Guided Reading

This year, your child will be bringing books home that have been read during Guided Reading time. These are books that your child should read to you. This extra practice is designed to increase fluency and confidence. It may appear that your child has memorized the text. That’s okay for right now. This builds a familiarity with the flow of language, teaches your child that the spoken word matches units of print on the page, and does build a sight vocabulary of the most common words (many of which are not phonetic- such as; the, come, and have).

Your child is learning a variety of reading strategies. You can support your child’s reading by encouraging him/her to use the strategies listed below when confronted with a difficult word.

• Use picture clues (look at the pictures for hints to meaning)
• Look closely at the beginning or the end of the word, and think about the   
  sounds those letters make (phonics)
• Look for words within words (ex.  an in  and;  plan  in  plant)
• Flip back in the book to where the word first appeared.
• Skip over a word, read on, and then go back to the unknown word.
• Think about what word would make sense, or what word would sound right.
• Go back to the beginning of the sentence and reread it to self-correct the word or to get at the meaning.

Please let your child read the book as independently as possible to as many people as possible. Always keep this special reading time positive. Praise your child’s efforts. Make sure that reading together remains a pleasurable experience for both of you.

         Celebrate your child’s efforts.

         Enjoy the journey!