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Types of Reading Mistakes We Should Prompt Students to Correct

July 24, 2023 by Heidi Webster

It can be difficult to know when to prompt a young reader to look at a word and fix-up their mistake. Quite honestly, it can depend on their personality and the current focus of reading instruction. But I will try to give you some general guidelines here to help you know when to step in. It is important to help students become more aware of the types of errors they are making so it will begin to support self-correction. Our ultimate goal is that they begin to think about whether something makes sense and are able to begin to fix-up mistakes on their own. But if we are militant, and insist that they read every single word perfectly, it could demotivate some learners. Conversely, if we always jump in and tell them any difficult word, they are not learning self-monitoring, which can impact their overall reading level and comprehension skills. We need to find a balance between the two.

Some readers will just want to be finished with their reading or haven’t begun thinking about whether what they have said makes sense. I would still let them finish an incorrect sentence and then ask them if it makes sense. Then you can go back and look at it together. A great way to help these students become more aware of errors, is for an adult to read a book they just finished, and make similar errors to those the student made. They love to find our mistakes and in the process you have helped to make them more aware of their errors. It is amazing to see these students begin self-correcting their mistakes after a few weeks of this type of support.

You always want to prompt a student to look at a word again if the mistake interferes with meaning. If they say something like cool instead of school, that could make them miss an important event or setting from the story. So you will definitely want to prompt them to look at that word again.

If they make a mistake with one of the vocabulary words that are focused in the story, then you want to help them make sure they get that correct. If it is an error in pronunciation, then you can remind them what the word says, until they are able to remember it on their own. Say it in a silly voice and remind them that some words are harder than others so they remain confident. You can slowly remind them of what the word means or just give them the sound of the tricky syllable or sound they are having difficulty remembering. Eventually, they will be able to recall the word on their own.

There is typically a focus for instruction on particular word patterns that you will want to make sure they are getting those correct. If you are working on word families, vowel patterns such as silent e, ed endings, then you will want to hold them accountable for the focus of their current decoding focus for instruction. Instead of telling them the word outright, remind them of the rule. For instance, if they struggle with the world found, remind them of the sound the ou makes in that word. Then they will be empowered to figure it out on their own.

You also want to hold them accountable for sight words at their instructional level, that they have begun practicing. You may need to give them a meaning hint if the word is a rule breaker or give them a hint about which part of the word sounds differently than it should. We want them to be able to read sight words in isolation and in texts so it is important to encourage both.

If you are reading with someone that speaks more than one language or has speech and language delays, and they make a grammatical error when reading to you, then you will want to work on that with them. At the early stages, you may want to repeat their mistake and then give them the correct sentence to help them identify and begin to learn correct grammar or syntax. Once they are more advanced, you could prompt them to look at a certain word or words. Sometimes students will make a mistake early in the sentence and will change subsequent words (and make more errors) to make a sentence grammatically correct. This can actually be a good sign that the syntax and grammar are starting to make sense to them, so I call those smart mistakes.

Decoding Strategies and Prompts to Support Readers

July 19, 2023 by Heidi Webster

Since we can’t forget how we know something, it can be difficult to put ourselves in the shoes of a young child learning how to read again. Often times, it is the only strategy we remember being told when we were children so it becomes the go-to phrase. Your child may have a list of reading strategies, but it can be daunting to know which one to prompt them to use when they encounter a difficult word. I’m going to try my best to give you some guidelines on prompting them here.

