Reading and home reading

Reading

I adore teaching reading.  When the kids get to an unknown word, a word they cannot read automatically, then I get excited.  I get to see what strategies they try and what I need to teach them next. I have taught the strategies below, but that does not mean the children have mastered them all!  They need to practice. The strategies all have an animal connection to help the children to learn and remember them.

When a child is stuck on a word it takes quite a lot of brain power, and time for the kids to try the strategies and work it out. Therefore we want children to be reading just right books, that have a maximum of 3 unknown words for them to figure out in the whole book.  (It could be a few more words than 3 if your child is reading at a higher level).  If there are too many unknown words then the child can become less motivated.  They might stop wanting to read because it is too hard or they might not understand the story, as their brain power is spent working out the words.  

So when you are reading with your child you need to be quite skilful.  Firstly, you need to decide if the book is just right or not.  If it is not a just right book, then take over the reading, or read every other page, or try reading together.  If it is a just right book when your child stops at a word you must stop too.  Let them try a strategy or two. If they are stuck suggest a strategy.  If after a few attempts, they still can't figure out the word, give hints or tell them.  

  

 Home Reading 

Next week the children will start bringing some books home to read.  Some children might get a book every day and some children might take a book home just once a week.  There will be no books sent home on Friday.  

Parents your job is to:

1.  Be excited about the books coming home and read them with your child.  Enjoy this time.  Talk about the books. Give positive feedback about your child's reading and make this a positive experience.  

2.  Please ensure the book is returned to school the next day.

Sometimes home reading books seem too easy to parents, as your child might be able to read every word.  However, the focus might be not working on decoding strategies but instead for your child to practice reading fluently or with expression.  Or the focus could be comprehension, retell or inference.