Teacher’s Brain

Tag: reading strategies

Reading Strategies For Read Across America Day

Reading, Teaching Tips

National Read Across America Day is coming up on March 2nd. This is a fun day to celebrate one of the best things ever- reading! This day was established to get students more excited about reading and the wonderful stories we get to enjoy. 

For younger students, reading is still a little more challenging because it is still so new to them. Unfortunately, this means they may not be as excited to read on Read Across America Day.

reading strategies

Here are some strategies you can work on with your students to help them find more joy and satisfaction in reading.  

Preview

This method is when students skim a text to get the main idea and important points before they start to read. Research shows that this improves comprehension which makes the reading experience more enjoyable and satisfying for students. 

Picture Cues

Teach students that the pictures in their books connect to the words on the page and they can look at them for clues about what is happening in the story when they get stuck. Ask students what they notice about the pictures in the book and what they think it means for the story. 

Making Connections

Show your students how they can connect what they learned in another story with what they are currently reading to help them better understand what is happening in the story. For example: “This story is about an elephant. Do you know any other stories about elephants?” This helps students think more deeply and get more engaged in the content they are reading. 

Predicting

Readers can gain meaning from their text by predicting what will happen next in the story. They can do this by using their existing knowledge or illustrations to make an informed prediction. When reading, pause and ask them what they think will happen on the next page based on the information they have.  

Ask Questions

Teach your students to ask questions before, during, and after they are done reading to help them better understand what happened in the story and why. 

With some practice, these simple and effective reading strategies will increase reading comprehension and help your students gain more confidence while reading. Ideally, this will help them develop a lifelong love for reading! 

If you’re looking for some reading-themed activities to do for Read Across America Day, I have you covered!

reading strategies

These reading activities are just what you need to get students engaged. It comes with over 100 pages of language arts, math, STEM, and crafts with the “celebrate reading” theme in mind! 

reading strategies

Here’s a preview of what’s included: 

Language arts activities: rhyming words, creative writing with prompts, write the room activity, sorting nonsense words from real words activities, poems, and more. 

Math activities: word problems, adding to 10, shapes counting, 1 more and 1 less. 

Plus a STEM activity, awards, reading pledge, bookmarkers, journal cover, and a recipe for a treat! 

reading strategies

I hope you love these activities! Let me know your favorite Read Across America activities in the comments!

 

Reading Comprehension Strategies

Reading, Teacher's Pay Teachers, Teaching Tips

Learning to read is a huge accomplishment for students. Going from needing help with books to being able to read it by themselves is a big deal! Sometimes, however, actually comprehending what they are reading can be a little more challenging. 

It is important to know how to read, but it is even more important for them to understand what they are reading. It is not only an absolutely necessary  life skill, but it can open up a whole new world and encourage a love of reading. 

Here are some strategies that you can use to help your students achieve reading comprehension and fluency. 

  • Find books your students will love. Finding the right book can make all the difference when students are learning to read. Books that they will enjoy will inspire them to put in the work and understand the words they are reading. 
  • Read aloud. Encouraging students to read out loud can get them plenty of practice reading and it can also help you identify where they might be struggling. 
  • Use metacognitive strategies. These can be great for increasing reading comprehension. For instance, pausing while reading aloud to ask the student to vocalize their thoughts can help them to understand what they are trying to comprehend. 
  • Reread sections that are confusing. Making sure to revisit difficult sections until they understand is important. It can help better identify where they are struggling and work together to understand. 
  • Use a ruler or finger to follow along. Helping students stay on track while reading can help them follow along with the story and decrease the risk of confusion. 
  • Write down words you don’t know. Writing it down and working on it will help them better remember it in the future. 
  • Discuss what the child has just read. Having a discussion can help the student think through what they just read and also help you point out areas they might be struggling in. 
  • Recap and summarize the main points. This will be great practice for students working on their comprehension. 
  • Reading passages and answering questions. Find some fun and engaging reading comprehension activities for your students to practice with. 

Great news, I created some fun activities to help with this!

These reading comprehension activities are perfect for helping students get more practice and achieve fluency. They are set up through Google Classroom so they are distance learning friendly. These include written instructions, listening options, drag to complete the sentence activities, word families, and 20 reading comprehension passages and questions. 

This option is perfect for Kindergarten and 1st grade. 

This option is perfect for 1st and 2nd grade.

 

Reading Comprehension Activities

 

Want more information on reading comprehension? Check out my post here to learn more about my strategies. 

 

Do you have any strategies for helping your students with reading comprehension? I would love to hear in the comments!

 

Strategies for Teaching Comprehension

Reading, Teacher's Pay Teachers

As if teaching the basics of reading is not enough, you are responsible for teaching the most important skill of reading… comprehension.  So your students can read.  GREAT! But, if they can’t understand what they read… Huston, we have a problem.  I always wondered when I would see posts that say, “If you can read this, thank a teacher” how many people can’t read it?  How many can read it, but still don’t understand what it means?  While looking at ways to improve your literacy instruction, try these 5 strategies to improve reading comprehension.

  1.  Activate Prior Knowledge
  2.  Questioning
  3. Analyzing Text Stucture
  4. Visualization
  5. Summarizing

When you use these five strategies, students will begin to comprehend naturally.  Activating prior knowledge is one of my favorite ways to engage students in reading.  Research has shown that comprehension improves when students are engaged.  What better way to engage students than to bridge their old knowledge with new knowledge? For example, if we are going to read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, I might ask students to share stories of when they saw a caterpillar or when they felt really hungry.  You will notice that when one student shares a story, they usually all do.  That should not irritate you.  When students are all wanting to share their prior knowledge, YOU GOT THEM!

Of course improving vocabulary skills, fluency, phonics and phonemic awareness are ALL pieces to the puzzle when it comes to comprehension.  Teaching reading can be complex with all the skills needed to be competent readers. Using the five strategies suggested is a great way to ensure students are comprehending what they read.

Narrative, History, Dream, Tell, Fairy Tales, Book

Here are some free reading passages with questions for you to enjoy.