Tuesday, July 28, 2015

How to Help Struggling First and Second Grade Readers

Struggling readers who get stuck at Guided Reading Level F/DRA 10 are not decoding left to right through words. They make mistakes like ran/run or staying/starting.  They guess and go looking at only the beginning and ending letters. This works for them at earlier levels but some children don't make the adjustment to look through the words which impacts accuracy and comprehension at higher levels. For example, when the child reads he smelled for he smiled the meaning of the story changes.

Struggling readers will also confuse words that are visually similar like was for saw or went for want.  Good readers will notice if they incorrectly read went for wanted and correct their mistake. However, struggling readers don't notice or ignore the visual discrepancy and just keep going.  Look for these types of errors beginning at Guided Reading Levels F/DRA 10 or G/12. Teachers need to analyze the student's running records for these types of errors and prompt students to notice and guide them into decoding left to right through words.

Jan Richardson's book, The Next Step in Guided Reading, provides prompts for teachers to use during small group instruction to help students improve.

More resources, Reading Intervention Binder for First Grade and Reading Intervention Binder for Second Grade, can be found at teacherspayteachers.com.  My colleague, Ashley Benoit, and I have created these resources to provide materials for teachers, tutors, and parents to use for remediation. Go to Ashley Benoit's store at teacherspayteachers.com and you will find the Reading Intervention Binders.

Please remember that careful observations of children's reading behaviors and analysis of their mistakes are key to unlocking their potential as readers.

Thanks again for visiting my blog!
Karen

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