Boy I’m behind in my reading. How did I miss this post by Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant?
A reading teacher contacted him for suggestions of a “reading program for an extraordinarily bright 5th grader.” She said,
This child is special and I don’t want to lose him due to boredom or have him become a thorn in his young teacher’s side when she can’t handle him because he is zoning out or misbehaving.
Kudos to her for reaching out. Scott didn’t really have an answer, but threw it to his readers.
Interestingly, they overwhelmingly said, “Turn him loose”. Independent study. Let him read. He does not need a “program.” I smiled, because this is exactly the approach that C.’s second grade teacher took, giving her unlimited access to the library. C. still refers to it as her best year in school.
Over at Think Like a Teacher, Candace Hacket Shively, devoted a whole blog post to answering the question, and made some excellent recommendations. Her advice, based on 27 years of teaching? Conversation, Accountability, Support, Choice, Match, Product and A Way to Talk About It. Do take a look at what she has to say.
Thank you for this and the link to Shively’s blog. This is timely for me–I have a 5th grade son in the same boat. His school uses Lexile Levels for reading, which works for most 5th graders to match them to books. My son’s Lexile isn’t even in the ballpark of most elementary kids, and “learning to read” approaches just don’t apply. My son’s teacher told him he could read “all the way down” to books at the 900 Lexile level. Which basically means he is being told he can’t read anything by Steinbeck or Hemmingway, because they’re too easy. Silly.
These things just don’t apply once a kid gets to a certain point, and right now we’re hard-pressed enough just to find things that are interesting and age-appropriate (not too emotionally mature) for him to read at the same time.
Lexile levels are good for kids learning to read, but once kids get a high enough lexile level, the measure is pretty meaningless.
My son hit 1027 at the end of 1st grade, 1131 at the beginning of 2nd, and 1721 by the end of 3rd. He was *not* ready to read graduate texts at that point (though freshman college books were in range, if the subject material was interesting enough). By that point, we totally ignored reading level, and paid attention only to content (both factual and emotional). None of his teachers made him read “at his Lexile level”, luckily, as the elementary school libraries did not go that high.
Maybe have the student do an EPGY or CTY distance learning course? While independent reading is fine, I personally think there is a lot to be gained from having some sort of discussion about the literature being read.
I’m planning to have my verbally gifted DD do the EPGY “Reading and Writing About Literature” course as soon as I feel she’s up to the writing part (darn those uneven abilities!)
The CTY horse class online was an excellent experience for our then third grader. She learned to THINK about what she reading, and it wasn’t Mom asking all these questions. Excellent teacher who really built a relationship with our daughter, even though it was all online, plus a phone call. Held her to a high standard, modeled excellent feedback skills.