My eight-year-old daughter is in her third year of primary school and my husband and I are worried about her reading ability. She is a native English speaker, yet several children in her class with English as their second or third language are way ahead of her in both their reading and writing. She enjoys school but receives daily learning support because she is behind. She loves being read to aloud by us at home. She also loves listening to stories on CD and she can learn a script for a show in no time but she refuses to try reading a book on her own. We've bought her lots of her favourite books but she won't sit down with one on her own.
Teacher Adam Conway answers:
You are clearly anxious, with reason, but there are several positives contained within your outline of the issue here. Firstly, your daughter loves going to school and she is receiving daily support - probably for literacy - which she is clearly accepting and enjoying. The foundations are already in place for her to make significant progress and become a more confident, willing, independent reader.
I suggest your first move should be to contact her teacher soon (if you haven't already done so) and ask if you could go into school to discuss your anxieties. This conversation will probably reassure you and your husband, as well as giving your daughter's teacher a fuller picture of her learning outside school.
It is also important to realise that your daughter already is a keen, regular reader: she just isn't yet reading whole books independently, and she is still young. She will be gaining so much from the times you and your husband read aloud to her: it is a wonderful routine. So many older children, even adults, treasure their memories of those times when a story first comes alive in their imagination through a parent's voice. The audio books are also a great idea and are another sign of your daughter's strong reading habit.
Does your daughter bring home a short reading book daily, as part of a structured reading scheme? These books will have been carefully pitched at her level. Does your daughter read these with you? If she does, she is actually reading 20 books a month! They can become the first steps towards independent reading of longer 'chapter' books.