Helping Children Read

Welcome!

The Reading Process

The turtle was swimming in the sea.

What skills do children need to be able to read this?

The Reading Process: Phonics for Reading

Pupils need to know their letter sounds.

They need to be able to sound out the letters and blend them to make the word:

c-a-t into the word cat

s-t-a-m-p into the word stamp

The Reading Process: Sound buttons

hat treeshop light

The Reading Process: Correct Enunciation

f l m n r s sh v th z

c p t ch h

b d g w qu y

Supporting Children’s Reading

Prelude

Pause

Prompt

Praise

Peruse

Prelude: Get the text level correct

Error Ratios

Less than 1:20 independent reading

1:10 – 1:17 instructional level

More than 1:9

just too hard!

Prelude: Book Introduction

Read the title for the child

Walk and talk through the book with the child

What does the child already know about the subject of the book?

Pick out new, tricky vocabulary and names of characters

Model difficult decoding

Use the language of the book

What do you think might happen?

Prelude: Strategy Check

What can you do if you’re not sure of a word?

Follow the words with your finger (tracking)

Look at the first sound (initial sounds)

Can you sound it out? (sounding out)

Say the sounds and see if you can put them together (blending)

Re-read the sentence to see what might fit (using context)

Does that sound right? (reading for meaning)

See if you can read just with your eyes (fluency)

Pause

Give them time to work the word out

Count to six in your head

Prompt: You can only prompt what you know they can do Have a look at the first sound

Get your mouth ready for the first sound

Can you sound it out

Say the sounds and see if you can put them together

Have a look at the end of the word

Re-read the sentence and see what might fit

Does that sentence make sense?

If they can’t work it out just tell they calmly

Praise

Needs to be specific!!

Praise: Return to text

I like the way you …

I liked the way you sounded out the word…….

When you read X, but changed it to Y , how did you know it was Y?

If this word was …… what would you expect to see?

Peruse: Comprehension

Can you tell me what happened in the story?

What happened first?

Then what happened?

Did you think that was what was going to happen?

Why did that happen?

How is the character feeling?

Tell me more…

Peruse: Types of question

Retrieval questions – what does the text tell you directly?

Inferential questions – what can you work out by reading between the lines?

Further questions – do we know anything else about this text?

Personal response – what did the story make you think? How did the story make you feel?

The Most Important Thing – It’s Fun!!