Simple Strategies for Helping Emerging Readers

This week's post is brought to us by Jana H. Not only is she a trained teacher, but she's also a mother of young children herself! Whether you have young children, grandchildren, or no children, the strategies she provides below are excellent for improving reading. Check them out! Thanks, Jana!

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Last night, Evan, my Kindergartner, brought me the book Little Gorilla, by Ruth Bornstein. It is the latest book he has brought home from the school library. He was excited and said, “Let me read it to you mom!” Okay. I had read it to him the night before. I knew he was familiar with the story, but I also knew it was above his reading level. How was this going to go? We sat down together, and he proceeded to read. How wonderful it was to watch him. He struggled with some words, but others he knew and could read without hesitation. I was so proud, and he was just beaming. Evan sees himself as a reader! He has taken a huge step forward on his literary journey.

His journey started as a preschooler learning his ABCs. Like most moms, I spent a lot of time teaching letters to him. What do they look like? What do they sound like? These lessons taught him that the sounds we make when we speak can be represented by a letter. Soon we were talking about how letters can be grouped to make different words. E-V-A-N spells Evan. How exciting!

In the next few years Evan will shift from focusing primarily on phonics to developing reading comprehension strategies. It certainly won’t be enough to know what words say; he will need to know what they mean. How can I best help him to do this? By teaching him how to think while he reads.

Here are a few strategies that are effective in helping readers be active thinkers while they read:

          1. Previewing
          2. Schema – using background knowledge to find meaning
          3. Asking Questions
          4. Summarizing



Previewing
Take time before you begin reading to look over the book with your child. Look at the front and back cover. Flip through some of the pages. Ask your child what they think the story will be about. This provides a purpose for their reading. They begin the story already thinking about the predictions they have made. Are they right?

Schema
Schema plays a fascinating roll in our ability to understand what we are reading. It is a framework in our mind that organizes information from experiences we have had. We then apply that information to help us understand new things that we encounter. Help your child relate what they are reading to their own past experiences. For example, you may be reading a book about a regatta. If they don’t know what a regatta is, then use the child’s knowledge of car races to explain these boat races.

Asking Questions
Asking questions helps the reader to think actively while they read. Stop periodically during the story and ask them what they think will happen next. Ask them questions about the story structure. Who are the main characters? Where does the story take place? What is the problem? These questions give purpose to their reading and teach them to review the content they have read.

Summarizing
Summarizing challenges the reader to remember what they have read. It gives them the opportunity to retell the story in their own words. Through this experience they learn the difference between the main ideas and details of a story.

Remember to always model comprehension strategies with your children. You must “think out loud” so your child can hear how to properly think about their reading.