Transcript Making A Difference In Your Child’s Reading Development

Making A Difference In
Your Child’s Reading
Development
by
Sharon Fisher
Lauren Honig
Nancy Oliver
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Is your child experiencing
difficulty with reading
comprehension?

Does your child enjoy
reading, or is it something
you have to force him or
her to do?
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When you listen to his or
her reading, does it sound
smooth and effortless, or
choppy and painstaking?
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Whether your child is
an avid or a struggling
reader, the following
information will be
helpful as you support
his or her reading
development.
Reading success involves
three major areas:
1.Fluency
2.Vocabulary
3.Comprehension
Fluency

Fluency, as defined by the
National Reading Panel
(2000), is “reading with
speed, accuracy, and proper
expression without
conscious attention on the
reader’s part” (as cited by
Caldwell and Leslie, 2005,
p. 75).
Fluent Readers Can…
Automatically identify words either from
memory or by sounding them out.
 Accurately identify familiar and
unfamiliar words.
 Concentrate on meaning because they
do not struggle with identifying words.
 Read with expression which enhances
the reader’s understanding of the material.

School Expectations for Fluency
By fourth grade, children
are expected to . . .
1.
2.
3.
Automatically recognize
words quickly and
accurately.
Read for knowledge
and information.
Read challenging and
unfamiliar text.
Fluency Skills
In order to be fluent, readers need three things:
1.
A large store of sight words.
2.
Effective strategies for analyzing
unfamiliar words.
3.
The realization that comprehension is
the purpose for reading.
How can you support
fluency development?
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Encourage reading at home and provide ways for
your child to practice daily.
Provide your child with materials that are on his or
her reading level.
Utilize the town or school library to acquire reading
materials.
Read and reread familiar text.
Additional Ways to Support
Fluency Development

Read with your child.
If you are not able to read
in English, read to your child in
the language that you are familiar
with.
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Help your child to see that
reading can be an enjoyable and
meaningful experience.
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Support and guide your child’s
oral reading with patience and
praise.
Specific Reading Techniques
to Build Fluency
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Echo Reading: You read a line or a sentence, and your child
reads the same line or sentence after you.
Choral Reading: You and your child read the same text aloud
together at the same time.
Partner Reading: You and your child take turns reading the
text aloud.
Repeated Reading: Read the same book or story more than
one time in the same week.
Practice is the key!
Vocabulary
Why do we need a
strong vocabulary?
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To be better, “automatic” readers.
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To comprehend what we read.
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To understand the world around us.
Where does vocabulary
knowledge come from?
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Environment
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Listening
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World, home, culture, interests
When we hear new words, we attach meaning through dialogue, situation,
or by asking.
Reading

When reading new words, we attach meaning through context, dictionary
use, or by asking.
There are three levels of
vocabulary knowledge:
1.
2.
3.
Low Level
Middle Level
High Level
Low Level Vocabulary
Knowledge:

Association between a word and definition,
often accomplished through memorization.
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Involves minimal understanding.
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Example:

