Differences in the kids learning:
Anna: Quick to decode words/read. Difficulty reading phonetically. Reads very quickly. Reading comprehension is average and recall is low (like her mother). Spelling is a challenge. Reads huge volumes of fun chapter books. Oral reading is engaging and inflection is intuitive, but enunciation is difficult.
Maggie: Difficulty (at first) understanding how vowels have multiple sounds. Reads average/slow pace. Patient with long stories. Impressive reading comprehension and recall. Intuitive speller. Oral reading is good with mostly clear speech.
Carolyn: Consistent, logical, phonetic decoding of words. Much faster reading when words are in context. Reading comprehension is good. Oral reading is monotone. Spelling… to be determined.
It’s fascinating to me how all their particular styles of learning/understanding/knowing are shown in their reading alone.
Anna loves the action of the story and flies through them with confidence. Slowing down to notice details, enunciate clearly or track what she read/where on the page was that… not her forte. If she could maintain her clarity of speech, we’d all listen to her for a long time since she carries the story with her voice. Just don’t ask her to spell stuff or remember details.
Maggie is more deeply interested in all the details of a story, noting names, remembering order of events and retelling stories with enthusiasm. If you want just the story and get the the point, do not ask Maggie. She will share all the details – every one – and her ideas and imagination about the series of events as well. She’s got the details and enthusiasm down and thankfully her spelling can keep up more or less.
Carolyn is all business. She will decode, understand and even laugh sometimes at the right places. She has always been an ordered, determined child. But breaking her voice from monotone when she reads is not a natural skill for her by a long shot.
Children are fascinating. People are.