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Jun 30, 2008
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Tips for Helping Beginning Readers
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For students who are just beginning to read, reading can often be a frustrating experience. This page is dedicated to provide helpful tips and tricks for these beginning and sometimes reluctant readers. Here are some helpful hints that have worked for me and will hopefully work for you! If you have your own tips and tricks you would like to share, please e-mail me at hroselle@dysart.org and I will add them to this page. Happy reading!
1) Use texts that are not too hard and not too easy. (I will send home a phonics reader for your child each week and I allow children to borrow a book from my classroom library each day to take home. www.readinga-z.com is also a great investment!) Please encourage your child to see reading as a happy experience! If this is a frustrating time for both you and your child, change what you are doing.
2) Work on one page at a time. Have your child read one slightly challenging page mostly on their own. Model sounding out words or help your child remember sight words on the page as needed. Then read the page back to your child to show them how it should sound. Model this several times so they can pick up on the natural rhythm and sounds in the words. Then have your child read the page back to you.
3) After one page, let your child run! Some children have too much energy to sit still for too long. Tell your child that they may run a lap after one page or after another set amount of reading. Be creative!
4) Pay a penny a page! Or a penny a word! Children love rewards. Rewards can often be very small tokens such as pennies but these tokens are still very valuable to your child. The sense that they are doing well means the world to them.
5) Keep reading materials readily available. I keep phonics readers in the car, by my favorite chair, next to Connor's bed and places where Connor can get one when I am busy.
6) Have your child do the work when you are busy! Schedules are so busy nowadays, sometimes you have to be very creative and very persistent in making sure reading fits in. When you are busy with cooking, cleaning and just plain resting your eyes for a minute, have your child do the work for you! When it's one of those busy days, I'll have Connor go get our book and bring a chair or a blanket to curl up on near where I am working. I tell him that he needs to read to me while I am working and that if he gets to a word he doesn't know then he needs to spell it to me and I'll tell him what it is.
7) Read in the car! Keep a book in the car and have your child read on the way.
8) Don't forget to read picture books and quality literature with your child! Make sure that great stories don't get forgotten in the need to master phonics. Discuss picture books and quality literature with your child to model fluency, develop comprehension and expand vocabulary. Remember that language is a foundation for all learning!
9) Praise and reward your child frequently! Help your child develop confidence and a feeling of success with their reading experiences. Tell your child how proud you are of their growth in reading and give lots and lots of hugs! Remember that rewards can be very small things such as stickers, points, happy faces, pennies, nickels, a piece of gum, a song, video game time and so on. Be creative!
10) Use the computer! Check out my interactive links for appropriate reading sites or make up your own stories using the computer.
11) Model and practice writing! Writing is a natural extension of reading. Model writing letters to your child, stories, poems and reflections of learning. I always tell my class, "A good writer always goes back and reads what they write." Show your child how to do this and have them practice doing this with you.
12) Break up reading time into smaller bits of time throughout the day. Instead of 20 consecutive minutes, try breaking it up into 5 minutes in the car in the morning, 5 minutes in the car in the afternoon and ten minutes right before bedtime. What other ways would work with your schedule?
13) Be realistic and work with the schedule you have. Don't try to do the impossible but do be creative with the time you have. Some days reading might not be able to happen at the same time. Plan for this and make sure to fit it in at other times during the day. If there is more time to read on certain days of the week, use this as your extra intensive time.
14) Have your family and friends help you. Reading is a joy to share with everyone. Let others in your circle share in this joy.
15) Keep a word list of missed words. Have a notebook dedicated to writing words your child misses during a reading session. Do you notice a pattern? Is your child missing the 'igh' phonics pattern? Or does your child not know 'ew' words? Talk about the phonics patterns in words and keep a list. Have your child chant the words two times each to you before and after reading to memorize the patterns.
16) Make flashcards for frequently missed words. Keep these in an envelope in a convenient spot for practicing. Have your child color pictures or cut and paste pictures from a magazine on the back.
17) Write about your favorite parts of the story. This is a great way to engage your child in interacting with a story. This increases comprehension and acquisition of vocabulary.
18) Watch Between the Lions! This is a perfect show on PBS which teaches phonics concepts, shares great stories and encourages a love of reading.
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