Reading Strategies 

READING STRATEGIES

1.  Create Mental images:  Good readers make mental pictures while they read. 

2.  Use Background Knowledge:  Good readers use their prior knowledge before, during and after reading. 

3.  Ask Questions:  Good readers generate questions before, during and after reading. 

4.  Make Inferences:  Good readers use information from what they read to make predictions and create interpretations that deepen their understanding of the text. 

5.  Determine the Most Important Ideas or Themes:  Good readers identify key ideas or themes as they read. 

6.  Synthesize Information:  Good readers track their thinking as it evolves during reading. 

7.  Use Fix-up Strategies:  Good readers are aware of when they understand and when they don’t.  They use problem solving strategies to “fix” their reading problems.

5 BIG IDEAS OF READING

1.  Phonemic Awareness: Phonemic awareness is the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words.   Before children learn to read print, they need to become aware of how sounds in words work.  They must understand  that words are made up of speech sounds, or phonemes.  Phonemes are the smallest parts of sounds in a spoken word that make a difference in a word's meaning.

2.  Phonics Instruction: Phonics instruction teaches children the relationships between the letters(graphemes)of written language and the  individual sounds(phonemes) of spoken language.  It teaches children to use these relationships to read and write  words.  The goal of phonics instruction is to help children learn and use the alphabetic principle----the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds.  

3.  Fluency: Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately and quickly.  When fluent readers read silently, they recognize  words automatically.  They group words quickly to help them gain meaning from what they read.  Fluent readers read  aloud effortlessly and with expression.  Their reading sounds natural, as if they are speaking.  Readers who have not  yet developed fluency read slowly, word by word.  Their oral reading is choppy and plodding.  Fluency is important  because it provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.  

4.  Vocabulary: Vocabulary refers to the words we must know to communicate effectively.  In general, vocabulary can be  described as oral vocabulary or reading vocabulary.  Oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or recognize in listening.  Reading vocabulary refers to words we recognize or use in print.  Vocabulary contributes much to reading comprehension.  Readers cannot understand what they are reading  without knowing what most of the words mean.  As children learn to read more advanced texts, they must learn the meanings of new words that are not part of their oral vocabulary.    

5.  Comprehension: Comprehension is the reason for reading.  As they read, good readers are both purposeful and active.  Good  readers have a purpose for reading.  They may read to find out how to use a food processor, read a  guidebook to gather information about state parks, read a textbook to satify an assignment, read a magazine for  entertainment, or read a classic novel to experience and share great literature.   Good readers think actively as they read.  To make sense of what they read, good readers engage in a  complicated process.  Using their experiences and knowledge of the world, knowledge of vocabulary, and knowledge of reading strategies, they make sense of the text and know how to get the most out of it.  They know when they  have problems with understanding and how to resolve those problems as they occur.    

*National Institute For Literacy, Second Edition, June 2003

Ways to Help Your Child at Home

Phonemic Awareness

• Draw your child's attention to the component sounds of his/her language with songs, poems and shared readings of stories.

• Read and reread stories that play with language (books with rhymes).

• Play oral word games that require mental manipulation of letter sounds - delete the /c/ from cat, add /g/ to ate, substitute /m/ for /t/ in Tommy.

• Create word families.  Choose a word which lends itself to a rhyming pattern.  Say a list of rhyming words - hill, pill, still, mill.

Phonics-Sounds/Symbol Correspondence

• Place magnetic letters on the refrigerator for your child to practice letter names and sounds, form words and/or create messages.

• Draw your child's attention to letters and words in his/her environment (signs, cereal boxes, toy boxes, menus, etc.).

• Trace letters in or on multisensory surfaces - like cloth, sand or shaving cream.  Practice sounds in conjunction with letter formation.

• Construct letters using various materials, such as macaroni, clay or pipe cleaners.

Connecting Phonics to Literature

Using your child's literature selection...

• Look for words that have a specific phonetic sound, (words beginning with the consonant sound /b/ or a vowel combination sound /ai/.  Have your child generate additional words with the same phonetic sound.

• Look for words with similar suffixes, prefixes and syllable patterns. Include rhymes, chants, tongue twisters and songs in your child's reading selections.

• Read to your child regularly.  This enriches his/her mind with the sounds of the English language.

Phonetic Strategies During Reading

• Give your child sufficient time to decode unfamiliar words.  Guide them to look at initial and final consonant sounds.  Provide suggestions for decoding the vowel sounds (try the short sound, try the long sound).

• Allow time for your child to self-correct, go back and reread mispronounced words.

• Break an unfamiliar word into syllables so that your child can focus on one syllable at a time.   Reread the word blending the syllables together.

• Expect your child to use phonics strategies at the appropriate level of ability.

• Note that there are phonetically irregular words that do not follow conventional pronunciations.  Therefore, these words must be practiced, memorized and/or recognized with respect to the context of the sentence.

Fluency Strategies

• Encourage your child to track the words with their finger as you read aloud, then have your child read the same sentence, passage, etc.

• Allow your child to read their favorite poems and books over and over again.  They should practice getting smoother and reading with expression.

• Read aloud together and have your child match his voice to yours.

• Practice reading lists of words, phrases or short passages several times.

• Practice reading with expression (watch the punctuation).

• Let your child hear you reading aloud.

• Allow your child to record him/herself reading and then listen to how it sounds.

Vocabulary Strategies

• Have your child keep a list of new or interesting words.

• Play verbal games with one another.

• Engage your child in conversation.  Encourage complete sentence responses.

• Help build word knowledge by classifying and grouping objects or pictures while naming them.

• Read everyday

Comprehension Strategies

• Help your child use outlines, maps, notes and graphic organizers as they read.

• Make flash cards of key terms children want to remember.

• Children should read stories and selections in short sections and make sure they know what happened before they continue reading.

• Make mental pictures as you read.

• Talk with your child about what they have read.  Ask probing questions about the book and connect the events to his or her own life.

• Help your child go back to the text to support his or her answers.

• Discuss unknown words.

• Ask your child what they learned from reading informational text.