Sounding it out simply doesn’t work for all words because sometimes words don’t follow the rules. Think about words like light or want where it won’t help at all. The prompt to sound it out is ok to use if you know that your child knows the word pattern. It is great for short vowel word families like at, et, it, ot, etc. But once the child knows all the sounds and can read short words independently you really want to encourage flexibility by changing the beginnings of these words so they are putting the beginning sound with the rest of the word. For instance, start with at. Change it to sat, erase the s and make it mat, and so on. This will encourage faster decoding and more fluent reading.
You also want to encourage students to look for a word they know inside a word. For instance, you can point out the word or is part of the word for or fork. Just make sure you are only using it for words that the or sounds the same as or or you might end up confusing them. Once they are reading more complex words you could do that with words like become, because once they have the first part they can usually use the words around it to figure out the rest of the word.
Another prompt that teachers use a lot is to give them the sound that a vowel pattern makes. When reading magic e or silent e words like gate or kite, you can remind them that the e is going to make the vowel say its name. After they understand that concept, they can typically take it from there. For instance, you could tell them that the sound that the oa in boat makes, but let them figure out the word on their own. Once they have a more solid understanding of long vowel patterns you could say, you will only hear the first sound and it will be a long vowel sound. The ideas is to slowly make the prompts less specific while empowering them to figure things out for themselves.
Remind them of the sounds from a guideline word such as the ar sound in car. That can help with words such as far, art, spar, part, or start. If you notice that your child has difficulty with a particular word pattern then set up a guideline word that you can use to prompt them with. Then step back for a moment and see if they can use it to figure out the word on their own.
Prompt them to cover ed/ing/er endings with their finger to help them focus on the first part of the word. Then have them tackle the rest of the word once they have the root word figured out.
If you have a more complex multi-syllable word that students will need to use meaning to decode, then it might be best to encourage them to skip the word and come back to it. For the following sentence: It is important to read every day, you may want to encourage them to skip the word important. If they still don’t get it after reading the rest of the sentence, then give them the first syllable, and that will likely help. You will see them be so proud that they figured out a tricky word with just a little hint.
Once your reader is ready for multisyllable words the best way to support with those is usually to teach them to break them into syllables. These are often the words previewed by teachers prior to reading them in stories and it gives you an opportunity to ensure they understand the meaning of the word. Keep a small whiteboard nearby and write out the syllables with a dash in between them. Another thing you can do is to have your child scan the page for words they want to talk about. It is important to create a learning environment where they feel comfortable asking questions about words.

5 Ways to Support Independent Reading at Home

July 18, 2023 by Heidi Webster

The easiest way to make reading a part of your daily schedule. Model it for them and remember it might look quite different for students at different levels. Remember that each child is unique so I would encourage on building stamina instead of trying to stick to the grade level guidelines we are setting here. Starting with a student aged 4-5, set a timer and have them get used to looking at books for a couple of minutes at a time. Once a student is school aged, or is an emergent reader (in grades K-1), slowly up the time to 5-15 minutes. A good rule of thumb will be about 15-25 minutes for second graders, 20-30 minutes for third graders, and 30-40 minutes for fourth graders. The idea isn’t to torture them or they won’t look forward to this time, so if your child enjoys reading for shorter bursts of time by all means accommodate them. These guidelines may be quite different for some neurodiverse children.
Set aside a place in your home for them to do their independent reading. It could be a beanbag chair in a playroom, a corner of your living room, your kitchen table, or if you have the space a dedicated part of your home such as a reading nook etc. All they really need is a small bin or basket to hold the books and possibly a comfy pillow or blanket to help them get lost in a good book.
Encourage them to find books that interest them. You can go to the library as a family or use a service such as kindle unlimited to read books online. You could also sign up for a service such as reading a-z, which has leveled books at many levels they can choose from. Once children find a topic or a series they love, they branch out and find books that keep them interested in reading. We don’t want this to be a chore or to hear a huge groan when it is reading time.
Use music or scent to help train their brains that it is time to read and focus. For instance, you could put uplifting essential oils in a diffuser such as sweet orange, grapefruit, or peppermint. An essential oil roller would work just as well and is even easier to personalize. Reading music is another great way to send that message to their brains. I have found that music without lyrics is usually best so they don’t find themselves distracted by a sing along. It could be classical music, meditation music, or simply sounds of nature. You could also play some dance music prior to reading time to help them get those wiggles out before it is time to read. If you find a track that works well for your household, this music could also be played during other types of independent worktime or when they are working on their homework.
Allow them to do something fun related to their independent reading books when they are finished with their reading time. If your child is an artist, let them create something like a picture or sculpt something out of clay. If they are a natural performer, let them act out their favorite scene from the book for the family. Perhaps you have an author on your hands and they might be interested in writing alternate endings or extending the story. The sky’s the limit and I would recommend starting with a simple question, what would be a fun way to make this book come to life for you? Prepare to be amazed by their creativity. And this might even just cut back on the dreaded proclamation of boredom on a rainy day.