At Home Reading Activities

Comprehension in the Upper Grades

What is it?
Comprehension is the ability to understand and interact with text.

Why is it important?
Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Authors write to be able to communicate with readers. Readers need to be able to actively interact with the author's words. Good comprehension leads to reading enjoyment. Reading enjoyment leads to more time spent reading. More time spent reading leads to better comprehension and so on...

What can we do at home?

Think aloud - Even though your child is now an independent reader, don't stop reading aloud! When you read aloud to your child, talk about what you are thinking. This gives your child a little glimpse into the mind of an adult reader. A good reader is always thinking, wondering, and questioning. For example, describe how you feel about what's going on in the book, what you think will happen next, or what you thought about a character's choice. Know the Strategies that Your Child is Learning 1. Predicting - Predicting means using clues from the text and from your own knowledge to figure out what might happen next. 2. Inferring - Inferring means using clues from the text and from your own knowledge to figure out something that the author does

At Home Reading Activities

not say directly, such as how a character is feeling or why the character chose to act a certain way. 3. Questioning - Question means that, as a thoughtful reader, you are always asking questions about what you read as you are reading. For example, "Why did the author spend so much time describing the red umbrella? I wonder if that will be important later in the story." 4. Monitoring and Clarifying - Monitoring means making sure that you are understanding what you are reading. For example, we've all had the experience of reading to the end of the page and not remembering what we've read. When we realize that, we are monitoring our reading. Clarifying means clearing up any misunderstanding or lack of understanding. For example, if you didn't remember what you had read, you might choose to reread that page. 5. Retelling and Summarizing - Retelling means telling the story in your own words from beginning to end. A good retell usually includes characters, setting, problem, events, and solution. Summarizing is like giving a very short retell. in a summary, the reader includes only the most important details. 6. Visualizing - Visualizing means imagining the story or text in your head, like a picture or movie in your mind. Some readers are able to do this automatically, but others need coaching. for example, if the story is about children having a lemonade stand, you might picture the weather, how busy the street was, what type of neighborhood it is in, what the children are wearing, or how many people are gathered around. These are details that the author may not include, but they help the reader better

At Home Reading Activities

understand the story and get that feeling of "being there" that really increases the reader's enjoyment of the story. Reading fiction 1. Here are two strategies to use before beginning a fiction book. Predicting - Have your child look at the cover and the first page and make a prediction about what will happen in the story. Emphasize using clues from the story and from personal knowledge. Questioning - Encourage your child to create a couple of questions that he/she would like the author to answer in the book. This gives your child a purpose or a goal for reading. 2. While reading, try these strategies. Predicting - Stop at various points, particularly at the end or chapters or at very exciting points, and ask your child what do you think will happen next? Why? Questioning - Keep encouraging questioning. Is the author answering your questions? Do you have new questions? Inferring - Help your child think about the character's actions, words, and feelings. Does the author give any clues about why the character is acting certain way or how the character is feeling or why the character would say what he did? Have you ever had an experience like the character's? Monitoring and Clarifying with a Retell/Summary - Stop every few pages or at the end of the chapter and ask your child to tell you

At Home Reading Activities

what has happened so far in the story. If he/she can do this, continue on with the story. If he/she cannot, try going back and rereading the chapter or pages together to figure out where the misunderstanding took place. Visualizing - Every now and then, stop and ask your child to describe the picture in his/her mind at this part in the story. If necessary, ask questions to help your child make this picture more vivid and detailed. 3. After reading, emphasize the strategy of retelling/summarizing. You may have had your child retell pieces of the story as he/she read; now it's time to retell the story as a whole. PS - Keep the conversation quick and lively! There's no need to work on every strategy every time. In fact, that would probably be overwhelming, and it would really interfere with the flow of the story. Choose one or two strategies at a time. Even when you are working on comprehension with your child, reading time should still be cozy and enjoyable. Reading Nonfiction 1. Here are two strategies to use before beginning a nonfiction book. Predicting Preview the cover and the table of contents. Take a sheet of paper and divide it into thirds to begin a KWL chart (What do I know? What do I want to know? What did I learn?) Label the first section K. Ask your child to tell you everything he/she already knows about the topic and write down his/her

