Blog Archives

8 Reading Strategies That Work

6/15/2017

Reading strategies are very important for developing good reading skills. They help children to make meaning out of unfamiliar words and ideas in a variety of ways. Many children get stuck when they rely on only one or two strategies. Introducing these 8 strategies and practicing them will give them the tools to better understand the material they are reading.

About 3 years ago, I was introduced to these cute animals and their uses as reading strategies. I loved how the children engaged with them. I had to get my own stuffies so that they could actually hold them and interact with them. I use them all the time now in my guided reading groups.

Eagle Eye is one of the strategies most used by young children. It uses pictures to convey meaning. In emergent books there are very few words and lots of pictures. This strategy is very effective for more advanced readers as well.

Lips the Fish helps children focus on the beginning of the word. It helps them to remember to say the beginning sound. Often this is enough to help them figure out what the word might be.

Stretchy Snake helps children to stretch out the sounds rather than individually saying each one. Making each sound separately is choppy. When they stretch the sounds of the words they are still connected and they can hear how they fit together.

Skippy Frog is useful when children get stuck on a word and can't move on. This strategy encourages them to go on and make meaning by reading the next part of the sentence or passage. When they figure it out, they are supposed to go back and read the word that they were stuck on. The danger here, is that they don't always go back, so it is a strategy that should be used sparingly.

Chunky Monkey is a great strategy for helping children who are sounding out every letter. It encourages them to start looking for small words or chunks of letters inside the word that they already know.

Flippy Dolphin is used for flipping to the long vowel when the short vowel doesn't make sense.

Careful Caterpillar reminds children to read the entire word. Often children only look at the beginning of words and add in words that are incorrect that start the same way. By encouraging them to look at the whole word, they will make fewer errors and their understanding will increase.

Tryin' Lion reminds children to go back and try again when they are not sure what it means. After working through a sentence with other strategies sometimes rereading the sentence helps to make the meaning clearer.

I created a set of bookmarks and posters to go with these strategies. If you would like to get a copy of these bookmarks and posters, click the image below.

Reading strategies posters and bookmarks

I hope you find these tools helpful with your young readers. I would love to hear how you use strategies in reading.

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Using Games to Teach Skills

6/12/2017

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Using games and activities that are fun will help to engage children and they will learn skills without realizing that they are learning. It is wonderful to see them taking risks and challenges and enjoying learning.

I have always tried to include games in my guided reading lessons and my literacy blocks. Children can often get frustrated if they are working hard at learning to decode or make meaning of what they are reading. Using games to focus on some of the skills relieves some of that stress and allows them to practice the skills in a fun environment.

I use lots of different boxed games, but I also use task cards and other games that I have created. The ones that I have made are specific for what I might be covering in groups. I have many different themes for my sight words so that they are always fun to use because they are linked to different holidays, or special times.

Here are some other types of activities that I have used with my students. Depending on the abilities and the needs, I have made the materials simple for learning letter sounds and names and more difficult for learning about figurative language and parts of speech. I have also created activities for the interactive whiteboard. Bingo games that go with various topics are also fun to create.
If you are interested in checking out some of these products or other literacy activities that I have created, click here.

I volunteer at school and work with several guided reading groups. I create games and activities for them. Another retired teacher volunteers as well. She asked me to make up some game boards for her. You can check them out here.

Here is a free sample from the set of game boards. Click the image below to get your copy.

I have fun creating games and I love seeing the children react when a new game is presented to them. But more importantly, I am excited to see them learning skills that they were struggling with. It is so thrilling to see them applying the skills to their reading and writing lessons.