89
With Your Child
READING FLUENCY is the ability to read quickly, accurately, and
with appropriate expression. Reading is effortless and automatic
for fluent readers. Why is Reading Fluency important? The ultimate
purpose for reading is comprehension. Reading fluency is the key
to comprehension. If we want children to comprehend what they
read, they must be able to read fluently first.
Tips for Parents:
- Have your child read aloud to you as much as possible. Silent
reading, while certainly useful, has not been proven to increase
oral reading fluency.
- Paired reading at home: Each night the parent reads a brief
poem or passage to his or her child. This is followed by the parent
and child reading the passage together several times. Then the
child reads the text to the parent.
- Echo Reading at home: The parent reads one sentence or
paragraph (length can vary) at a time while the child follows
along in the text with his or her finger. Once the parent pauses,
the child echoes back the same sentence or paragraph following
along with a finger so that the parent can be sure the child is
reading and not simply copying the parent.
VOCABULARY is the ability to understand and use words for
effective communication.
Why is Vocabulary important? Children have a much easier
time learning to read words that are already a part of their oral
vocabulary. Children cannot understand what they are reading
without knowing what most of the words mean.
Tips for Parents:
- Read aloud to your children. Once they can read fluently,
encourage them to read, read, read on their own!
- Encourage discussion about what your child is reading.
- Define and label new or unusual
vocabulary words.
- Play games involving antonyms (words that
mean the opposite of each other, synonyms
(words that mean the same), homophones
(words that are pronounced the same, but
are spelled differently), multiple meaning
words, prefixes (a group of letters
placed at the beginning of a word that
change the meaning of the word),
suffixes (a group of letters placed
at the end of a word that change
the meaning of the word), and
cognates (words that are
similar in other languages:
e.g., dictionary-English,
diccionario-Spanish,
dizionario-Italian.
COMPREHENSION is the ability to understand and get meaning
from text.
Why is Comprehension important? Remember that
comprehension is the ultimate purpose for reading. If a child
can understand the meaning of spoken language, they should
be able to understand the meaning of written language. The only
way to achieve this is to be able to read fluently and accurately.
That is why it is so important to focus on the previous building
blocks: phonemic awareness, the alphabet principal, and oral
reading fluency.
Tips for Parents:
- Talk about EVERYTHING you see and do with your child.
Background knowledge is central to your child’s reading
comprehension.
- Tell your child three related words (e.g. cat, dog, bird) and have
your child tell you the group or
category to which these words belong (animals) or write down
three related words and have your child write down a category
for them.
- Have your child add one more word to each category.
- For a more challenging activity, have your child create his or
her own category and add related words.
- Have discussions with your child about the books and other
written material he or she has read.