Reading Helps
Reading is such an important part of life. We read things everyday. First grade is a critical year for reading. Students learn so much about reading in first grade. They also make important decisions about reading as well like whether reading is important or not and whether or not they like reading.
Reading is more than just saying words. Reading comprehension is a big piece of what we work on in first grade. Remembering what we read is very important. Having many ways to figure out unknown words are also important tools to have.
On this page I have listed many things that can help your child become a better reader. These are also things that will be in handouts that I will give you throughout the school year. There are also several websites on my Computer Lab Links Page that work on reading.
- Sit beside your child when they read. I know that we are all busy, but when you are beside your child when they read you can monitor whether or not they are reading the words correctly.
- Don't just tell your child the unknown word. Tell them to use the reading strategies that are talked about in school (listed below).
- Practice their sight words. There are words that cannot be sounded out and need to be known just by looking at them. We have a different list for each quarter. They are attached here. Sight Words.
- After reading the story, don't just have them put their book away. Ask them questions. This will help with reading comprehension. Here are some questions you can ask:
1. What happened in the story? Have them retell the story from
beginning to end and try to get them to tell you details.
2. Who is the main character(s)?
3. What is the setting?
4. What was the problem in the story and how was it solved?
5. What is the main idea of the story or what was the story mostly about?
6. What did you learn from this story? (Mostly for nonfiction stories)
7. Did you like the story? Why or why not?
Reading Strategies - when your child is stuck on a word try one or more of these:
1. Use the pictures. Look for clues in the picture to figure out the word.
2. Get your lips ready. Say the first sounds of the word, read the rest of
the sentence and go back to read it again.
3. Stretch out the word. Also known as sounding out the word. They
need to stretch out the sounds slowly and then put the sounds
together.
4. Look for parts you known. Also known as chunking the word. They can
look for part they know like (-at, -an, -it, -ing, -er) and add the rest of the
word on to that part.
5. Skip the word. They can skip the word, read the rest of the sentence,
and then go back and reread it with the word they skipped.
6. Try reading it again. If what they read does not make sense, they
should go back and reread it.
7. Flip the vowel sounds. If they tried the word with the short vowel
sound, try the long sound or vise versa.
8. Ask for help. After they have tried some of the above strategies and
still cannnot figure out the word, then they can ask for help.
Reading is more than just saying words. Reading comprehension is a big piece of what we work on in first grade. Remembering what we read is very important. Having many ways to figure out unknown words are also important tools to have.
On this page I have listed many things that can help your child become a better reader. These are also things that will be in handouts that I will give you throughout the school year. There are also several websites on my Computer Lab Links Page that work on reading.
- Sit beside your child when they read. I know that we are all busy, but when you are beside your child when they read you can monitor whether or not they are reading the words correctly.
- Don't just tell your child the unknown word. Tell them to use the reading strategies that are talked about in school (listed below).
- Practice their sight words. There are words that cannot be sounded out and need to be known just by looking at them. We have a different list for each quarter. They are attached here. Sight Words.
- After reading the story, don't just have them put their book away. Ask them questions. This will help with reading comprehension. Here are some questions you can ask:
1. What happened in the story? Have them retell the story from
beginning to end and try to get them to tell you details.
2. Who is the main character(s)?
3. What is the setting?
4. What was the problem in the story and how was it solved?
5. What is the main idea of the story or what was the story mostly about?
6. What did you learn from this story? (Mostly for nonfiction stories)
7. Did you like the story? Why or why not?
Reading Strategies - when your child is stuck on a word try one or more of these:
1. Use the pictures. Look for clues in the picture to figure out the word.
2. Get your lips ready. Say the first sounds of the word, read the rest of
the sentence and go back to read it again.
3. Stretch out the word. Also known as sounding out the word. They
need to stretch out the sounds slowly and then put the sounds
together.
4. Look for parts you known. Also known as chunking the word. They can
look for part they know like (-at, -an, -it, -ing, -er) and add the rest of the
word on to that part.
5. Skip the word. They can skip the word, read the rest of the sentence,
and then go back and reread it with the word they skipped.
6. Try reading it again. If what they read does not make sense, they
should go back and reread it.
7. Flip the vowel sounds. If they tried the word with the short vowel
sound, try the long sound or vise versa.
8. Ask for help. After they have tried some of the above strategies and
still cannnot figure out the word, then they can ask for help.