Reading strategies to use at home

After my last entry I promised a few tips on reading strategies we can use with our kids. At the outset, I have to say, please, please don’t take the fun out of the reading experience and turn it into a painful, protracted exercise in making your child get every word correct.

If we take the fun, joy and love out of reading what are we reading for? We don’t want our kids to view books in the same light as brussel sprouts! “Eat your greens and read your reader,” would be a worrying catchcry.

It’s also good to remember that learning to read isn’t a race. Think of learning to read as an enjoyable stroll through many interesting and wondrous places where we can, and should, stop to savour each reading milestone – it is truly amazing to see our children recognise words, read phrases, understand story lines, and feel the excitement of learning to read. Celebrate their achievements.

Progressing a child quickly through reading levels against his will, will not have much benefit if it’s at the expense of his enjoyment of books. There’s little use in a child being a proficient reader if he doesn’t want to pick up a book. Take cues from your child about his willingness, enthusiasm and readiness to move onto more difficult books. Your child’s teacher will also be in tune with how your child is progressing and what he is ready for, so talk together about what is a good rate of progress for your child.

When reading with our kids, we not only want to enjoy and savour the experience, but we also want to be as helpful as possible. There are many great little reading prompts we can use when our child stumbles over a word. Not all of these prompts are useful all of the time, but think of them as a variety of ‘word cracking tools’ that you and your child can pick and choose from at any given moment.

Reading prompts (or word cracking tools):

- Does it make sense?
- Does it look right?
- Does it sound right?
- Look for parts that you know.
- Do you know another word like that?
- Get your mouth ready.
- Go back and re-read.
- Skip the word and go on.

Here’s an example of using some of these reading prompts.

Let’s say the sentence says:

This nest is for a bird.

Your child says:

This nest is far a bird.

Obviously the word far doesn’t make sense in this context and indicates that your child hasn’t read for meaning. First give him a chance to self-correct. He may realise it doesn’t make sense and go back to have another go.

If he doesn’t self-correct you could ask, “Does it make sense?”

Then you could say, “Let’s go back and re-read the sentence.” This will give him a chance to have another go at the word.

If he doesn’t recognise the word you could say, “Look for parts that you know.” He might recognise or in which case you could ask him what the first letter f sounds like. Then you could ask him to put the f sound with the word or. (Be careful not to suggest to sound out each letter of the word, as for is not spelt how it sounds.)

If he has trouble with the f sound you could say, “Get your mouth ready” and show him where his teeth and lips go to make the sound.

If he says the word correctly, congratulate him on working hard at cracking the word. Good job detective! If he is still having trouble at this point I would suggest telling him the word and moving on. There will be many more opportunities for him to see, read and write this word. Reading should be fun, not frustrating.

So have fun, go at the right pace, help him develop his arsenal of word cracking tools, and savour the wondrous journey of learning to read with your child.