There is a shift that takes place, usually between second and third grade, when students (should) go from learning to read to reading to learn. Unfortunately, for some students, their ability to read to learn is stalled by their inability to read fluently, which is often caused by the student's struggle with decoding.Some of our students are naturally strategic readers, they can figure out that they should look at the pictures or start a sentence over when they come to a tricky word. However, for some students, using decoding strategies do not come so naturally.
How do we teach decoding strategies? What types of teaching and learning experiences can we create in order to help students? What do we do when reading strategies just do not stick?
Struggling Reader......Which Strategy Do We Use?
As adults, when we read text that is too difficult for us (example: research articles), we look for words that we have never seen before. These words are unfamiliar to us and are not in our sight word vocabulary. We may look for a part of the word that we know, Google it, use a dictionary, and then reread it in the sentence it has been in. Children who are struggling do not have the skills to be able to do this in a short amount of time. Where do we start teaching students decoding skills?
Having a student complete a running record allows the student's reading and decoding skills to be analyzed. The running record may reveal a few problem areas. For example:
Problem: Is the child making errors when reading, leading to the sentence no longer making sense?
Strategy: Teach them to look at the picture and think about the meaning of the story.
Problem: Is the child spending way too long trying to read a tricky word?
Strategy: Teach them to "give it a go" and return to the word later.
The running record may also reveal that there are opportunities for learning. For example, once during the reading the reader looks at the picture and self-corrects a mistake (using meaning). Although the reader may not have done this during the entire reading, this did show that this is a skill that the reader is learning to do. This is when the teacher would praise the reader and tell them what they did into words ("You fixed your mistake by using the picture and thinking about what makes sense!"). That strategy would then be practiced until the reader was using it more consistently. This is familiar and within her zone of proximal development. It is fine to choose a strategy that the student is not using at all, however using one that is familiar will build the student's confidence.
How should we teach our readers decoding strategies?
Once all of the data has been collected (both from our running record and our observations), we have a better idea about which strategies our student will benefit from to learn. Keeping in mind, what may work for one student to learn from, may not work for another.
When I was in the classroom, I would expose my students to effective strategies in while group. Understanding that not every child is going to fully pick up on these, I would then reintroduce and work with these strategies and students in small group. By introducing strategies in whole class instruction, I am giving them one more exposure and saving myself time by not repeating myself by introducing it several times, I am able to give guidance to those who do not need deeper support. Our struggling readers are probably not going to be able to apply a strategy after a whole group lesson. Teaching strategies during small group time and/or individual conferences is VERY powerful.
Modeling provides a huge benefit to students who need extra support. In addition to shared reading with the entire class, you can also model strategy used through shared reading in a small group. Show students how you read aloud a text and use problem solving strategies when you encounter a word that is "difficult" for you.
During a small group, we gradually release responsibility of a strategy to the student.
1. Students are first told that their job is to listen, not to yell out any of the words as they are read to. Students then need to be told that they will be shown how a decoding strategy will work when I come to a work that is too tricky for me.
2. When I come to a word that I do not know, like clashes, I say, "cl- I do not know this word. But I do see a part that I know. The first part says "clash", the last part says -es. CLASH-ES. CLASHES!
3. Continue this throughout the book, inviting the students to join in throughout, giving them support as needed.
4. Go back to the beginning of the book and have the students read a paragraph (or page) at a time (depending on how long the book is). Have the students decode as needed while reading.
To give additional support, I have a decoding sheet that I have available for the students to refer to as needed. It is important to teach (and review) the students each one of these strategies. Never assume that a student knows (or always remembers) the strategy. Place a small sticky note on the reading strategy that you have been working on with the students.
You can grab this helpful item here: Reading Strategies Menu
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