Reading. It's a life skill. Something everyone needs to learn to do in their early life. Some
families start teaching their kids to read the day they are born. Other kids don't start learning to read until school. But eventually everyone gets reading lessons. In this series of blogs, I will give tips and strategies that I use to teach beginning readers.
There are two main theories behind teaching reading. The first one is read to your learner. Point to the words as you read, and they will start to remember the words they are hearing with the words they are seeing. This is a great strategy for the kids that can learn that way. But some kids need a little more help. The other theory is to teach kids how to break apart and sound out words so that they can read most words they come to. I definitely use both strategies in teaching students to read. With any reader, I start with these first two steps.
Read to them. No matter their age, reading to someone who is learning to read is an essential first step. An older student will pick up on the reading strategies quickly, but it will still help them to hear the pacing and the voice that a fluent reader uses.
The second thing I do with every beginning reader is teach them how to put together sounds. The easiest way to start is to break off the first sound in their name. For example if your readers name is Sam, you would say "S- am" so that they can start to recognize that you can put sounds together to make new words. After they are able to get their name, you can start taking of the first sound in other words. Eventually you will want to start breaking about three sound words, so they can put them together. This is the very first thing a new reader needs to be able to do if they are going to start sounding out words.
For more tips on teaching reading. Stay tuned!
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