Supporting you on a reading adventure with your child

This blog post focuses on ways to increase reading fluency. Reading fluency is the ability to read automatically, pausing at punctuation marks and reading with expression.  Reading fluency is crucial because if children are reading fluently, then they can focus on comprehending the story. Here are some ways to increase reading fluency at home.

1) Model fluent reading by reading aloud to your child.  

• Read aloud to your child at home and model fluent reading.
• Point out how you stopped and took a quick breath at the punctuation marks and how you read smoothly without stopping between your words.
• Read with expression and change your voice to emphasis important words in the story. Speed up or slow down during certain parts of the story to reflect the author’s meaning. For example, you might speed up your reading to show that a character is excited about something.  You can also use this as a way to focus on higher level comprehension by discussing the character’s feelings and the author’s purpose.  When you are reading, you might stop and ask your child to tell you what words you emphasized or to identify parts where you sped up your reading and parts where you slowed down.

2) Teach your child how to read fluently by using explicit language and prompts.

•  Using clear and explicit language is important to help your child with fluency as well as in learning other skills, both academic and non academic.
• Instead of telling your child to “Read it the way I read it” or “Read like you are speaking,” be specific and say, “Make your voice go up at a question mark,” or “Be sure to connect your words together when you read.”
• You can model the sentence to show your child and point out how your voice went up at a question mark. You can also show your child how you read without stopping between your words and used the punctuation marks to take a breath.
• Check out my previous post about explicit language and prompting. https://learningtoreadtogether.com/helpful-reading-prompts/

3) Reread, reread, reread!

• Rereading books and rereading small sections of longer books helps increase reading fluency and automaticity.
• You may want to select a paragraph in a longer book that your child is reading and model reading it yourself.
• Be sure to point out punctuation, discuss the character’s feelings and point out words that you emphasized.
• Have your child practice reading this paragraph aloud to you several times (3-5 times).
• Give your child specific feedback. Instead of saying “Nice job!” say “Nice work connecting your words together when you read that part.” Giving your child specific feedback is so important in helping your child understand what fluent reading sounds like so your child can read fluently when he or she is reading independently.
• Be sure that the books that your child is reading are not too hard. You might want to go down one or two levels to practice reading fluency.
• Please see this post about reading level. https://learningtoreadtogether.com/scholastic-book-wizard-reading-level/

4) Turn a section of a book into a play script to practice and perform. 

• Taking a part of a story and turning it into a script is called Reader’s Theater.  It makes practicing fluency so much fun! You can involve the whole family and take turns reading different parts. You can even add props and costumes if you want!
• The best way to turn a part of a book into a script it to find a part in the book with dialogue and type up a short part in a word document. (1-2 pages with character’s lines)
• Here is a link to some reader’s theater’s scripts. http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/

Tim and I just read the Gingerbread Man and he loved being the different parts. He enjoyed being the fox and reading that part in a slower, sly voice. Our whole family joined in and we had a blast reading the play over and over again and changing parts.  Tim’s can read this book automatically now and reading the play really helped his reading fluency.  Reading the play helped make rereading more fun and helped give him a purpose for rereading the story.

5) Have fun!

• Reading and fluency practice should be fun.
• Keep reading practice sessions short.
• Read at a time that your child is not tired.
• Read in a special place like a cozy chair or in a tent.
• Reading should not feel like a chore and if it does, try changing things up to keep it fun!

Hope these ways to increase reading fluency are helpful when you read with your child!

In today’s blog post,  I will share some helpful reading prompts that you can use when reading with your child at home. Reading prompts are specific language that you can say to your child to figure out tricky words.  Prompting can help kids use reading strategies independently, fix mistakes and build confidence. Prompting promotes independence!

When you are helping your child figure out a tricky word, you can use certain language to teach what to do, prompt your child to remember what to do, and reinforce the use of a strategy that your child uses to solve a tricky word independently. Please see last week’s posting where I discuss teach, prompt and reinforce. https://learningtoreadtogether.com/what-to-say-when-your-child-gets-stuck-on-a-word/

• Teach: Use this language if your child has never used this strategy before and you want to teach your child how to use a new strategy to figure out a tricky word (this teaches your child what to do when they are stuck!)
• Prompt: Use this language to remind your child to use a strategy that they already know how to do (this promotes independence!)
• Reinforce: Use this language to praise and compliment your child for using a strategy independently (this builds confidence!)

