READING STRATEGIES

 

Many of these strategies will come quite naturally to many beginning readers.  However, when your child does become stuck, your prompting can help.  A reader uses three major cues interactively.  One is semantic.  He asks himself what is happening and tries to determine the meaning through the written text and pictures.  The second is syntactic.  He uses language patterns and grammar to decipher words and meaning.  Thirdly, graphophonic cues are the written symbols of phonics and visual knowledge (sight recognition of words).  These three areas should be used cooperatively and concurrently.  With our subtle help, he will learn to do that.  Remember that reading for meaning is much more important for the beginning reader than correctly reading every word in print.  Help your child enjoy reading.  Keep it fun.

When your reader becomes stuck, encourage him/her to try some of these:

~ think about the story
~ look at the pictures  
~ start the word (beginning sound)
~ re-read for meaning
~ skip it and read on
~ go back to beginning of sentence
~ scan the word and look for a chunk that you already know.

Enjoy reading and have some wonderful adventures!

*Just a note!  As with all we present here at Keciro Homeschool, we hope you will glean the material for what is useful and disregard what is not.

Susan Maxon and Cindy Elliott