Reading Comprehension - Goodreads.com

My son has just started reading chapter books. We have reached a new educational achievement. The chapter book phase. I'm so excited for him but I still feel it is very important for him to tell me about what he is reading so I can make sure he is comprehending it. See my son is only 5 and hasn't started kindergarten yet. I don't want to push him into things before he is ready. Now before you start getting upset with me for not letting my kid be a kid, I have had people do that or blame it on the fact that I'm a teacher, let me tell you a little bit about my son.



When my son was one and a half we would play a simple sesame street game on the computer. I figured if I taught him how to play a game then I could get something done around the house without a little helper undoing everything. He did have toys that he would play with too but he tired of them generally about the time I needed to make dinner so I had to find something else for him to do. He was fascinated with the computer so I wanted the activity to entertain him as well as meet an interest he had.

But honestly what can a 18 month old do on a computer. Push the buttons of course. So I found this sesame street with Elmo, his idol at the time, that would tell him the letters as he pushed on the keyboard and then do something silly. He spent most of his time pushing the space bar making Elmo laugh but he enjoyed it. I wanted to see if he was understanding or learning anything as he did this, really not expecting him to understand so one day I asked him where the "C" was. His name starts with C so I figured it was the best place to start. Start with something he knows and that we had kind of talked about. He showed me. I was a proud momma but I chalked it up to memorizing the keyboard because we had practiced it before. Kids at that age are very quick to memorize things.

Well then we went to a baby shower. Poor kid. He was bored out of his mind so the hostess showed him where the toys room was. He brought out a few toys, one of which was a little purple computer that when you pushed the letters it said the letter name, something that began with that letter and its sound. He LOVED the toy and didn't want to leave the house without it. Just before we left I asked him if he could find "C" just to see if how much he was memorizing because all the letters were in a different place from a normal keyboard. He went right to it. I couldn't believe it. My 18 month old who was just starting to say sentences knew what letter "C" was.

Since he enjoyed the toy and seemed to enjoy learning so much we got him the toy for his Birthday. It entertained him more than his other toys so it was a win win. Well then we started doing letter sounds. That's naturally where you go after you learn your letter names and his little computer was already teaching him them.  He was enjoying it so we kept going. It was fun for him and for me. When he would get upset during long car rides (and we had a few, we drove cross country just before he turned 3) we would ask him what sound "B" makes or ask him how hight he could count.

Another day when we were in the car he when he was about 3 looked as a stop sign and said "Mom that word says STOP." I figured he had just memorized the shape and knew what we did. He had asked about the word before but after all he is only 3 and is way to young to learn how to read, right? I took him to my mom's and wrote down a bunch of "S" words one of which was "Stop" and had him point to the word that said stop to see if he really understood. He pointed right to it. So we began putting small words together by sounding them out and saying the sounds faster until we made a word. It was a lot of fun. After we figured out a base word, like at, we tried to see how many words we could come up with that used it.  So from ages 3-4 we practiced small words.

Now before you think this was an every day thing, it wasn't. Not even close. I'm not that organized and I was teaching at schools through this whole time. I didn't have time to sit and do a home preschool with him daily or to force him to do something he didn't want to do. I had a toddler and another on the way. We mostly did this in the summer randomly when I wasn't working.

By the time my son turned 3 I had realized he wasn't a normal 3 year old. Normal 3 year olds don't sit and try to write words and want to learn how to read. I have worked in daycares and preschools so I know what to expect from 3-4 year olds. He would ask me if we could find words or how to sound things out so I knew he was enjoying it. When kids are this little I don't believe in forcing them to sit and learn things for long periods of time.  That's what school is for when they get older. I want them to be kids and to enjoy learning. ALL LEARNING AT THIS AGE SHOULD BE IN GAMES!!!!!

At this time I had quit teaching and started this blog to help me find other educational games for him to play that would be entertaining and keep him growing He was allowed about 30-60 minutes of computer time a day. Through that I found out about Upstart which is the free on-line preschool Utah just started offering to it's students. I did some research to make sure it was going to be educational, fun, and that it would keep up with his abilities and decided it would be a good thing. Oh, how I loved upstart. It started out very slow but I had the power to put him where he needed to be. We skipped level 1 which was all about letter sounds and names and went straight to level 2 which taught him how to read better and about grammar. It was wonderful. We had to sign a contract saying that we would do it for at least 20 minutes a day but he loved it so much he usually did 30. He just completed the Upstart program this last July. He made it to the middle of level 3, which is second grade level work. The program tested his fluency and charted him at between 170 and 200 words a minute on their passages. I sat with him frequently and made sure he was doing it right.

I also gave him a few of my own fluency (the ability to read with expression and fluently) tests to see how he was really doing. The passage I gave him was a first grade level passage and he read at 60 words a minute. That's about what kids should be reading at the end of first grade. He is now preparing to start Kindergarten in a couple of weeks and I honestly don't know what the teacher is going to do with him but it will be a wonderful experience for him I'm sure.

Wow, That was a long introduction into how I found these sites. I want to make sure that my son is understanding everything he is reading and that we aren't pushing him to far too fast. If he isn't ready I don't want him to be reading chapter books, but if he is I want him to keep growing. I gave him an incentive this summer to help him want to read. If he earns 100 stars, and different books have different values so it wasn't 100 books just stars, I would take him to the store to buy the cord to his leapster explorer. He has to tell me about the books though before I will give him his stars. I don't always have time to sit and read with him. We have a house full and my 2 year old boy is a handful.  I can quickly thumb through the picture books that he reads and ask him about it but the chapter books take me more time.

I got on-line and found that many teachers have already posted quizzes for many books so if you would like to see how well your child understood what they are reading google the book name and ask for quizzes. Just remember that they may not all be accurate so if your child gets everything wrong you might want to try another quiz before you make them re-read the book.

I found a site where you can create your own quizzes for free. You of course have to read through the book before you can do this but what a good way to bond with your child. Read the same book and then discuss it together.

http://www.goodreads.com/

Goodreads.com also has a bunch of quizzes already to go. My son just took one on Hour of the Olympics, the Magic Treehouse book he finished a couple of days ago.