Dear teacher,
One of my children seems to read very slowly. The other just dashes through books and textbooks. What are the typical reading rates for children in third and seventh grades?
Dear parent,
You would think that this is a very simple question to answer. Instead, it is a rather complicated question. Children read at different rates when they read silently or orally. Their rates also vary depending on the types of reading that they are doing and whether they are reading material that is on their independent reading level.
What you want is for your children to read at an appropriate rate with adequate comprehension. Reading fast is great provided children also understand what they have read. Remember, children are not good readers unless they understand what they have read.
Many studies have been made of what constitutes an appropriate oral reading rate for different grade levels. Most are within a similar range. You can find very detailed oral reading data for grades one through eight by going to www.readingrockets.org and searching for “oral reading fluency” to see what the expected rates are for children in the fall, winter, and spring of each year.
There is just not as much data about optimum silent reading rates. However, students should consistently read faster silently — especially after the early grades. Dr. Neil J. Anderson, a professor at Brigham Young University, says 138 words per minute is an appropriate silent rate for a third-grader and 195 words for a seventh-grader. With each grade in school, children’s silent reading rates should increase between 10 to 20 words.
Handling a bad report card
Dear teacher,
My sixth-grader, who just started middle school, brought home a report card loaded with C grades last week. In elementary school, she always got As and Bs. I’m quite disappointed, and she is very upset. How can this be turned around?
Dear parent,
Expressing your anger or frustration over these less-than-desired grades to your child is not going to solve anything. Since your child has been a good student, it’s important to look at what has changed to get her back on the path to good grades.
One thing that you need to consider is that middle school is usually quite different from elementary school. Your child is now faced with a number of different teachers with different personalities to cope with as well as demands. She may not yet have solved the riddle of how to handle this new experience. Plus, the curriculum is probably more demanding.
The first step is to talk calmly with your child to see if she has a handle on why her grades have slipped and how she might be able to turn things around. With this information in hand, you and your daughter should talk with her teachers. Your daughter may even be surprised to find out why she has received the grades that she did. And you both must be sure to ask the teachers how the child can do better in each class. She may need to work on different things for each class. However, more than likely, there will be a common thread of what she needs to do. Make a list of these things. Also, be sure to ask the teachers if your daughter needs any special help and where it can be found.
Once you and your daughter know what she needs to do to get better grades, help her begin to make the necessary changes. They may fall into the following areas:
Study plan: Study time for quizzes and tests needs to be scheduled. Beyond this, your daughter may need help from you or her teachers on ways to study for quizzes and tests.
Homework: Simply doing homework faithfully every night may be sufficient to improve your child’s grades.
Challenging work: When the child does not understand assigned work, she needs to get help at once from the teacher, a parent, online, or a tutor or learning center.
Online tutors — helpful or not
Dear teacher,
I simply have no time to help my daughter with math. Many of her friends use online tutors. What are the pros and cons of using one?
Dear parent,
Online tutoring sites are exploding all over the internet. The tutors are usually college students, retired teachers, college professors, or professional tutors. Their quality, however, can be uneven.
Negatives include technical glitches and language barriers when the tutors are from other countries. Many, however, provide quick, excellent help — guiding students to figure out the answer.
If you decide to try an online tutor, be sure to sit by your child for the first few sessions to investigate the quality of the tutor. Also, tutoring sessions work best when students come to sessions with a list of questions.
Parents should send questions and comments to deart
© Compass Syndicate Corporation, 2016.
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
