Putting the Pieces Together: Helping Your Child Succeed in Reading

Bel Air Elementary

October 30, 2012

National Reading Panel Findings:5 Key Pillars of Reading Instruction

� Phonemic Awareness

� Phonics

� Fluency

� Vocabulary

� Comprehension

Pillar 1:Phonemic Awareness

� What is it? Ability to notice, think about, and work with individual SOUNDS in SPOKEN words. It does not involve letters or print.

� Why? Children who cannot hear phonemes struggle with reading

� When? Typically developed in pre-school through first grade

Phonemic Awareness: In school

� Songs, rhymes, poems, chants

� Working with sounds: beginning, middle end

� Blending practice

� Syllable work

� Word games

Phonemic Awareness at Home:

What can YOU do at home?

� Sing alphabet songs

� Read books to your child

� Clap syllables in words

� Point out letters in words and names

� Play with language and rhymes

� Talk about sounds they hear in words

Pillar 2:Phonics

� What? LETTER-SOUND correspondences and they work together to make words� Phonics helps students understand how letters are linked to sounds

� Why? � Systematic phonics instruction (teach consonant and vowel letter sound relationships in prescribed, consistent sequence) produces significant benefits for children having difficulty learning to read

� It helps students decode (sound out) words and spell words

Phonics: In School

� Kindergarten: Jolly Phonics—learn letter names and sounds with actions and songs

� 1st Grade: Teachers work on helping students develop their ability to sound out words and apply their skills in leveled reading

� 2nd Grade: Teachers continue to develop more complex phonics skills and word work strategies to help read words and write words

� 3rd-5th Grades: Word work/reading multi-syllable words, help with specific skills

Phonics at Home:

What can YOU do at home?

� Read to your child

� Listen to your child read

� Help your child sort words by long and short vowels

� Help child break larger words into smaller words

� Help your child use “fix up” strategies when they are stuck on a word

� Encourage children to point to words and say them out loud when writing

� Play spelling and word games

Phonics Fix-Up Strategies cont..

Fix-Up Strategy examples:� Look at the pictures� Try the first sound and blend� Flip the vowel sound� Find a chunk you know� Suffix or prefix cover up� What would make sense here?� Skip it and come back

Pillar 3:Fluency

� What? Ability to read accurately and smoothly

� Why? Fluency is the critical bridge between word recognition and comprehension. When kids don’t need to struggle so much with sounding words out, they can concentrate on understanding what they read

Fluency at School:

� Model fluent reading

� Oral reading practice

� Fluency strategies

� Guided reading

� Fluency checks

Fluency at Home:

What can YOU do at home?� Read aloud often, modeling fluent reading� Let your child choose their books to read to you, let them re-read favorite, familiar books—it let’s them focus on fluency!

� Read a sentence or page in a book out loud and have your students echo it back to you

� Read parts of books aloud in different voices� Show them that reading is fun by doing it yourself.

Pillar 4:Vocabulary

� What? Words used in speaking, listening or in print

� Why? Critical to reading comprehension—kids need to know and understand the words they are reading!

Vocabulary at School:

� Oral language activities/morning meetings

� Group work/conversation

� Read aloud

� Vocabulary instruction/word study� Roots/prefixes/suffixes

� Context

� Guided reading-learn words for and from books they are reading

� Silent reading

Vocabulary at Home:

� Talk with your child!!

� Read a variety of books

� Talk about daily events, places you go, books you read

� Discuss how the pictures in a book and the words in the text go together

� Talk about interesting words

� Show your kids how to find out about new words by using a dictionary or the computer

Pillar 5:Comprehension

“ An active process that requires an intentional and thoughtful

interaction between the reader and the text.”

It is why we read—to get meaningfrom text!

Comprehension at School:

� Teachers model, teach and provide opportunities for students to use a variety of comprehension strategies

� Monitoring

� Using prior knowledge

� Questioning

� Retelling and Summarizing

� Predicting and Inferring

� Help students use graphic organizers to make sense of reading

� Use writing in connection with reading

Comprehension at Home:

What can YOU do at home?

� Help your child think about what they already know about a topic before they start reading

� Ask your child to make predictions before and during their reading

� Ask good questions about books they are reading

� Help your child talk about what the main message or idea is about what they have read

� Talk, talk, talk about what they are reading!

Fix-Up strategies: Notice when you are confused and then try these:� Re-read confusing parts � Identify confusing words and use a word fix up

strategy� Read ahead� Make connections while you read-what does this

make you think of—something you did, a book you have read, a friend or family member…

� Make predictions as you read� Stop and think about what you have already read� Ask questions to help make sense of what you have

read or to go beyond

Comprehension Fix-Up strategies cont…

� Reflect in writing to clarify what has been read

� Visualize-make a movie in your head as you read

� Retell what you have read to someone� Use text features- Table of contents, index, glossary, bolded words, headings, etc…

� Use illustrations� Adjust your reading rate—slow down if it is difficult or something new to you

Before reading:

� Think about the title� Notice the pictures� Look at the text features� Think about what you already know about the topic

(what is in your file about___?)� Make predictions� Generate some questions or “I wonder” statements

about the text� Set a purpose for reading� Determine how you need to approach the reading

task when considering the purpose

During Reading:

� Ask yourself “Do I understand what I am reading?”� Stop and use fix-up strategies when comprehension

breaks down� Visualize� Make Connections to what I know� Interact with the text by highlighting or coding with (?,

!, *)� Reflect while reading by doing a read-cover-remember-

retell, “say something” or “I remember…”� Ask questions as you read

After Reading

� Think about big ideas—summarize� Retell- orally or in writing� Reflect in writing to questions� Organize thoughts and ideas using a graphic organizer

� Think about the author’s message� Reflect on how the text matched your predictions

� Make connections to: self, world and prior knowledge (add to file cabinet!)

BIG IDEAS!!

What YOU do at home matters and makes a difference!!

� Talk to your child all the time: ask questions, use interesting words

� Have fun with words-sing, rhyme� Read to and with your child� Point out interesting words� Talk about books� Help your child make connections-to self, to other books, to

experiences your family has had, to the world� Write with a purpose at home: thank you notes, grocery lists,

notes, letters, e-mails, etc…