See if this sounds familiar in your family: Your kindergartener or first grader is new to reading, and he is so excited about it. He comes home each day with a book he has read in a small group, and starts to read it to you. He whips through it so fast, you know it's just memorized, and he's not even looking at the words! This isn't reading, or is it?
My son reads like this every day, no matter how many times I tell him to point to the words. That usually ends up in tears because he doesn't want to point. He just wants to read it and be done! I know he knows what words are and can point to individual words while he reads, because I've see him do it when he reads a book for the first time. However, this is a reread, and I have decided it is not worth an argument about pointing to the words. Instead of getting into a heated discussion about reading and pointing, our conversation sounds something like this: Will quickly reads his book about farms and things you can see on the farm. I ask him to show me his favorite page. Me: Point to the word "can." (Will Points to "can.") Me: How did you know that was the word can? Will: It starts with /k/. Me: What's this word? (I point to the word see.) Will: See Me: What letters are in the word "see"? Will: S-e-e. Me: Good job! What happened in this story? Will: The kids can see lots of things at the farm. Me: What kinds of things can they see? Will: A horse, a cow, a chicken. Me: Have you ever seen those things on a farm? Will: Those things weren't on the farm we went to with the class. They had goats on that farm. Me: Ah! The farm you visited was different. Do you think all farms are the same? Will: No. Pooh-Pa's farm only has horses. Me: That's right. You know more about farms because you read a book about it, and you went to a farm. You compared the farm you visited to the farm you read about in the book. That's what readers do. They read to find out information and compare it to stuff they already know. I hope you can read another farm book and find some more information about farms. That's about it for our conversation. It doesn't last long, but I try to make it happen every day. I use words like compare, predict and make a connection to introduce that vocabulary to him. I want him to know that reading is about understanding the story, not just whipping through the words and being done. Even kindergarteners can do those higher level thinking skills, like making connections, predictions, and inferences. You just need to guide them a bit. Don't get freaked out when your kindergartener has mostly memorized the book. This is all a part of the process in learning to read. Make sure he is reading every night, and can show you some words on the page. If he starts making up words, or saying words that aren't there, ask him to slow down and look again at the word. You might have to point to the word and ask, "does this say _____?" Then remind him to be a more careful reader and look at the words when he is reading. Once students get toward the end of kindergarten level books (Fountas and Pinnell levels C-D), they can no longer get away with just memorizing the books. However, because they have read a lot of books at the beginning of kindergarten level (Levels A and B), they know a lot of sight words, and can use the picture clues and their sounding out skills to help them figure out the other words. I hope this helps you as your child enters this fantastic journey of learning to read. Just remember to keep reading to your child, no matter how old they are! They need to hear good reading and work on other comprehension skills too. I'll tackle that next month!
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AuthorMy name is Laura Coffin, and I am the reading specialist at Lake Placid Elementary School. I have a BA from William Smith College and a M.Ed. in Reading from Lesley University. I also hold a Wilson Language Level I certification. I teach reading, writing and spelling strategies to help all students! Follow me on twitter @lgaetacoffin Archives
December 2017
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