Thinking About the Meaning of a Story

Now that your child has figured out how to sound out words, reading continues to be tricky. Here is what to do when she comes to a word that is hard to sound out.

• While they are trying to sound the word out, remind them to think about the story
• What would make sense here and looks like that?
• Discuss what is happening in the story related to that tricky word.
• Accept words that are close in meaning and look similar.
  

Suppose your child comes to a word like "laugh" that is very hard to sound out. (although gh does make a /f/ sound in some words like "tough" too) But it is not something your child has seen before. Talk about the story and how the characters might react to something or look at the pictures to see if they look like they are smiling. They ask them to think about what they are doing that starts /la/. They will probably say laugh. If they do, point out that they thought of a word that makes sense! They will probably agree with you that laugh is a tricky word. Always, praise their good thinking as learning is all about thinking!

How to figure out those unknown words:

Here is what we do when we (child and teacher) come to an unknown word.

1. Run your finger under it as you say it slowly and think about the story.

Here the child tries to say the sounds of the letter he sees, stretching them a bit to try to blend them together. He may not say the sounds exactly as they sound in that word. But if he is thinking about the story at the same time a word that makes sense should be triggered.

If the child tries to punch out the sounds too vigorously, they will not hear them blended into a word. Then the teacher models how she stretches the sounds so they sound connected.

If this really fails to help them come to a word that makes sense and looks like the word, most often the child has lost the thread of the story. When that happens, we need to remind them to think about the story. We can remind them of what is happening and have them think about something in the story that will trigger the missing word. For example, if the word is "down" you might ask "Which way did they look?"

Starting to recognize words

Do you wonder how a child starts to recognize words?

After pointing to and saying the same word over and over, they recognize it.
He says Mom when he sees Mom.
They recognize when the word they say is not Mom
They still use the picture for the meaning of unknown words.

Now they are ready for the next step. As they are reading and pointing to the same word over and over, they start to recognize it. When they see it again in a new book, they think that looks just like that word “my” in the other book. Gradually a number of words are learned. These become the “anchor” for the child as he reads. He thinks about saying “Mom” where it says “Mom” and “I” where it says I. Now they have something definite to look for and they see that reading means looking at the print and seeing words they know.
Of course they still need the support of the picture for the words they do not know. They are going to need this for a long time. It helps them think of what is happening in the story. We want the picture to show so they can glance at it when they come to a word they do not know. Our reading books are chosen very carefully so this is easy to do. They are not ready to try reading without pictures yet. That will come later. So at this stage, we leave the picture plainly visible. Since we are still asking them to point, they must look mostly at the print anyway. We have achieved our first goal. Later I will talk about when they need to stop pointing, but not yet.

Learning About Print

Did you ever wonder how a child really begins to read?

The first step is learning to match the words on the paper to the words they say. The child:
• Repeats the text.
• Points to the words as they say them
• Uses the pictures to get the meaning
• Learn that there should be the same number of finger points as there are words
• Often “memorize” the story.
• Can be confused by multi-syllable words
Read more below.


One of the first steps in learning to read is learning to look at print. At first children just look at the pictures to understand the story. They listen as an adult reads but their attention is on the picture. The print is just meaningless squiggles to them. But they know how to talk. So we teach them to repeat the text. We start with a simple text that repeats a simple language pattern with one new word/idea on a page. For example in “Dressing Up” a child is dressing in different costumes and saying: I am a cat, I am a Rabbit, and so on. There is a picture of a child dressed as a cat to help them. We teach them to point to each word as they say it. It can take a while to coordinate this. They need to learn to slow down enough so they can tell they are pointing to a word as they say it. This is the first step, they are not reading yet, but learning that each group of letters is a word and their mouth is saying a word. If they say too many words it does not match their pointing. Usually they can see this and know they are not matching the text. The point is to learn the feeling of one word equals one point of the fingers. They may not say the right word, but they can make it match the number of words they see.

Fall Fun

Reading to Your Child

The first step in teaching your child to read is to read to them! There is nothing cozier than cuddling up together and enjoying a book. Right away you are teaching them that reading is about sharing stories, just like stories you tell them. Stories in books have a special sound to their language. Read and enjoy that language as you read. Your child will be listening to that language and getting ready to enjoy it when she sees it in her books. There is magic in the phrase, "Once upon a time..." Do you remember that magic? Share it with your child!