• When reading your child should be tracking with his or her finger.  This helps them keep their place and not skip words or lines.  It also helps your child decode words.  Your child should physically tap the letters in the words, say the sounds out loud and then run his or her finger under the word to blend the sounds as opposed to just sounding it out.  Research has shown that this strategy is more effective.  

     

    Your child should be looking at the whole word.  As we move into long vowel sounds they need to see if there is an e at the end of the word that makes the vowel sound long.  We have also explored other vowel sounds such as ow can sound like snow or brown.  I tell them to flip the sounds.  If they try one sound and it doesn’t make a real word or the word doesn’t make sense, try the other sound.  Looking at the whole word should also stop students from just guessing a word that starts with the same letter.  This habit shows that a student is not reading for comprehension, but just decoding.

     

    Chunking a word into parts that a student knows also helps when reading unfamiliar words.  Again using their finger on the page is an important step in this strategy  

     

    Another strategy is to skip the word, finish reading the sentence and come back to the word.  Often using context clues and phonics the student can decode the word.

     

    The absolute best strategy for helping your child to learn to read is to read to them and with them daily.  Talk to them about what you have read.  Encourage them to think about the characters, the problem and how the characters solved the problem.  

    Also Reading Rockets https://www.readingrockets.org/ is a great resource for ideas to help your child be a successful reader.