Reading Strategies

For the past two weeks our class has been focused on learning reading strategies to help decode (or figure out) unfamiliar words while reading. We have a reading strategy bulletin board in our classroom with eight decoding strategies posted and space to the left of them where we will add in strategies for reading comprehension, fluency, accuracy, and vocabulary expansion as the year goes on and we become stronger readers! You can see our eight decoding strategies and the bulletin board in the photos below. You can ask your child what each of these strategies means and he or she should be able to tell you. We have been practicing using these strategies during reading mini-lessons, silent reading, and in reading groups at school so you may find it helpful to refer to the same strategies when helping your child read at home! Here are the eight strategies:

Eagle Eye- look at the picture to help figure out the word

Lips the Fish- get your mouth ready to make the first sound in the word

Stretchy Snake- stretch out the sounds in the word slowly then put them together to make the word

Skippy Frog- skip the unfamiliar word, finish the sentence, think of what would make sense, then re-read the sentence adding the word in

Chunky Monkey- look for familiar word chunks (like -an, -it, etc) inside of a bigger word

Detective Kangaroo- look to see if you have already seen the word in the book you are reading and try to remember it

Tryin' Lion- if what you read didn't make sense, try again.

Flippy Dolphin- if the word didn't sound right, try flipping the vowel sound (flipping from a short vowel sound to a long vowel sound or vice versa)

Try these out at home! The kids have found that they often use more than one strategy at a time, such as using lips the fish to get the first sound of a word, then stretchy snake to stretch out the rest.

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Readers' Workshop

In our first grade classroom, reading, writing, and math blocks will all follow a general "workshop model." What this looks like is that the whole class will start by meeting together for a "mini-lesson" on a teaching point for that day's reading, writing, or math, the students will then move out into the classroom to do some sort of independent practice related to the lesson, then the whole class will come back together at the end of the block for a share, connecting what they learned and practiced back to the teaching point. During the beginning of the school year we focused our reading time on learning the set up of our classroom library care, practicing book care and how to respect other readers, what it looks and sounds like to read quietly to ourselves, etc. This week we began putting the pieces together and really started to practice what Readers' Workshop will look like in first grade. Students in our class practiced choosing books, using book boxes to store the books they are working with, and reading "good fit" books at their independent reading levels. They also practiced reading silently to themselves, respecting other readers, re-reading, and began building stamina for silent reading a few minutes at a time. Readers' Workshop will evolve throughout the year as students build independence and stamina and as they learn do do many different literacy activities, including reading to themselves, reading to partners, word work, writing, listening to reading at a listening center, reading with the RAZ Kids internet reading program (there is a tab for this at the top of my blog and you are welcome to try it out with your child at home ahead of time), and even blogging! Below are some photos of our class beginning to practice the routine of Readers' Workshop.

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