Reading at Home

Recommendations for what to do at home to help improve reading:

(You can also view these suggestions in Spanish or Portuguese by clicking on either word.)

• Practice reading with expression using familiar books.

• Reading rate: Use repeated readings and timed readings to improve rate of speed.

• Separate the sounds of a word, or ask "What makes sense here?" for unknown words. Say the word in different ways to see if you recognize it.

• If you come across a word that you don't know the meaning of notice it, then use the words and ideas around it and ask yourself what makes sense here. Ask someone or look it up if you can't figure it out. Substitute the meaning you found for the unknown word and decide if it makes sense. Remember, many words have more than one meaning!

• Make predictions.

• Ask yourself questions as you go along.

• Find key words. These words are important to how the story is understood.

• Always read captions.

• Reading between the lines--think about what the author meant.

• Keep magazines around the house in many different places, even the bathroom!

• Stay with a book until you have read at least one quarter of it before giving up. If you do give up, try it again at another time.

• Use books on tape while you read along. The car is an excellent place to do this!

Some Comprehension Strategies:

• Make Connections (schema): Connect what you are reading with what you know, organizing it into the categories of: ‘things that happened to me’; ‘things that I’ve read about’; and ‘things that I’ve learned about in another way’.

• Question: Be curious. Ask questions of yourself before, during, and after reading. Ask ‘big idea questions’ and ‘clarification questions’. A web or web organizer might help. Ask: who, what, where, when and why.

• Sensory Images: Practice making movies in your mind of what you are reading, or snapshots for non-fiction text. Practice visualizing backgrounds, movement, sounds, smells, colors, shapes, sizes, people, moods, perspectives. Making something or drawing might help.

• Infer: Using what you know together with clues in the text. (prediction is one aspect of making inferences): what an unknown word might be, again using what you already know together with clues in the text—use context.

• Determine Importance: Which parts of a story or non-fiction are most important? Get the main idea. Use someone-wanted-but-so reading strategy.

• Synthesize/Summarize: Retell the important parts—setting, characters, main problem, events from the beginning, middle, and end, and how (or if) problem was solved. This will help you check for understanding and will help you tell someone else about what you have read. An organizer might help, and try the "who, what, where, when, why and how" strategy. or the "somebody-wanted-but-so" strategy.

• Check for understanding and use fix-up strategies: Ask yourself “Does this make sense?”

• Notice Signal Words: They can tell you what is most or least important, what happened when, and, most importantly, to pay attention because something important will be next.

• Reread: If you have lost meaning. If you haven't read the book for awhile, "rewind" a little before you start reading so that you can remember and won't have to look back later.

• Read on: Sometimes that will help you solve the problem by giving you more information.

• Don’t always speed read!: Adjust your reading speed to match what you are reading.

Book Selection Tips:

Following are suggestions for selecting books to read:

• Think of your interests. What do you like to do? What types of stories do you like? What types of movies do you like to watch? Your interests are a key to the types of books you will enjoy.

• If you read and enjoyed a particular type of book, look for books similar to it. Often in the back of the book, especially paperbacks, the titles of similar books are listed. You might find these interesting.

• If an author whose book you enjoyed has written other books, you might like these titles as well.

• Check book reviews in newspapers and magazines. The Sunday New York TImes Book Review section is an excellent source. Most major newspapers contain book review sections. Online services may also offer book reviews under the keyword “Literature”. The internet is also an excellent place to get book suggestions.

• Browse for books in bookstores and in the library.

• Ask librarians, English and reading teachers, and bookstore employees about books. Such people often have a wealth of knowledge about books that they are willing to share.

• If you’ve seen a movie you really like, watch the closing credits. Some movies are based on books and you may discover an author whose writing will interest you.

• When considering a book, look at its cover and title, as they can give you a clue about the book’s contents. Also, read the back cover. Although the back flap seldom provides a complete summary of the book, it usually offers details of what you will find inside. Open the book, look through the table of contents, and read a few samples from different sections. After all this, you should have a good idea whether you’d like to read this book.