Reading at Home

“Go Books”/Baggie Books/Take Home Readers

   Some of you have been wondering when your child will bring home small practice books from school. Many of the other K classes have already started this routine. I have been waiting primarily because I wanted to work a little bit more with the children on some decoding and comprehension strategies at school before I started that process. Please, don’t be anxious.

   I should be starting the week of February 17. I do not know how other teachers do it, but I have a routine that works for me, and I think benefits your child in the long run. Your child will bring home more than one book at a time. I deliberately send home books of varying types (fiction and nonfiction), commercially printed and child-made books, and books at more than one level of difficulty (within reason). There will be handouts for parents in your child’s take home bag explaining the rationale behind this. There will also be guides for helping your child decode unfamiliar words; coaching your child through the retelling process so that he/she can demonstrate how much he/she has comprehended; and working with your child on reading fluency and reading with expression.

   One thing I always caution parents about is to not worry too much about getting every word right. Reading is more about unlocking meaning, whether in story form or from informational text. Learning to read requires young children to be BIG risk-takers. Reading aloud to an adult is a type of performance. When children are worries about saying every word right for the benefit of an adult who is listening, they often lose track of what the words are actually saying. I will include a list of strategies to help your child decode and understand unfamiliar text. The best thing parents can do is to listen and be supportive of their accomplishments. If your child continues to struggle with a particular word, feel free to tell your child the word and model how the sentence should be read.