't want him to hate it by the extra pressure on him. Don't let that happen. Also I firmly believe boys are usually a little behind girls the same age in reading. Girls are usually more verbal. It might not hurt for him to go to Kindergarten another year and not have to be trying so hard to keep up. He might be completely ready next year and then in the top of the class.

Keep reading to him and have him keep trying. My daughter would hardly read either in Kindergarten, but then she had some developmental "spurt" and literally started reading fluently within a week timeframe. Everyone noticed it including grandma and teacher. We she was tested at the end of the Kindergarten year...she was at a level 17 ( in our school district, they need to be at a level 8 by the end of 1st grade). I couldn't even believe it. I think all the practice does sink in...sometimes I think the "neural pathways" just need to develop and connect and boom...their off.

You never know how they are going to develop. It really does go in spurts.

Not all children learn to read in kindergarten.. It may happen this summer or it may happen next fall. This is not totally unusual..

I would continue to help him.

He know his letters by sight and make the sounds they make?

Has your daughter tried BOB books with him? Have her take him to the school library or the public library and just let him try them out.

Kids read at different ages. I don't see that memorizing spelling and sight words is at all helpful in comprehension. We just started sounding out words with a sort of phonics approach. And one day it just clicked. Waldorf programs do not start reading until the kids are at least 7. Neither do the Scandinavian countries and they are ahead of us in reading by high school I read before I started kindergarten. My BIL did not read until late in first grade and he has a PhD from Yale so it hasn't held him back. If your daughter reads to him, he will eventually learn. What do you mean by 'pass kindergarten'?

My husband is eligible to join Mensa. He didn't learn to read until he went to stay with his grandmother in Salt Lake City over the Summer between 1st and 2nd grade. He was super intelligent but it just didn't click.

She read to him every day from the scriptures and would use her finger to help him follow the words. He was reading on a 5th grade level by the end of his visit.

I think they should not hold a child back in kindergarten for not reading. It is still very very very young to expect that. I would look at the teacher and say, "ummmm, no, we are not going to hold him back. If you insist and the school board agrees we will put him in private school or home school him".

That would be the least reason to hold a child back that I can think of.

I work with children like this and IT IS a combination of visual dysfunction and auditory dysfunction. He needs to be see by a developmental and behavioral optometrist from the COVD website. He also may be on the young side but usually an audiologist will do an APD (auditory processing disorder eval) by 6 maybe 7 but you can call and find out. Not all do the full battery of tests so make sure. Also find an OT or speech patholist who runs the ILS program. It will help him SOOOO much. If he has had surgery on eyes and ears then there are many problems with both.WHen eyes are operated on they end up not working together (binocular vision). When ears are operated on there are problems in the vestibular system. Trauma to these areas will undoubtedly leave future learning problems. His memory may be great but that is his compensation method for not being able to handle learning to read. Please Private message me if you need more info. Your grandson is not going to be able to get by being smart but not performing, for very much longer before the school labels him LD, Dyslexic, Delayed or other.

I would actually contact a learning disabilities specialist about this. This could be a case of a visual processing disorder.

Or, if had eye surgery within the past few years, it could also be that his visual processing is just immature -- he hasn't had as long to figure out what things mean, visually, so he's a year or two behind. In that case, another year of K might not be that bad. I wouldn't think of it as not passing, just getting him what he needs to succeed.

This is the problem with the way they teach reading now. They don't focus on phonics which would allow the child to read any word; they want them to memorize certain sight words. Ridiculous.

It might help if your daughter spends as much time as possible reading to your grandson with him watching and she reads and perhaps her even moving her finger under the words as she reads. This will re-enforce the memorization/sight recognition in books.

Also, even though they are not teaching it, I would start teaching him phonics so that even if he doesn't memorize the words, he can sound them out.

Good luck to your daughter and your grandson! Will they truly hold him back in kindergarten because he can't read? What ever happened to the days where kindergarten was just for learning how to cut,. paste, color and be in a classroom?!

