Reading Strategies

Reading Improvement Strategies!

Reading is a skill that is needed in every academic area. It is important that your child is reading every night. I encourage that they read from a variety of different genres and texts. This can include such areas as novels, school textbooks, biographies, newspapers, magazines, as well as many others.

Reading should be done independently by the child, as well as with a parent. Before, during, and after reading, the child should be engaging in some of the following reading strategies that will enhance his/her performance and comprehension. These are also strategies that are taught and reinforced in school.

Decoding Reading Strategies

Look at the Picture: Looking at the pictures will give you clues to help you understand the story and read more difficult words.

Get Your Mouth Ready: This will help with figuring out a word by getting ready to say the first sound of a word.

Sound it Out: Work your way through a word by tapping out the sounds.

Look for Chunks: When sounding out words, look for sounds and chunks that you have been taught. Notice parts of words that are like other words that you already know.

Slide through the Whole Word: Say the sounds quickly while stretching out the vowel sounds and connect them to make a word.

Skip the Word: Skip over words that you can't figure out. Read the rest of the sentence. Try to figure out what makes sense.

Go Back and Reread: If you skipped over a word or something doesn't make sense, go back and reread the sentence or sentences to see what makes sense and matches the word.

Think!: What would make sense? The car went fun. or The car went far.

Try a Different Vowel Sound: Vowels make short and long sounds. Look for clues that will help you to know which sound it could make. cap or cape

Comprehension Reading Strategies

Visualize: Make a movie in your head while you are reading. Paint a picture of the story in your mind.

Make Predictions: This is making guesses on what will happen based on what you are reading. Predictions can happen before, during, and after reading. These predictions may change as you read.

Question: Ask Who?, What?, Where?, When?, Why?, and How? when you are reading.

Make Connections: Link your reading material to your own experiences/to what you already know, something you have already read, or to bigger world issues and concerns.

Make Inferences: Read between the lines by drawing conclusions, making predictions, and thinking about the author's intent.

Determine Importance: . Distinguish what's important from what is interesting.