When helping your child read at home, several strategies may be used to aid in decoding unknown words.

1. Tell the child to look at the picture. You may tell the child the word is something that can be seen in the picture, if it is the case.

2. Tell the child to look for chunks in the word, such as "it" in sit, or "at" in mat, and "ing" in standing.

3. Ask the child to get his/her mouth ready to say the word by shaping the mouth for the beginning letter.

4. Ask the child if the word looks like another word he/she knows. Does cook look like look?, for example.

5. 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.

6. If the child says the wrong word while reading, as questions like:

• Does it make sense?
• Does it sound right?
• Does it look right?

Remember...practice makes perfect!