I would find a very good developmental optometrist and start there.

Ours wrote this article: http://www.drlampert.com/learning-related-vision.htm

My daughter was not reading in kg. She is in 1st now and is finally reading, but only easy readers that are meant for PreK and K. She hated trying to read because it was too hard for her. I have noticed that success happens when I don't challenge her as much. That's hard for me because I was an early reader. When I started with the very basic words (on, in, or, etc.), and only focused on one or two at a time, she finally showed some learning. I need to allow her to do work that's supposedly too easy for a first-grader to build up her confidence before I ask her to move on. She enjoys reading books that she's memorized (some of the Biscuit books are very easy, and we'll work on one for a few days and then she'll finally get it) and she will read them over and over again. But when I tell her it's time to try a new book, she will act like it's a punishment.

So, when I back off, and ask her to do things that are easier and easier, we finally start to get somewhere. Like your grandson, my daughter aces all her spelling tests, but she does not recognize those words outside of a spelling test context. She's imaginative, and is good at following directions at school. So, right now I'm working on confidence with below-grade-level work, and I am hoping she can move up to books that typical first-graders read soon. Her teacher is extremely patient and has been helping us out by providing new readers for us to work on at home. She's in a small private school with a cohort of kids who I suspect (but I do not know for sure) may have similar issues. We are very lucky that we are in this situation, because for that reason, I doubt she's in jeopardy of having to repeat a grade.

I am having to come to terms with this myself--having been a top reader in my class as a kid, I ache for her to have a love of books. She DOES love books though--if they are read TO her. She has incredible talent in art (and her penmanship is beautiful for a 1st grader) and I am working on accepting the fact that it's OK that we have different talents. I could tell in preschool that she was going to have reading issues when I watched other kids jump way ahead of her in reading readiness, so I'm pretty sure the problem is not in her current school. The eye doctor believes that she will need glasses soon (she has astigmatism), but that she sees fine for now. She knows this and so does her teacher, and we talk all the time about how well she sees the words so we can catch it as soon as she's ready.

So, in a nutshell, continuing to work on reading, but pushing her much less when it came to the level of reading, has been working the best.

Personally I would just keep working and hopefully it will happen. I don't remember reading in kindergarten, we didn't start reading until first grade. I believe there are children who just aren't ready.

Ask your daughter to put two sight words together and print them in the largest font possible, keeping it on one sheet of paper.

red ball
blue dot

then move to a little bigger

see red ball

Hopefully that will kick start things for him.

*I was just organizing my daughter's books and came across this book my boss gave me. It is called Read to Me - Raising kids who love to read by Bernice E Cullinan. I had to come share this with you.

Reading will take place in first grade. My son is in kindergarten and they are just starting to sound out words. They have sight words to memorize, and maybe very very basic readers that they can or cannot read. My daughter could real a little by the very end of kindergarten (she was one of the older ones too) but by first grade they started to really learn reading quickly. So tell your daughter to relax.

I don't think they keep kindergarteners back because they can't read. My daughter is in kindergarten this year and she has to know 30 out of 100 sight words to be promoted. You may want to check the requirements at his school.

On a different note, I taught my daughter to read at 3 (and I am teaching my second daughter, also 3, now) using a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. I ordered it from Amazon--and definitely get it used, if you can find it, because you never write in the book so it should be in good shape! Also, there is a website called readingteacher.com that has videos designed to teach sight words and basic phonics. It is free and my 3-year-old finds it a little more entertaining that the book we are doing. Starfall.com is another great website that is totally free and will reinforce letters, letter sounds, phonics, and beginning reading skills.

Good luck and try not to worry. Reading is a developmental skill, like crawling or walking, that kids reach at different times.

Don't worry. All children learn at their own rate for everything to potty training to learning to read etc. I used to help in my daughter's first grade class and there were still a lot of students that could not read or could only read a little. You just work with her, and read to her a lot making sure to enuciate the words well and sound them out. She will get it. Don't worry! Good Luck!