Reading
Reading is a fundamental language skill that we use every day throughout our entire lives. Reading, like many other skills, should be practiced regularly to attain mastery. While it is important for us to master reading for academic purposes, reading should be a fun and enjoyable experience, especially for young language learners. The elementary school at CMIS uses DRAs (Developmental Reading Asessments) throughout the year to identify the reading level of each child. Below is a list of reading levels for each grade range from K - G5.
reading-a-z-correlation-chart.pdfHere are some reading strategies that you can easily implement in the classroom during daily reading with your student:
Rereading
When we first read a story, we gain basic information such as who the characters are, where the story takes places, and the components of the beginning, middle, and end. When we reread stories, readers gain deeper knowledge of plot and details. Readers often discover character motifs or notice subtleties that may have been missed before. Rereading also helps build fluency by familiarizing the reader with complex word structure in the story.
Using pictures
Readers, especially those still gaining a grasp of the English language, can use pictures to help decode unfamiliar words.This is especially helpful when decoding nouns and verbs, because those terms are often easy to illustrate in story books.
Asking questions
Good readers do more than read text on a page. Good readers ask questions throughout their reading. They may ask something simple like, "What will happen next?" to complex questions like, "Why did the main character do this?". Asking questions helps us build our understanding and make connections in our reading.
More reading resources
The more connections children make with their reading, the better readers they become. My approach with reading is to teach reading strategies that children can apply to any book that they read. We start with understanding the basics of how to use decoding strategies (learn more here), then we evolve to study ways we can make connections with our reading.