court – a smooth surface for playing tennis or
handball.
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The child memorizes this definition and does
nothing more with it.
Middle Level Vocabulary
Knowledge:
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Comprehension; the child does something with the
word.
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Recognizes the word in a sentence, supplies
synonyms, antonyms, or can place the word in a
category.
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Example:
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The child reads the sentence, “The basketball player ran
down the court.”
The child can explain that the court is the area where the
basketball game is played and use words to describe it.
High Level Vocabulary
Knowledge:
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Generation; the child produces a unique response to
the word.
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Restates the definition in his/her own words and
uses the word in an original sentence.
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Example:
The child states, “A court is a smooth surface where
different sports can be played.”
 The child writes the sentence, “We played one-on-one on
the school basketball court.”
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What Does Vocabulary
Research Show?
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Word learning occurs primarily through means
other than direct teaching (Anderson and Nagy,
1991). Caldwell & Leslie
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Students who are exposed to normal amounts of
text may learn from 1,000 to 5,000 new words
each year through reading alone (Nagy and
Herman, 1984) Caldwell & Leslie
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If the teacher teaches 10 to 12 new words each
week, that…equates to about 400 new words
each year – assuming that all of the 10 or 12
taught words are actually [previously] unknown
What Does Vocabulary
Research Show?
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Good comprehension virtually
never occurs with poor word
recognition skills (Stanovich and
Stanovich, 1995). Prisca Martens
article
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Children learn language by hearing
and using words in new
contexts…by imitating and
repeating speech they hear around
them – home is crucial!
(Lois Bloom) Class Notes
How Can I Help My Child
Build Vocabulary?
Immerse your child in words!
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Read to your child
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Talk to your child
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Discuss vocabulary/story words with your child. Children need
to talk about words and see how words connect to their lives.
Encourage your child
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Most vocabulary is learned through reading or through listening
to others read (The National Reading Panel, 2000).
Encourage your child to read and write as much as possible, and
give praise for a wonderful job!
Set an example for your child
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Show that reading is important to you, too.
How Can I Help My Child
Read New Words?
There are several ways to read new words: (Ehri
and McCormick, 1998):
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Decoding
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Analogy
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Recognizing how the spelling of an unfamiliar word is similar to a known
word. Example, “I know fountain, so this must be mountain.”
Prediction
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Identifying the sounds of individual letters, holding them in mind, and
blending them into pronunciations recognized as real words.
Guessing a word based on initial letters or context and picture clues.
Sight
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Using memory to read words that have been read before. Pronunciation and
meaning are recognized automatically without effort.
Vocabulary
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It is okay for children to read “easy” books, picture
books, etc!
Easy books help children build confidence, word
recognition skills, comprehension, and make the reading
process much more enjoyable.
Struggling through a difficult
book does not make a good
reader and may do more harm
than good!
If a child encounters difficulty
with five or more words on a
page, it is a clear signal that the
book should be abandoned.
Comprehension
Comprehension is the ability
to make meaning out of
written material.
Prior Knowledge
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Children make meaning
from text using their
prior knowledge.
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Teachers “activate” this
knowledge by asking
questions before
students read.
Retellings
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Retelling is when a student tells a story they
have read in their own words.
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In a retelling, teachers listen for the following:
1.
2.
3.
4.
The characters
The problem or the goal
Events that took place
The resolution or how the problem is solved
Comprehension Questions
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Teachers ask different types of questions to check
for student understanding – and so can you!
There are several different forms of questions
that teachers use. They are:
1.
2.
Explicit questions are answered in the text. They
begin with who, what, where, or when.
Implicit questions are answered using text and the
student’s prior knowledge. They begin with why, how,
in what ways, imagine, predict, suppose, how might, and
what happens if.
How Can I Help My Child?
When reading books to children:
1.
Ask what they already
know.
2.
Have them tell the story
in their own words.
3.
Ask different types of
questions.
4.
Choose various types of
books.
How Else Can I Help My Child?
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Have your child write
down the elements of
a story.
Setting
Solution
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Use a chart like this
one to help organize
his/her thoughts.
Problem
Main Idea
Events
Characters
Are there any other activities besides
reading that we can do at home?
YES!
Vocabulary Building Activities
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There are three websites that we recommend:
www.puzzlemaker.com Part of
DiscoverySchool.com, there are numerous
vocabulary activities you can create for your child.
 http://www.vocabulary.co.il This site contains
games like Hangman, word searches, crosswords,
matching, and jumbles that can be done on line or
printed out.
 http://vocabulary.com This site contains great
activities that can be quite challenging.
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These sites offer fun vocabulary building activities for
a wide variety of ability levels.
Fluency and Comprehension
Activities
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www.readingrockets.org- This site contains information for
parents and tips about reading. It also contains book reviews and
videotaped interviews with popular children’s authors.
www.readinga-z.com – This site provides parents with
information about children’s fluency and some free stories that
can be downloaded.
www.lisablau.com – This site contains different plays each month
that can be downloaded for free.
www.starfall.com – This site provides interactive reading practice
for children in grades pre-k through second grade.
http://www.famlit.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=gtJWJdM
QIsE&b=1988675&ct=2087587 – This site provides parents
with strategies to build comprehension skills.
Final Thoughts
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As a child builds fluency, vocabulary, and
comprehension skills, his or her confidence also
builds, as well as a desire to read.
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If we want our children to be successful readers,
then we must provide them with the tools early on!