This year the children will be working on developing several strategies to follow when they become stuck on a word they are trying to read.
Parents and teachers may utilize these strategies when reading with children. When helping your child read at home, reviewing the following strategies will aid in decoding unknown words.
Please find time to read with your child each day.
1. Tell the child to look at the picture and look for clues. You may tell the child the word is something that can be seen in the picture, if that is the case.
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READING THE PICTURE
Before reading the words on the page, ask your child to “read the picture” to you. She/he should be able to give you some specific details about what is going on in the picture. Ask your child questions about the picture and help her/him to formulate his/her thoughts in complete sentences.
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2. Tell the child to look for chucks in the word, such as it in sit, at in mat, or and and ing in standing.
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Chunking is when the children look to find little chunks of words inside of bigger words. For example, in the word “yesterday”, a child might notice the words “yes” and “day”. After recognizing chunks, children can stretch the word and will have more success figuring out new words. Practice this by asking your child to find chunks in words you find in books, newspapers, and magazines.
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3. Ask the child to get his/her mouth ready to say the word by shaping the mouth for the beginning letter.
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GET YOUR MOUTH READY
This is what we do when getting ready to sound out a word. To use this skill, your child should focus on the beginning letter(s) of the word s/he is stuck on and try to sound them out. When a child can figure out blends like ‘ch’ or ‘tr’, it can make it easier to figure out the rest of the word. She/he can look in a mirror to see what she/he looks like when getting his/her mouth ready to read these sounds.
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4. Ask the child to go on and read to the end of the sentence. Often by reading the other words in context, the child can figure out the unknown word.
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LEAVE IT OUT
Sometimes, the majority of a book will be fairly simple for a new reader to read, with the exception of a few challenging words. When using this skill, your child should leave the challenging word out by saying, “blank”, and continue to read the rest of the sentence. Often, there will be context clues in the remainder of the sentence, which, along with the “get your mouth ready” skill, will help your child read the missing word. After figuring out the challenging word, your child should re-read the sentence from the beginning to support comprehension.
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5. "Read with your finger."
Pointing while reading is important at this stage because it allows children to focus on each word while using all of their reading skills to decipher and read fluently. It also helps them focus on miscues, which then helps them to correct their mistakes, which then leads to more fluent reading and better comprehension. Children can use their finger or special pointers to point with. Maybe have fun decorating a popsicle stick to use as a pointer.
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6. If the child says the wrong word while reading, ask questions like:
Does it make sense? Does it sound right? Does it look right?
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DOES IT MAKE SENSE?
As children improve their reading skills, they will realize when a word does not make sense with what is happening in the story. The child should then go back and try to figure out the word again, using other strategies. Once the word is figured out the child should re-read from the beginning of the sentence for comprehension.
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7. Ask the child if the word looks like another word she/he knows. Does bed look like red for example.
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DOES THE WORD LOOK LIKE
ANY OTHER WORD YOU KNOW?
(WORD FAMILIES)
When your child is stuck on a word that contains a word family, ask him/her if she/he recognizes part of the word? For example, cook/look, cake/bake, skate/late, play/stay etc.
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Please continue to practice these skills with your child during reading time at home. When your child becomes stuck on a word, ask him/her, “What can you do when you get stuck on a word?” After awhile, she/he will reach their goal and use the reading strategies without being prompted.
HOW CAN YOU HELP YOUR CHILD READ AT HOME?
· Provide support
· Always praise your child's reading
· Make reading fun
· If your child stops at a hard word you can praise and get them to look at the first letter and reread, thinking about what would "make sense", "sound right" and "look right".
· Read the hard part together, but try not to tell them word.
· If your child makes a mistake, you can let the mistake go if it makes sense or get them to look at the word again.
QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR CHILD AFTER READING TOGETHER:
1. Can you tell me the story in your own words (from the beginning)?
2. Who were the characters?
3. What was the problem in the story?
4. How did they solve the problem?
5. What was your favorite part? Why?
6. Who was your favorite character? Why?
7. Did this story remind you of any things that have happened to you?
HOW TO CHOOSE "JUST RIGHT BOOKS..."
A book is TOO EASY if:
*You read the story too fast,
*There are no "tricky" words,
*You find it difficult to pay attention.
A book is TOO HARD if:
*You read the story very, very slowly,
*The words are too difficult,
*Some of the book does not make sense,
*You have to constantly go back and reread.
A book is JUST RIGHT if:
*You read at a comfortable pace and don't rush,
*You pay attention to the words,
*You're able to figure out "tricky" words,
*You can think about the story the whole time
*You enjoyed it even through it required some work
