Josiah Quincy Elementary School 昆士小學
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1. Setting
up a reading schedule ·
Children that have positive
reading experiences learn to love books. Always keep this in mind!
The time that you spend reading with or listening to your child read
means a lot to them even if it is hard for you to schedule it in! A child should
look forward to your reading time together and not view it as a chore, homework
or a lesson. A child develops his/ her attitude towards reading by watching you.
A child that likes to read wants to figure out tricky words to unlock the
meaning in the story. A child that
has a negative attitude towards reading is less likely to pick up a book, and
more likely to put it down when the going gets tough! ·
Make reading fun! Have reading be
a special time with your child where your focus is on he/she alone.
Even a few minutes spent reading with your child makes a difference. ·
Show interest in your child’s
independent reading. This can be done by listening to your child read or asking
about what they are reading. ·
·
Try to mix up your reading routine
if you notice your child seems to be losing interest! Lay a blanket on the
ground and have an indoor reading picnic or build a mini fort with a sheet and
have a reading hideaway. 2.
Picking a Just-Right book (a book that a child can read and understand with little or no assistance) ·
Choose a book.
Look at the cover and flip through the pages.
Does this book look interesting? ·
Turn to a page in the middle of
the book. For every word you get
stuck on put up one finger. ·
After you finish reading the page
look at how many fingers you have up. ·
0
or
·
·
·
It’s okay to read easy books and
later books sometimes but most books should be Just-Right books. ·
When you read aloud to your child
the book doesn’t always have to be Just-Right!
It is good for a child to hear the rich language that may be in a later
book. However, keep in mind that the
point of the read aloud is for a child to hear, understand and enjoy the book!
·
Look at how your child reacts to a
book to figure out if it is developmentally appropriate.
Do they laugh when it is funny? Do
they make comments about the pictures and what’s going on (good readers have
conversations with books!) ? If you stop and ask them what they think will
happen next, can they make a reasonable prediction? Are they “into” the book
or are they daydreaming? Look and listen to your child- he/she will be most
involved with books that are developmentally appropriate.
3.
Help! I’m stuck on a word! ·
Do not tell your child the word
right away! Although this might seem
helpful it isn’t helping your child learn to read on his/her own.
·
1stTell
your child to get out his or her tricky finger and place it on the tricky word
and get his/her mouth ready to make the sounds (this is what you want your
child’s response to be when he/she comes to a hard word- it shows that he/she
is going to try some strategies on his/her own and is not depending on you to
give the word) ·
2ndSuggest
and help your child use the following strategies: ~
look at the picture to try to figure out the meaning of the word ~
say the word slowly, stretching it out to hear all possible sounds ~
chunk the word by covering a part of the word with a finger.
Look at the parts of the word independently rather than the whole word at
once. ~
re-read the sentence, covering the word with a finger, asking what would make
sense in that place ~
look at the letters in the word and refer to the alphabet chart to see if the
letter and sounds from common words can help with the sounds in the tricky word ·
If your child is still struggling
after about a minute you may tell them the word.
When you tell them the word, show them how you used one of the strategies
to figure it out. ·
Help your child before they become
frustrated! While you should not
tell them the word right away- DO help them strategize to figure it out. ·
Go back and reread the sentence
after the word is figured out to regain your place in the story and uphold
comprehension. 4.
The Importance of Understanding ·
If your child has stopped multiple
times during a story to figure out words their understanding of the story may be
interrupted. ·
Have your child re-read the story.
Good readers always read a book more than once.
Each time a child reads a story or has a story read to them, they find
out new information that they may not have noticed the first time. ·
After reading a story to or with
your child, discuss what happened at the beginning middle and end of the story ·
You may also want to ask them who
was in the story, where it took place, what was the problem and how was it
solved (see story book grammar marker) ·
Part way through the story stop
reading and ask your child to predict what will happen next ·
Ask your child to tell or draw you
their favorite part of the story (share with them your favorite part of the
story and why you liked it) ·
Making connections with a book is
so important- we don’t realize it but, as adults, we do it with everything we
read! We think about how we would
feel if we were in that situation or we think how a situation reminds us of
something in our own life or something going on in the world.
As adults we do it automatically, but children learning to read often
need to be prompted to do this. So ask your child, how do you think you would
feel if you were this character and that happened to you?
Does this remind you of anything else you’ve read, or something that
has happened to you? Eventually your
child will begin to ask themselves these same questions on their own as they
read, this helps them to internalize and understand what they read!
5.
Good Readers are also Writers! ·
Writing is the reading process
slowed down. Children learn
relationships between letters and sounds and see patterns in the way that words
are put together by writing them. ·
Encourage your child to draw
pictures about books or experiences. Drawing
helps children to represent their ideas. Then have them describe their picture
with labels or sentences depending on their level. (i.e. a 1st grader might
label and write a sentence, a 2nd grader may write anywhere from a
couple sentences to a paragraph) ·
Help your child write a friendly
letter to a character in a book, or to an author or to a family member or
friend. Have your child dictate as
you write. Read the note back to
your child pointing to the words as you read them.
This helps your child to see that words aren’t just strings of letters
to be sounded out but that together they convey a message!
If your child is older they can write a part of or the whole letter. ·
Encourage your child to keep a
Writer’s Notebook. A Writer’s
Notebook can be kept in the car or brought on the train or bus.
A child can keep ongoing lists of words that he or she likes (kids love
to write down words that they see that are odd, long, funny, weird looking or
that they like the sound of) A notebook could also include drawings and
descriptions of daily activities, stories, letters or poems. ·
Give your child the opportunity to
write with a purpose. ~Encourage your child to help you write shopping lists for the grocery store and then read the list back to you while you’re in the store! Or put them in charge of getting certain items on the list. ~Ask
your child to leave a message for someone in the family “ Mom and I went to
the store. Be back at 12:00.”
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Created by Beverly Ryan (2nd
grade teacher) & Marissa Thornton (1st grade teacher) 2006 for
JQS |
