Reading Fluency and Comprehension

I often get the question on how parents can help their child with reading and comprehension.
Reading fluency includes the following components:

• Expression (stress, pitch, volume, clarity)
• Phrasing (pauses, word groups)
• Rate (just the right speed)
• Accuracy (correct words and punctuation)

Throughout shared reading, guided reading, and partner reading we focus on several decoding strategies. Keeping these handy on a bookmark as a visual reminder will help. Reinforcing these clues with your child when they are reading with you at home and get stuck on a word will also assist them in getting into the habit of automatically walking themselves through the steps.

1. Ask: Does the word you are trying make sense?
2. Ask: Does the word you are trying sound right?
3. Ask: Does the word you are trying look right?
4. Look at the picture clues on the page.
5. Get your mouth ready for the beginning letter sound,
6. Look for patterns (chunks).
7. Reread. Fix.
8. Skip word. Get clues. Reread.
9. Think about what word makes sense.
10. Stretch through word.
11. Try vowel both ways. (long and short)

*If you misplaced your bookmark or would like an extra, just let me know!!!

Metacognitive Awareness Comprehension means that the reader is aware of his or her thinking during the reading of various types of texts. Good readers are actively thinking while they read. They are aware when meaning has broken down, and they stop to fix the confusion. These strategies (clarifying, connecting, deciding what is important, inferring, predicting, prior knowledge, questioning, responding emotionally, retelling/summarizing, and visualizing) become the thinking tools needed for bridge building between their brains and the text.

Asking the following questions will help with each of these strategies:

1. What words or ideas don't I understand? (Clarifying)
2. What is important in the text? (Identifying Important Ideas)
3. Why do things happen? (Inferring)
4. How is it like something else? (Making Connections-text to self, text to text, text to world)
5. What might happen next? (Predicting)
6. What do I know about it? (Prior Knowledge)
7. What do I wonder about? (Questioning)
8. How does the character feel? (Responding Emotionally)
9. What was the text about? (Retelling)
10. What is the picture in my mind? (Visualizing)
11. What do I know about it? (Prior Knowledge)