What to say when kids make reading mistakes...without giving them the answers!

another resource from teachmama.com to help our little ones learn while they play. . . Please note: This is just a starting point, not to be used on every child in every situation. But it’s a place to begin for parents so that we’re not just ‘giving’ kids the words that they’re stuck on during read-alouds and we’re not just correcting kids in the middle of their reading. Any one of these ideas can be used alone or along with the others while listening to an emerging reader in action! When kids won’t even try to sound out a word or they won’t budge, say: • Think about the letters you recognize and the sounds they make. What sound does this letter make (point to first letter)? Let me hear you make the sound. Now what sound does this letter make (point to second letter)? Let’s put the sounds together. . . o This works for words with letter-sound patterns that are familiar or decodable to the child. • Look at the letters you know in the word and the picture on the page. The picture is here to help you. Think about the sound this letter makes (point to first letter of word) and what you see in the picture. . . • Think about what’s going on in this story. You just read, (read previous line). Look at the picture, look at the word, and think about what might happen next. • Skip the word you don’t know and move to the next word you can read. o Sometimes this will get the wheels turning and kids will go back to ‘selfcorrect’ and re-read this word; sometimes they won’t, and that’s okay. • You might not recognize this word, but I know you know this word (cover the first letter and let him read the part he knows—at from ‘bat’). Think what to say when kids make reading mistakes …without giving them the answers! another resource from teachmama.com to help our little ones learn while they play. . . about the sound that ‘b’ makes, put the sounds together, and you’ll have it! • You just read this word on the previous page, and you read it correctly. Use your detective eyes, find the word on the other page, and see if that helps. When a child makes an error on a page and moves right on by like nothing happened, even if what she read makes no sense: • Let her go! Don’t interrupt mid-reading; instead consider saying at the end of the sentence, phrase, or paragraph: o Are you correct? o Read it again and check closely. o Can you find the tricky part? o It’s in this line. o I’ll point it out and help you find it. • Use this prompt occasionally even when your child reads the words correctly! That way she’ll get in the habit of self-monitoring while she’s reading. • Use the above prompts in this order—it’s important that you give her an open-ended question (Are you correct?) initially so that she goes back and checks her reading without your help!

Kindergarteners begin to read!

Now that we are in the third quarter of school, I have begun working with the kindergarten students on a variety of skills to guide them to be readers. For the students that are learning to recognize the names of letters, I work with them on the skills below which are skills you can also work with them on at home: -sing the alphabet song daily, pointing to the letters as you sing them -teach the child the letters of his/her name -match upper case to lower case letters using letters written on cards -hunt for letters in books-example: "can you point to all of the w's on this page?" For students who are learning to match letters to their sounds, I have found the following activities to be helpful: -read abc books, find pictures that correlate with each letter -make your own abc book. Find pictures in magazines that begin with each letter, cut them out, and have your child practice reading their book! -write letters on cards, hold the cards up and ask the child to make that letter's sound And finally, for those students ready to read, here are some strategies to encourage them to do just that! -read to your child! This will instill a love of reading, a model of fluent reading, and is great binding time! -ask questions to develop vocabulary and comprehension -look for letters on signs, in magazines, on cereal boxes...all around you! Ask your child to say the first sound in these words and then tell you what they think the signs might be telling you (for example: stop is telling you to stop) Overall, my focus for these wonderful Jefferson bears is to expose them at a variety of books and to teach them how exciting reading can be! If you have any questions or need any other tips on helping your child to further develop their reading skills, I'd be happy to help! :)