
Teaching Reading Strategies: 6 Easy Things to Try with Your Emerging or Struggling Reader
Effective Teaching Reading Strategies that you can implement in your classroom or at home while reading with your child or student.
Reading is one those things where you fall in love with it because it’s almost an escape from reality, you can’t be bothered by it because it’s time consuming and boring, or you hate because reading itself and comprehension is a challenge.
Teaching Effective Reading Strategies That Help with Decoding
For me, growing up, my mom was an English teacher so there were always books in our house. She’d bring home her textbooks for lesson planning and I’d steal them and read for hours at a time. For me, it was an escape from being a middle child – HAHA!
Okay, I’m just kidding.. but really, it was just fun for me. I fell in love with characters and just the art of story telling itself. When I got married, I learned that my husband didn’t like reading. He said he always had a challenge with reading itself and comprehension of big chunks of information was really hard to do.
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Challenges of Struggling and Emerging Readers
When you have an emerging or struggling reader, there are some common challenges they face:
- poor vision
- issues with decoding and phonemic awareness (this means they can’t break down the letters and sounds they make)
- improper directional tracking (this is the ability to read from left-to-right in English and skipping from line to line)
- focus and reading stamina (this refers to how long can a child sit to actually read the words and sounds)
Of course, there might be deeper issues that require professional assessments, but aside from any diagnosable disability (dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, etc.), there are ways to combat and support readers that struggle or are just emerging.
Strategies That Support the Struggle
In way to support the challenges, I’ve created this FREE bookmark that you can keep handy for your students or kids at home. The goal is for them to reference these reading strategies that you teach them.
Eagle Eyes
Keep your eyes open and on the words. Look for clues on the page, including any familiar words or pictures.
Don’t be afraid to use pictures as references or reminders.
Ask yourself, “What is in the picture that starts with the beginning letter?”
Lips the Fish
Get your lips ready to make the first sound of the word you’re reading.
If you just start with the first sound, you’re one step closer to reading the whole word!
“M” has a different position of the lips than “T” so make sure you start in position 1!
Stretch the Snake
Stretch out the sounds the letters make and then, try blending them together.
sh i p
shi p
ship
Tryin Lion
Try to re-read the sentence and see if it makes sense. If it doesn’t try again!
Today I _________ up late.
is it WAVE or WOKE?
Try both and see which one makes more sense!
Chunky Monkey
Break the words into chunks you already know.
-at
mat
cat
sat
Skippy Frog
Skip the tricky word. Read the sentence to the end. Go back and try it again.
A (giraffe) has a long neck.
If they don’t know the word “giraffe”, they can skip it and come back to it at the end.
Getting Ready to Use the Freebie
What’s Included:
- A free printable bookmark
What Else You’ll Need:
Other Tools and Resources
5 Ways to Increase Reading Comprehension
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