Readers use many strategies to figure out tricky words. Readers often use several of these strategies at once.  Here are some strategies that readers use to figure out tricky words:

• Saying the first sound of a word
• Using the picture
• Thinking about what word makes sense (readers can figure out the word by using the other words in the sentence to predict the word that comes next)
• Saying the sounds in a word (with words that have approximately 5 letters or less i.e. dog, ship, slick) **longer words should be broken into parts
• Thinking of the vowel sound and then saying the word (i.e. the word “teach”-the vowel team is ea that says “ee”)
• Looking for a word part, an ending, or a known word inside the longer word
• Skipping the word, reading to the end of the sentence and going back to the word

While “sounding out a word” is a good strategy, it is often not the most efficient. That is why saying the first sound of a word, thinking about what word makes sense, and skipping the word and going back to it are helpful strategies. When readers use strategies efficiently and quickly, they don’t lose meaning in a story. It is important to remember that if there are too many tricky words for your child in a story, then the story is probably too hard. Check out this past posting about reading level and selecting books that are “just right” for your child. https://learningtoreadtogether.com/reading-level/

Here is an example of language that could use for the strategy (looking for a know word inside a longer word)

Sorry this came out blurry. The page reads:

“Where is Bella with my presents? Where is Bella with my cake?” said Rosie. Rosie was sad. “Oh dear! Oh dear. Bella forgot my birthday!”

Teach:” You can look for a word that you know to help you figure out longer words. Then you can sound out the rest of the word. Watch me.” Say the word you know, cover up that part with your finger and then sound out the rest of the word.  For example, in the  word “forgot” say “for” as the word you know, cover up “for with your finger as you sound out “got” as /g//o//t/.

Prompt: “Can you find word that you know in that longer word to help you?”  (Remember to say this only if your child knows this strategy already) You may have to teach them a couple of times before you prompt them to use it.

Reinforce: “You found a word that you knew to help you with that tricky word. Then you sounded out the rest. Nice work!”  (Remember to be specific and use language that is specific to the strategy that your child used instead of just saying “nice work”)

You can turn any of the above strategies into language that you would use to teach, prompt and reinforce using the example I provided above. I will be blogging more about helpful reading prompts and how they foster independence and confidence in kids when they read on their own. You can honestly use this format of teach, prompt and reinforce to help your child in other academic areas too. It is important to keep the language consistent, to the point and brief. Hope this helps you as you continue your journey learning to read together with your child!

This post will focus on what to say when your child gets stuck an on word.  Here a couple of tips on what you can say and do when your child reads to you at home.

1. Wait first before correcting your child when he or she makes an error.  Waiting first allows your child time to correct his or her mistake, known as self-correcting.  Readers often correct mistakes by using what makes sense in the story or checking to make sure that the word matches the word in the story.  For example, if your child was reading a page in a book and read, “The ducks swim to the pond” instead of  “The ducks swam to the pond”, wait to see if your child realizes that the word  “swim” does not match the word “swam” in the story. If your child does not self correct the mistake then you can intervene.

2. Teach. Prompt. Reinforce. 

Teach. When your child stops or is stuck on a word, first teach your child what to do.  For example, if you child stops and does not say anything, you can say. “When you get stuck, you can say your first sound and that can help you.” Then model for you child by reading the sentence and saying the first sound of the word that your child is stuck on.  See if your child is able to figure out the word by just saying the first sound. You can teach your child to use strategies by modeling.

Prompt. Once you have taught your child to use a strategy, prompt your child to use the strategy if your child stops and gets stuck on a word.  For example, once you have taught using the first sound. prompt your child to use the strategy by saying “Say the first sound.” Keep the language the same and brief each time your prompt.

Reinforce. When your child uses a strategy independently that you taught or prompted them for, point it out to them. To reinforce the strategy you can say, “Nice work saying the first sound to help you with that tricky word” or “you used the first sound to figure out that tricky word. Awesome!”

3. Be consistent, be specific and be brief. When helping your child, make sure to keep your language consistent especially when you are prompting your child to use a strategy.  Make sure to be specific. Instead of saying, “Nice job!” say, “Nice work saying the first sound to help you with that tricky word.” Be brief. You shouldn’t have to interrupt the flow of reading for too long or too many times or reading will feel laborious. If you are correcting too many times, then the book is most likely too difficult.

Stay tuned for my next post in which I will talk more about what to say when your child gets stuck on a word and I will also discuss different reading strategies.