At Home Reading Activities

ideas. Now ask your child to predict what he/she might learn from reading this book. Questioning Label the second section of the paper W for What do I want to know? After looking at the cover and the table of contents and after quickly flipping through the book, ask your child what he/she would like to learn by reading the book. Write these questions down. This helps set a purpose for reading. 2. While reading, try these strategies. Questioning - Have your child continue asking questions as he/she reads. Add them to the W section of the paper. Also, if any of your child's questions are answered as he/she reads, write down the answers on the L (What did I learn?) section of the paper. Monitoring and Clarifying - Help your child make sure he/she understands what is being read by learning to use text features such as chapter titles, headings, bold face type, illustrations, and captions to organize all of the information. Make sure that your child stops at the end of a section or chapter to ask, "Did I understand what I just read? If not, what can I do about it?" Retelling/Summarizing This is a great opportunity to reinforce the idea of main idea and supporting details. After each section or chapter, talk about information that the author included. Is it really important or just interesting? Ask your child, What was this section mostly about? This is the main idea. Then ask, What details tell me more about the main idea? A good way to think about this is with a table analogy. The tabletop is the main idea, and the legs are the supporting details. They hold up the tabletop.

At Home Reading Activities

3. After reading, wrap up the discussion. Questioning - Ask your child, "Did the book answer your questions? What do you still want to know? Where could you find out?" Inferring - Help your child use his/her background knowledge and clues from the text to figure out how the author feels about the topic and what the author's message is. For example, "I think that the author admires Wilma Rudolph's perseverance, and the author's message is to believe in yourself and never give up just like Wilma Rudolph." Also, help your child think about the author's purpose. Is the author trying to inform the reader, persuade the reader, or entertain the reader? Retelling/Summarizing As before, this is a great opportunity to reinforce the idea of main idea and supporting details. Ask your child, What was this section mostly about? This is the main idea. Then ask, What details tell me more about the main idea? PS - As with fiction, keep the discussion low key and brief! Focus on one or two strategies at a time. Don't try to do everything with every book. Let your child see that you think nonfiction reading is an enjoyable and worthwhile activity.

At Home Reading Activities

Fluency
What is it?
Fluency is the ability to read text accurately, automatically, and effortlessly, using appropriate expression and phrasing.

Why is it important?
If a child is not fluent, it means that he or she is focusing primarily on figuring out (decoding) the words, and that makes it difficult for the child to understand and remember what has been read.

What can we do at home?

Repeated reading - Choose a story, a short chapter, or even a page that is not very difficult. Read the passage aloud to your child, and then read the passage together, helping your child figure out any tricky words. Next, have your child read the passage to you, focusing on accuracy. Finally, have your child read the passage to you again several more times paying attention to fluency and expression. The goal is to sound smooth and natural, like speaking. Use different voices - When reading a familiar story or passage, try having your child use different voices. Read the story in a mouse voice or a cowboy voice or a monster voice or a princess voice. This is just a variation on repeated readings designed to add interest and a sense of fun to reading practice.

At Home Reading Activities

Read to different audiences - Although a young reader may not think of it this way, reading aloud is really just a way to communicate to an audience. When a reader keeps the audience in mind, he/she knows that the reading must be fluent and expressive. Provide a variety of opportunities for your child to read to an audience. Your child can read to stuffed animals, pets, siblings, neighbors, grandparents - anyone who is willing to listen. For example, an out of town relative can easily share a book with the child over the phone if your child and the relative have both checked the same book out from the library. Additionally, there are even books that are specially written to be read to a pet, such as Three Stories You Can Read to Your Dog. Practice reading phrases - Once your child is comfortable with the high frequency words, try reading the Fry Sight Word Phrases. Click here to go to the Fry Sight Word Phrases. These lists were retrieved from http://www.timraskinski.com/presentations/fry_600_instant_phr ases.pdf. Record the reading - After your child has practiced a passage, have him/her record it with a tape player or MP3 device. Once recorded, your child can listen to his reading and follow along in the book. Many times, a child will want to rerecord the book and make it even better!

At Home Reading Activities

Vocabulary
What is it?
With a solid vocabulary, a child is able to understand and use spoken and written words in order to communicate effectively.

Why is it important?
A broad vocabulary helps a child in reading, writing, speaking, and listening. A strong vocabulary provides a foundation for reading decoding and comprehension and improves learning in all subject areas.

What can we do at home?

Read aloud - Continue to read aloud to your child - even after he/she is able to read well independently. Choose books that are above your child's reading level because these books are sure to contain vocabulary that is new to your child. By reading these books aloud to your child, you are introducing words into his/her listening vocabulary, and this will make it much easier for the child to recognize and understand these words when he/she comes across them in the future. Preview words - Before reading to or with your child, scan through the book, choose two words that you think might be interesting or unfamiliar to your child. Write the words on sticky notes, and tell your child what the words are and what they mean. As you read the book, your child will be listening for those words.

