Menu

Howbury School Lagos


Reading Strategies

Reading strategies- A Tip for Early Readers

Learning to read is an exciting milestone for preschoolers. So in my few years experience teaching literacy in preschool, I adopted a few techniques and strategies to teaching reading using phonics, I can categorically say that if you teach children between the ages 3-4 phonological awareness and show how letters are blended into words, you can eliminate 50% of struggling readers.

Reading has two basic components: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension. In Early Years, we must teach them to decode explicitly as early as possible- when they do, their reading comprehension capabilities equals fluency. So, in grooming fluent readers, I have come up with a few ideas or what I called Tips for early readers

1.  Build explicit phonics instruction/awareness:

Building strong reading foundation starts by providing explicit phonics instruction which is more than merely reciting the alphabets, -

  • they learn the sounds that each letter makes
  • Blending individual sounds
  • Isolating beginning and ending sounds, recognizing words that starts and ends with the same sound
  • Segmenting words into individual sounds

To be effective, the following sequence would be helpful-

  • Start from vowel consonant to consonant vowel consonant.
  • Double consonant ends , plural words and diagraphs ( letter blends such as ch, sh, bl, and th)
  • They also work on recognizing high frequency words commonly known as sight words.
  • Decode tricky words such as the, you.

2. Play games:

Constantly get the pupils involved in game activities, manipulating letters and making words- I spy games

3. Encourage visualization:

  • Have strong picture support- Create opportunities where children get to sort object/ pictures by sound or according to the words.
  • Quick draw- this helps them to retain and recognize the words having a pictorial of the word said, this also will impact on communication and comprehension.
  • Read aloud session to provide a model for fluent reading, help them make connections by asking questions about the story and encouraging them to visualize it
  • Build Vocabulary- For an example, ‘’ Look at that airplane! Those are the wings of the plane, why do you think they are called wings? Be interactive and engage in open-ended conversations. Give children confidence in their reading skill by defining unfamiliar words ahead of time so that they don’t lose the meaning of the story.

Envisioning the action of a story is a fun way to improve pupils reading comprehension.

Strong reading comprehension cannot occur unless both decoding skill and language comprehension is built.

Go Back

Comment