Be Ready Born Ready.
Blend it Baby!
Break that Thang into Parts!
Be Right Back, Bruh!
Be an Investigator
Hola, bonjour, mambo, hello! It's me, Mrs. B!
Are you looking for more strategies to teach your reader how to read on their own? Teach them the 5 B's of Reading! Five reading strategies to get your reader geared up for reading independently.
Each strategy can be used to help your reader to decode unknown words, to practice engaged reading, to build fluency and reading confidence, and to apply a combination of literacy skills to everyday reading. Teach all of them to your reader and them choose one to highlight each time they read.
You can teach them and reinforce them with prompts as your reader is reading.
Be Ready Born Ready. Inexperienced readers can have low confidence in their ability to read aloud, and getting started with an unknown word can be a bit of a challenge. Some readers will silently look at a word or immediately look at their big person for help when they see a word they do not recognize on sight. Challenge your reader to attempt on their own first. Have them first look with their eyes, then get their mouth ready for the first sound and say the sound aloud followed by the next until they say each sound in the word (This is called "segmenting"). I encourage my readers to use a whisper voice as they read aloud to themselves. Whatever voice they choose, you should hear them so you can assess when they need guidance. Reading shouldn't be silent in its early stages so young readers can practice fluency, intonation, and self-correct when they hear themselves say the wrong
word. Encourage active reading.
You can also get your reader ready to read by starting reading with setting reading goals, spotlighting a strategy to practice, doing a visualization to boost confidence, or referring to a mantra or affirmation to help them recover from mistakes.
Use prompts to help them apply their strategies like these...
Point to the first sound in the word, and say "Get your mouth ready for the first sound."
"What letter do you see at the beginning of the word?"
"What sound does the __ make?"
Blend it Baby! When your reader has finished "segmenting" each sound, immediately follow up with "blending". Young readers can have a hard time hearing the entire word when they segment each sound individually, blending allows them to hear the word come together as they read it. That means, the reader says one sound and stretches it out, picking up the next sound, and so on until the entire word is read. Readers are essentially singing the word like a song (RRRAAAAT versus /R/A/T/). Encourage readers to use their bodies as they stretch the sounds out by putting their hands together and stretching their hands apart in sync.
Use prompts to help them apply their strategies like these...
"Sing it like a song."
"Stretch the sound out."
"Blend the parts together"
Break that Thang into Parts! (My absolute favorite strategy!) This strategy builds readers confidence in breaking down intimidating words. It encourages readers to stop and look at the word first, find parts that they know, and blend them with the parts they do not know. Young readers will often try the blend words without applying phonological awareness. This is a skill that will take time to develop and will later become automatic for the reader as they grow. Remind your reader of their phonics lessons as they read words to help them to assess the word before reading it. For example: A reader may see the word "plate" and read it as P/L/A/T/E instead of looking at the word first and applying what they know about "l blends" and words with long "a" team "a_e".
How it works...
The reader may see a word and when they are prompted by their instructor who asks, "Do you see parts in the word that you do know?" the reader says the parts they know they know. It may be one letter sound, letter pairs, or other words that they see in the word. The instructor points to and echoes the parts they say ("this part says__,") and encourages the reader to begin at the beginning of the word to blend the parts together. For example, in the word "quake" the reader may know the "ake" part of the word because we review long "a" teams that day. The instructor would have them blend /qu/ with /ake/
This strategy is also referred to as "chunking" because the reader is also encourage to break the word into two-, three-, and four-letter chunks so works can be decoded quickly. For example the word quickly can be broken into chunks like QU/ICK/LY or QUICK/LY depending on the reader's level. Building words in chunks is a great way to reinforce this strategy (but that's another post).
Use prompts to help them apply their strategy like this...
"What parts do you see that you do know?"
"What letters are making the _sound?"
"Do you see any small words inside this word?"
"Now, blend this __ part with the other parts"
Be Right Back, Bruh! If your reader is getting frustrated with a word, you can let your reader skip it and come back to it. It can be helpful to skip a word and use the context clues to help you figure the word out. It can be a good way to help readers that get discouraged easily to get a break. This strategy should be used sparingly. You may want to give them a certain number of skips before reading so they don't rely too heavily on this one. Be sure to make your reader come back and reread the entire sentence with the word once they figure the word out. If you find that your reader is having to use this strategy a lot, encourage them to apply others first to see if the book is too advanced. If the other decoding strategies aren't successful the book is too frustrating to be instructive and you should try a new text.
Use prompts to help them apply their strategy like these...
"Can you use another strategy to help you?"
"Skip it and come back."
"Take a deep breath and get your mouth ready for the first sound."
"Do you see a part in the word that you do know?"
Be an Investigator This strategy is done in conjunction with the fourth. If a reader skips a word they should be prompted to do some investigative work to figure it out like checking the picture and the first and last letter of the word. Illustrations can be used to increase vocabulary and readers should be encouraged to use them to get more information about the story. Be sure readers are not relying too heavily on the pictures, though, sometimes they will invent words based on the pictures. If this happens they should be encouraged to read the sounds in the word itself.
This strategy can also be used to teach self-correction and rereading for clarification. Sometimes readers will read a sentence that makes no sense to them. They can investigate by thinking about the topic of the story, using past knowledge, rereading the sentence, or asking for help. Sometimes readers read sentences that make no sense because they've invented words that are not in the sentence and that has nothing to do with the story at all. If this happens use prompts to refocus and encourage rereading of incorrect words.
Prompts:
"What letter would you expect to see at the beginning of __. Could that word be __?"
"This story is about __?"
"Check the picture, check the first and last letter. Do you see something in the picture that starts with __and ends with__?
For activities and lessons, visit www.mrsbsreadingroom.com
“Have you ever seen a word you didn't know and you had no clue what to do? Don't fear because Mrs. B is here with 5 strategies for you to try to decode that unknown word.”
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