Reading is a fundamental skill that we all use every single day.
Each week, I will post a different strategy for reading. There will be a total of 15 strategies that I will post. Strategy 1 is listed below.
We read newspapers, books, directions, text messages, recipes, emails, safety warnings…Reading is everywhere! It’s no secret that developing proficient reading skills from a young age is essential not only for academic success, but for success in all areas and stages of life! However, reading can be a challenging skill that many students struggle to master. And as teachers, we want nothing more than to help our students become comfortable and confident readers.
Growing up, I loved to read. It was my greatest passion and the perfect escape from reality. It came naturally to me and luckily, I never really struggled with it. But teaching in a school with an extremely high population of ELL students, I’ve spent years watching my kids struggle with learning how to read. So, how can we better equip ourselves to help our students overcome their reading struggles? Things like patience, dedication, and encouragement are certainly cornerstones of teaching reading to primary learners. But having an arsenal of effective reading strategies is also incredibly helpful.
Now, don’t get me wrong…I don’t think there’s one magic solution or perfect formula for teaching reading. All teachers and students are different and find success with different programs or techniques. After all, there’s so many factors to consider when teaching and learning reading – phonics, fluency, comprehension – the list goes on and on.
And if you teach reading, you already know all of this. And you probably already have a pretty solid arsenal of strategies in your back pocket. But in an effort to collectively boost literacy for all of our little learners, I’d like to share with you a few strategies that I’ve found useful in my own classroom!
1. Focus on Fluency and Phonics Simultaneously
Phonics and fluency truly go hand in hand – you can’t really have one without the other. So, why not teach them together? Merging subjects in school and teaching them simultaneously is pretty trendy right now in the world of education. And while phonics and fluency pretty closely aligned, you can easily dip your toe in this trend by teaching them at the same time.
Fluency can be defined as being able to decode text and read with accuracy, speed, and proper expression. Basically, it’s the ability to easily read through a text without stumbling over words or sounding choppy and awkward.
It’s pretty essential for kids to become fluent readers in order to focus on comprehension. When they’re struggling to pronounce or decode, words, they can’t give the necessary attention to understanding the text. Phonics is often thought of as a precursor to fluency. It deals with beginning readers understanding the correspondence between letters and sounds. Fluent readers often rely on their knowledge of letter-sound relationships to decode words.
Without phonics, it’s pretty tough to become a fluent reader. By teaching phonics while working on fluency, your students have the opportunity to grow exponentially as readers.
There are a ton of products out there that can help you combine these two essential reading skills into your lessons but one of my favorites are these Reading Comprehension & Fluency Passages. This resource features 89 passages that focus on each phonics component while building fluency as well.
Watch for next weeks blog as we discuss teaching different strategies.
Check out the link below from PBS Education for more blog fun:
http://www.pbs.org/education/blog/growing-and-learning-together-creating-a-school-garden