At-Home Reading Tips

Knowing Your Student’s Level

· Be sure that all books your student reads at home are at “Just-Right books”. Reading a “too hard” book can negatively affect their reading abilities. There is no such thing as a “too easy” book!

Build a Reading Life at Home!

· Model fluent reading for your student and have them read aloud for you too!

· POSITIVELY REINFORCE your student’s reading!! They need to hear from you how well they are doing and how much you enjoy hearing them read!

Accuracy (reading the words correctly)

· Break the word into parts they know- “say the sounds”

ex. FLOAT- break into ‘FL’ and ‘OAT’, then put the pieces together

· Reinforce using picture clues

· If still stuck, reader can skip word and read on, then reread

· Following a reading error, ask:

• “Does it look right?"

• “Does it sound right?” / “What would sound right?”

• “Does it make sense?” / “What would make sense?”

Comprehension (understanding the text)

· Fiction:

• Before and during reading: Ask your reader to make predictions about the text

• Ask your reader to talk about what happened in the story (retell)

• Ask questions about character’s feelings and personality traits

• Ask what features make the story fiction?

· Non-Fiction:

• Ask your reader to talk about what they learned in the text (retell facts or sequence of events)

• Ask questions about the text’s features (i.e. headings, photographs, captions)

Fluency (reading smoothly with appropriate pacing)

• Reread texts more than once to become more fluency

• Reinforce pausing at punctuation

• Read with expression (“like a pro vs. a robot”)

(See attachment below for a printable copy of tips)