When helping your child read at home, several strategies may be used to aid in decoding unknown words.

1. Tell the child to look at the picture. You may tell the child the word is something that can be seen in the picture, if that is the case.

2. Tell the child to look for chunks in the word, such as it in sit, at in mat, or and and ing in standing.

3. Ask the child to get his/her mouth ready to say the word by shaping the mouth for the beginning letter.

4. Ask the child if the word looks like another word s/he knows. Does bed look like red?, for example.

5. Ask the child to go on and read to the end of the sentence. Often by reading the other words in context, the child can figure out the unknown word.

6. If the child says the wrong word while reading, ask questions like:

Does it make sense?

Does it sound right?

Does it look right?

Have you ever wondered what to do when a teacher tells you your child needs help in reading? Stay tuned for helpful hints and activities that require little or no preparation and are easy to do. Some of the best can be done in the car driving to and from all those activities! But always remember, one of the best things you can do is to simply read to your child. Enjoy an old favorite, a new genre or favorite author, just read! When you do, you model good reading behavior for your child. Even if you make a mistake, you show them that good readers correct their mistakes. Change your voice, read fluently, explain some vocabulary, discuss feelings, predict what might happen next, ask questions about what you've read. All of these help your child become a better reader. So enjoy and read a good book tonight!