I sat across the table from a mom who had brought her son to me for testing. She knew he was behind, but wanted to see if he needed to repeat first grade or if he was ready to move on to second grade. I asked this mom what she had used in kindergarten to teach her son to read. She replied that she had gotten a big workbook from Sams . Nothing wrong with that, but if this is the sole resource for teaching a beginning reader, it likely is not going to be thorough enough to build a strong foundation for reading.
The score report came out of the printer. It never gets easy to tell a mom that her child is behind and needs remediation. This mom was eager to teach her son, but like most of us, she is not in a position to hire a tutor. I proposed to this mom that she and her son come in together for about 4 to 6 weeks. I would work with him and teach her techniques that she can use at home to help him with his reading skills. To my delight, she agreed! So, what am I going to teach this mom?
I will start with the 5 components of reading:
1) Phonemic awareness (the most important, yet the least known component)
2) Phonics and the progression of phonics skills
3) Fluency – repeated reading, choral reading, echo reading
4) Comprehension – retelling, sequencing, prediction, inference, narration
5) Vocabulary – read aloud, word study
Learn more about these components from my Reading 101 page. You will find a one-page summary of the research of the National Reading Panel about these components.
Hope you will follow along and ask questions to help me plan what to teach this mom!
Happy Reading,
Kay
Find me here:
Facebook ~ Homeschool Reading Specialist
Facebook ~ Bindrim Testing and Educational Services
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