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Please note that I have color coded the sections on this page to help you locate information easily as you scroll down.
How a parent can use coaching during reading:
When your child does not know a word you can say:
1. Put your finger on the word and say all the letters.
2. Use the letters and picture clues.
3. Try to pronounce the word by looking to see if it has a spelling pattern or rhyme that you know.
4. Keep your finger on the word and read to the end of the sentence to see if what you think the word is makes sense.
5. If it doesn't make sense, go back to the word and think about what would make sense and look at the beginning and ending parts of the word.
**All of the above coaching strategies are used in class and reinforced on Fridays when we do our Guess the Missing Word Activity.
**Also, be sure to use the Guess the Covered Word Strategy tips that are on the back of the 2nd Grade Word Wall I inserted in your child's RED Homework Folder.
Reading Comprehension Strategies---
Note: The following are modeled throughout the year and are not second grade mastery. Your child is beginning the journey of literacy and over the next few years each of these strategies will be developed and or become natural (secure).
Predicting:
Prediction helps set the stage for reading for meaning. As we read, we use our past experiences and knowledge, or schema, to make “thinking guesses” about what will happen next in the story. We also use prediction to figure out the meanings of individual words or phrases. We begin by looking at the cover illustration and title. Have we read other books by this author? Does the illustration or title give any clues about the story? All predictions that use our schema are important and valuable. One method used in the classroom with nonfiction books is to have the child write down what they already know about the topic of the book. We discus our "schema" the knowledge we already have about the topic and while reading the book Post-it notes are used to flag pages that confirm our predictions.
We check to see if our predictions are “confirmed” or “not confirmed.” As we read, if our predictions are not confirmed we use the new information we have to make new predictions. When reading chapter books we make predictions at the end of chapters when we react to the "cliffhanger."
Making Connections:
When we read for meaning, we make connections to other texts, to ourselves, and to our world. A text-to-self connection helps you build understanding and make meaning from the story. We come to reading with many experiences and memories that help us make connections and bring meaning to what we are reading. Text-to-text connections are connections to meaningful story elements in another book. Text-to-world connections are connections to things happening in our world. Meaningful connections help us understand important story elements (character, setting, problem, solution).
Connections should be related to what’s important in the book.
Visualizing:
When readers combine their personal knowledge and experience with the author’s words and ideas to make mental images, they are visualizing. The author’s words “paint a picture in our minds.” Sometimes I ask the children to use their 'mental TV' to picture what is happening in the story. When the words help us make a picture in our mind that helps us understand a story element (character, setting, problem, solution), this is a meaningful visualization. The words must be important to the meaning of the story. Words, phrases and short passages can give us visualizations. Everyone’s visualizations are different because we are using the author’s words and our own experiences, to make a picture in our mind. Sometimes a visualization is so good, we can smell the flowers or taste the fruit that we see in our mind. :)
Retelling:
Good readers can tell all the important things that happened in a story in their own words. A retelling of a story should include important story elements (character, setting, problem, and events leading to the solution---plot). A retelling is NOT a reciting. Sometimes students want to copy all the dialogue. Again it should be in the students own words.
Several different story maps, webs and frames can be used to help organize important information for retelling a story. When doing a written retelling, students should not copy dialogue (what characters say) or sentences from the story. Please refer to the Qualities of a Good Retelling handout sent in the Back to School Night folder. When your child finishes reading a book, ask him/her to retell it to you and see if they can tell all the important things that happened in their own words and in order.
Inferring:
When readers infer, they use their prior knowledge and clues from the story to draw conclusions and form unique interpretations. “The story does not say, but we can decide. . .”
• Making predictions and being able to explain your thinking behind that prediction is a part of inferring. Good readers make predictions and confirm or change their predictions as they read on.
• Readers can determine the meanings of unknown words by using their schema, paying attention to clues in the story and pictures, rereading and discussing with others.
• Good readers know to infer when the answers to their questions are not stated in the story. You have to “Read between the lines.”
• Good readers create their own interpretations to enrich and deepen their experience with a story. Often authors want to leave their readers with something to think about and remember. “What does the author want you to think about and remember?” During partner reading students are encouraged to tell their partner what the reading makes them think.
• Poetry is excellent for practicing making inferences. Often you need to use your background knowledge/experiences and clues from the words to draw conclusions and understand what a poem is about.
Questioning:
Good readers purposefully and spontaneously ask questions before, during, and after reading. Model this aloud when reading with your child. Encourage your child to do the same. :)
• We ask questions to clarify meaning, think and wonder about what we are about to read, focus our attention, and find answers.
• Readers determine whether the answers to their questions can be found in the text or in the diagrams or whether they will need to infer the answer from the text, their background knowledge, and/or an outside source.
• Good readers understand that many of the most intriguing questions are not answered directly in the book, but are left to the reader’s interpretation. Read between the lines.
• Readers understand that hearing others’ questions inspires new ones of their own; likewise, listening to others’ answers can also inspire new thinking. In class we "pair-share" with partners to share our thinking.
• We understand that questioning is used in many areas of our lives.
• Good readers know that questioning deepens their comprehension.
Nonfiction VS. Fiction--
In nonfiction, we are reading to find out facts and important ideas. Some special features of nonfiction can help us such as highlighted words, italics, bold print, headings and subheadings. There are also graphic aids such as charts, labels, tables, maps, captions, table of contents, index and glossaries to help us make meaning. During guided reading, I will work with your child on using indexes, captions, titles, and table of contents when reading a nonfiction selection. At home you may point out the bold print or highlighted word that is a vocabulary word and may be found in the back of the book in the glossary (we do this with health and social studies text in the classroom). Students should ask themselves (think about) what facts they learned after each section of a nonfiction text. This will help guide the student to develop better comprehension. Refering back to the text and looking at the charts, pictures, or maps will also be beneficial to the reader.
In fiction, thinking about the setting, plot, characters, problem and solution can lead us to the theme or main idea of the story. What is the author telling us? We can think about this for each paragraph or page of text that we read. What is important here? What does the author want me to know? What is the lesson?
Poetry:
Students will explore the way poets use ryhme, choose words to evoke certain feelings in their readers and paint word pictures. All of these skills enable readers to better understand and appreciate the beauty and meaning of poems.
Poems use words and sounds to show feelings.
Some poems ryhme, and some don't. Poets choose their words to make readers feel a certain way.
Poets want readers to imagine the ideas in their poems. While reading poems in class and at home we'll ask questions about poems and picture ideas in our minds.
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