At Home Reading Activities

Hot potato (version 1) - Play hot potato with synonyms. Choose a word, and then your child has to think of another word that means the same thing. Take turns until someone is stumped. For example, you may say, "Cold," and your child might say, "Freezing." Then you could say, "Chilly," and so on. Try the game again with antonyms. Hot potato (version 2) - Play hot potato with prefixes or suffixes. The prefixes anti-, co-, de-, dis-, ex-, mis-, non-, pre-, re-, tri-, un, and under- are common ones. Common suffixes include -able(ible), -ate, -ed, -er, -est, -ful, -ish, -less, -ly, -ment, and -ness. Hot potato (version 3) - Play hot potato with categories. For younger children, the categories can be simple: pets, clothes, family members. For older children, the categories can be quite complex: The Revolutionary War, astronomy, math terms. Word Collecting - Have each family member be on the look out for interesting words that were heard that day. At dinner or bedtime, have everyone share the word they collected and tell what they think it means. If the child shares an incorrect meaning, guide him/her to the correct meaning. Try to use some of the words in conversation.

At Home Reading Activities

The Alphabetic Principle and Phonics
What is it?
The alphabetic principle is the understanding that words are made up of letters and the letters represent sounds. Additionally, it is the ability to use these letter-sound associations to read or write words. Phonics is the instructional method that focuses on these letter-sound associations.

Why is it important?
The English language is based on an alphabet, so being able to sound out (decode) words is necessary.

What can we do at home?

Building words - Using magnetic letters, make a three letter word on the refrigerator (cat). Have your child read the word and use it in a sentence. Every day, change one letter to make a new word. Start by changing only the beginning letter (cat, bat, hat, sat, mat, rat, pat). Then change only the ending letter (pat, pal, pad, pan). Finally, change only the middle letter (pan, pen, pin, pun). Making words - For this game, you will need magnetic letters and three bags. Put half of the consonants into the first bag. Put all of the vowels into the middle bag, and put the remaining consonants into the last bag. Have your child pull one letter from the first bag. That will be the first letter of their word. Then have him/her pull from the vowel bag for the second letter of the word and from the other consonant bag for the third letter of the word. Next, the child will read the word and decide if it is a real word or

At Home Reading Activities

a nonsense word. If it is a real word, have your child use it in a sentence. Take turns, replacing the vowels as needed until there are no more consonants left. The player with the most nonsense words wins. Writing words - Many children love to send and receive notes, and writing is a great way to reinforce phonics skills. Send your child notes in the lunch box or place notes on the pillow. Have a relative or friend send a letter or email to your child. Whenever your child receives a note, have him/her write back. Don't be concerned about spelling. Instead, have your child sound out the words to the best of his/her ability. Labeling words - When reading a book with your child, keep Post-it notes handy. Every so often, have your child choose one object in the picture and write the word on a Post-it. Put the note in the book to read again and again every time you come to that page. Practicing words with pictures - Choose pictures from a magazine or catalog. Say the name of the picture, have your child say the sound that the picture begins with and the name of that letter. Hunting for words - Choose a letter and have your child hunt for five items beginning with that letter sound. As each object is found, help your child write the word on a list. For example, if the target sound is "m", the child might find and write mop, mat, Mom, money, and microwave. Hints for helping your child sound out words - When your child is reading and comes to an unfamiliar word, there are several ways that you can help.

At Home Reading Activities

1. If the word is a high frequency word (for example, was, what, or of) that does not follow the phonics rules, simply provide the word to your child and explain that this is a word that needs to be memorized. 2. If the word can be sounded out, have your child stretch out the first sound, check the picture if appropriate, and make a guess. Next, come back to the word and sound out the whole word to see if that guess was correct. 3. Have your child say each sound individually (mmm aaa nnn), then stretch out each sound (mmmaaannn), and finally, read the word quickly (man). 4. As your child becomes more proficient in sounding out words, help him/her pick out parts of the new word that are already familiar. This will lessen the effort level needed to sound out a longer word. For example, in a word such as shouting, your child may already know that sh will go together, that out is a familiar word and that ing is a common word ending.

These ideas were retrieved from: http://www.bluevalleyk12.org/education/components/scrapbook/default.php?sectiondetailid=23549&l inkid=nav-menu-container-4-18256