#patience is so important when teaching reading.
We've *almost* finished all of the KG consonants and short vowel sounds. Students have many #sightwords in their reading repertoire. BUT this week something exciting happened with all 3 students... they glanced. Not just any glance, but a glance to the picture in the book when they came to a tricky word.
It was so slight and so sudden, but I knew they were now ready to learn a strategy for how to handle tricky words- Eagle Eye - "Look at the picture." And, of course, I stopped everything we were doing to grab the Eagle Eye poster and made a huge deal about it.
You see, free reading, or independent reading, time in my room is not so "free". It's not a time for me to take a "breather". I'm watching carefully to see how they are reading so that I know how to adjust my instruction.
Learning to be a reader with strategies for how to handle text can happen organically, but it needs to be labeled as a strategy for students to develop "thinking about reading" skills.
Using strategies helps reduce frustration and *hopefully* leads to students who try, and try, and try again- not giving up!
I spent the end of my day moving the strategy posters to the reading center. What do you think? How do you teach students how to handle tricky words?
