Multisensory Monday: Readers Are Blooming!

Students have been learning and practicing new skills and strategies to increase their reading ability throughout the year. They have been learning about letter sounds and blending sounds together to create words. Children learn about beginning and ending blends, chunking letters to make parts of words, prefixes, suffixes, and the sounds vowels make. At the same time, children are also learning sight words.

Spending time on these skills helps students become better readers. As children become more confident with these skills and strategies, they will start applying them as they read, increasing their fluency, and will bloom as a reader. Fluency is the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and expression. Better fluency makes reading easier, and children comprehend what they are reading.

When children read a short piece (about 100-200 words) multiple times, they can practice all of the skills they have been learning and read with speed, accuracy, and expression.  Kindergarten students should read a text with about 60 words, and first-grade students will read a text with about 90-100 words.

Ways to make reading that short text fun!

Read the same text multiple times.

Have the children read halfway through the text and stop. Then have an adult or partner read the first half. The child then starts at the beginning and reads to the end.  The second person does the same.

Timed reading.

Set a timer for one minute and have the child read as much of the text as they can in a minute.  Repeat this 3-5 times.

Readers Theatre.

Using a basic script, assign each student a part. Each student will read their part from the script. Reread the script 2-3 times.

Echo Reading.

The teacher/adult reads the text a few times. Then the child joins in and reads along with the teacher/adult. Poems or text with repeating words are fun to use with this type of reading.

Practice reading books that are at or just below the child’s reading level builds the child’s confidence.

Have the child choose books that are interesting to them. Graphic novels are a great option.

The more you read, the better you get. So, get out and read!