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Reading Skills
Suggestions for helping your child with reading skills. |
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Lion Reading
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Reading is a "group effort" The teacher, parent(s), and child must be involved to make reading happen. Here is what you can do to reinforce and continue reading skills at home...
Read "Just Right Books"
Goldilocks tried the Three Bears' porridge, chairs, and beds. She continued to try each one until she found the ones that were "just right" for her. The books your child reads can be thought of in the same way.
A book that is "just right" is one that your child can read independently. It is not too hard and it is not too easy. It's a good fit - it's "just right". Here is one way to help your child choose such a book:
FIVE FINGER RULE
While reading the first page of a book, count the unknown words (using fingers to keep track is fine). If there are five or more unknown words, the book is too hard for now. Read that book together.
Another important consideration - some first graders have learned to read many words. They even may be reading "chapter books". However they might not be understanding what's been read. Ask your child lots of questions about the story in general and about specific pages to see if he really understands what was read. It also is important to monitor your child's choices for appropriate content. Reading Strategies
Check Pictures
Look at the illustrations for a clue.
Guess and Go
Guess what word would make sense and try it in the sentence.
Guess and Check
Guess what word would make sense and check to see if the letters in the printed word match your guess.
Running Start
Go back to the beginning of the sentence and start again.
Word Find
Find the word on a previous page.
Sound It Out
Use the phonics rules that we are learning in class. Saxon Phonics Information
Chunk it up
Break the word in parts containing 2-3 letters.
Word in a word
Look for words within words.
Baseword find
Cover suffixes and prefixes to find the baseword.
Consonants only
Sound out the word using just consonants, no vowels. More Strategies How to talk to children about reading. Other Reading Suggestions: 1. Never stop reading to your child. It's the number 1 mistake of parents. Children need to hear the adult fluency. 2. Have a child who is having a hard time learning to read? Try this have your child read one page and you read the next. Such a child reading the even pages and parent reads the odd pages. This reduces the amount of reading for your child (and fustration level) and allows your child to hear the fluency from you. 3. Still having a hard time working with your own child. Let someone else do it - grandparent, aunt, uncle, older sibling, friend. Children love to read with other children. Reading Resources Links to more information on reading with your child: How Most Children Learn to Read Clicking on the link on the page will bring you to another website full of reading information based on research. Reading Rockets Teaching reading is a hugely complicated task. So much so that researcher Louisa Moats ended up entitling her influential article "Teaching Reading IS Rocket Science." (This, incidentally, also became the basis for the Reading Rockets name!). Learn about phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, and vocabulary on this informational web site. Reading is Fundamental Whether you're a parent, guardian, grandparent, or an older sibling, you can help a child learn to love reading! This web site gives ideas for Motivating Kids to Read, Choosing Good Books, Reading Aloud, Literacy-Rich Homes, Seasonal Activities, and a data-base for book searches. Florida Reading Research Center
This website offers some general suggestions for things that parents can do to help support the reading growth of their children. These are general suggestions, meant to be useful for almost any child, and there may be other things your child’s teacher will want you to do that are focused on the specific needs of your child. All of these suggestions come from research on the way children learn to read. If you do some of them regularly in a motivating and supportive way, they will help your child make faster progress in learning to read. Many of these activities, such as those that build vocabulary and teach children to think while they read, will also help your child ultimately be a much better reader than he or she might otherwise become.
Room 103 !
Mrs. Harper's First Grade
dharper@stlukeum.com
St. Luke School
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