Reading Strategies

Here are two sets of reading strategies that align with the reading instruction that your child receives at Ernest P. Barka Elementary. The first list contains strategies for decoding (figuring out unknown words). The second list contains strategies for reading comprehension.

Decoding Strategies

We teach the children to use many strategies to figure out words. Encourage your child to use these strategies when they come to an unknown word. Using these strategies will help your child become an independent and confident reader.

Look at the Picture for Clues

Many books contain illustrations that correspond with the written text. Encourage your child to look for clues in the picture that may help them.

Cover the word

Show your child how to figure out an unknown word using context clues.  Cover the unknown word and ask your child to reread the sentence, skipping the word and completing the sentence. If the word doesn’t just "pop" out, ask your child to use the first letter sound of the word to narrow down the choices.  At a later stage, your child will be able to use the ending letter sounds and middle sounds to achieve accuracy.  For instance, your child may be able to figure out the unknown word, "girl" if you cover it up in the sentence, "The girl ran to her mom and gave her a huge hug" by using context clues.  If not, you could reveal the first letter, and then, depending on your child's reading level, the ending and middle letters as clues to figuring out the word.

Self Monitor

Your child should be monitoring what he/she is reading and asking him/herself, "Does it sound right?", "Does it look right?" and "Does it make sense?"  Signs of self-monitoring include rereading, multiple attempts, pauses, and verbal acknowledgments that "something is wrong" at error.

Helping Your Child Understand What He/She Reads (Comprehension Strategies)

Decoding words is a vital part of reading, but all that effort and work means nothing if your child does not understand what he/she reads. It is important to teach children to THINK as they read. Here are some comprehension strategies we teach children, which you can also model for your child and teach at home.

Visualizing

Help your child picture the story in her/his mind and play it out. Ask your child to imagine the story and add in the extra details. "What kind of day is it?" "What can you smell?" or "What can you hear?" These details may change as the story goes on but it is important to create those sensory images. This will help your child enjoy, understand, and remember the story.

Making Connections

All of those activities you have done with your child, books you have read and places you have gone now really come into play. Children need to make connections to understand what is happening in the story. There are three types of connections that occur that you can encourage your child to make. For instance, if in the middle of a story about a farm, your child says "Hey, remember when we went to visit the farm?" and starts talking about that visit, allow him/her to talk about that experience and how it compares with the situation in the book. If that doesn't occur naturally, encourage it. Ask, "Do you remember when we went to the farm?" That is a text-to-self connection. Another type of connection is a text-to-text connection. One story should remind him/her of another story. Ask your child to compare the stories. Encourage your child to really think about the book he/she is reading and to make these connections independently. The final type of connection is text-to-world. This is the connection made when something your child reads reminds him/her of something beyond his/her own life experiences. Information the child has picked up from good television programs or experts on the subject create this kind of connection.

Questioning

Encourage your child to ask questions. Before reading, ask your child, "What do you think is going to happen?" and, "Why do you think that?". While reading, if something doesn't make sense, encourage him/her to reread and question. "Why?" "How?" "Where?" "When?" After reading, ask, "Do you like this book?" and, "Why did you like/dislike the book?" Asking your child to justify his/her response invites deeper thinking.

Inferring

Children need to be able to make inferences as they read, just as they need to in conversation. Given the following statement: "The man hit his head on the top of the doorway as he came in," we want the children to infer that the man is really tall. Encourage your child to "read between the lines" and draw conclusions that are not directly stated. Riddles, jokes and cartoons, and games, such as "Twenty Questions," give your child much enjoyable practice in making inferences.

Determining Important Ideas

This is exactly what it sounds like. Ask your child to tell you what the story/book is mostly about every time you read. Encourage him/her to tell you what is important and why.

Synthesizing

Synthesizing occurs when new information from text is merged with what is known to form new understandings, insights, thought, or perspectives. When students synthesize, they order, recall, and retell information. Synthesizing is the ability to connect facts to a central theme or idea. Categorizing is an example of synthesizing.  You can teach this strategy by playing games with your child that involve listing types of animals, flowers, trees, automobiles, toys, foods, etc.