Originally published on the Macaroni Kid website

For most dyslexic children, reading is an arduous task. They often struggle to sound out words and read with fluency and, as a result, find little pleasure in reading. While most children with dyslexia benefit from multi-sensory instruction from a trained professional, you can help your child develop her reading skills – and joy for reading – with the strategies detailed below.

Word Attack
Children with dyslexia typically have trouble with sounding out words – especially ones they haven’t seen before. Many students look at the beginning sound and guess at the correct word or simply skip certain words when reading. In doing so, their reading becomes inaccurate and may lead to a loss of meaning. To develop these decoding skills, your child will likely need comprehensive multi-sensory reading instruction,  but you can help reinforce these skills by encouraging him to sound out shorter words and syllabicate longer words when reading, rather than guessing. For a young child, have him trace letters in colored sand, salt, or shaving cream for a tactile experience. If your child struggles to spell a word, rather than immediately providing the correct spelling, use a set of magnetic tiles and ask him to spell the word sound-by-sound using the tiles.

Reading Fluency
Reading fluency is a key component to reading for meaning. Help your child improve her reading fluency with this four-step choral reading process:
1. Select a passage to read, slightly below your child’s approximate reading level. Have her read the passage aloud as a cold read.
2. Next, you read the same passage aloud to model appropriate fluency.
3. Your child then reads the same passage with you, keeping up with your pace.
4. Finally, your child reads the same passage out loud as a final read. Draw her attention to the difference between her first and final reads and empower her with the improvement!
Repeatedly practicing this strategy with your child will help build her confidence and fluency when reading.

Reading Comprehension
Becoming an active reader can help students improve their overall comprehension and memory skills. To build this skill, before reading a passage or text book selection, ask your child to review any headers, sub-headers, pictures, picture captions, and vocabulary words. You can also talk to him about prior knowledge he may have about the topic before reading, and have him predict what he thinks the passage will be about before he begins. Also, as he reads, have him highlight the topic (one, two, or three words describing the passage) in blue, main idea (what the author is saying about the topic) in green, and the important details (important information describing the main idea) in yellow. These active reading strategies will help improve his processing and overall reading comprehension skills.

Vocabulary
Many dyslexic children respond well to visual graphics ‎for learning new information. To help your child learn new vocabulary words, try this multi-modal approach:
Have her write each vocab word using a black marker on the front of a flash card. Then have her turn the card around and divide the back side into three horizontal sections. ‎At the top, she should write the definition of the word in her own words (not verbatim from a dictionary). She should then draw a horizontal line beneath it, and write a detailed sentence integrating the word. Finally, at the bottom she should draw a picture illustrating her sentence to help her remember the definition.
As students progress through school, the reading and language demands increase rapidly. Try these tips and strategies to help your dyslexic child feel more confident and successful in school‎.

The post How to Improve Your Dyslexic Child’s Reading Skills appeared first on EBL Coaching.

For some students, learning to read comes naturally. Through exposure to language and books, they figure out how to combine sounds to form words and recognize key sight words. Other students need a systematic approach for learning sound-letter relationships and blending.  Whether your child ultimately learns to read naturally or with a structured approach, performing exercises with him to develop strong reading readiness skills can set the stage for reading success. Try the activities below, and remember to keep them playful, fun, and engaging.

Story Telling

Reading books and stories aloud to your child can help foster a joy for reading while building  comprehension, vocabulary, listening, and fluency skills. As you read to your child, be sure to ask questions before, during, and after you read. Look at the cover together and ask him to make predictions about what he thinks the book will be about. While reading, ask questions about the plot, characters, and events that might happen next. You can also help your child connect the story to items or events in his life. For example, if there is a puppy in the book, ask if he thinks the puppy in the story looks or acts like his own. If a character in the story feels scared, ask if he’s ever felt that way and, if so, have him elaborate on those feelings. Encouraging him to articulate these connections between the plot and his own life will build comprehension, memory, and oral language skills.

Phonemic Awareness: Rhyming, Sounds, Words, and Syllables

Phonemic Awareness is the ability to hear, recognize, and manipulate sounds in words, and is a strong predictor of future reading success. Activities that involve rhyming, recognizing initial and final sounds, identifying words and syllables, and manipulating sounds all help build strong phonemic awareness skills. Try some of the exercises below to help strengthen these key reading readiness skills.

Rhyming

Help your child build stronger rhyming skills with a “Do These Words Rhyme?” game. To play, ask your child whether certain words rhyme, and track points for correct answers. For example, ask, “Does ‘man’ rhyme with ‘can’?” “Does ‘horse’ rhyme with ‘nose’?” “Does ‘feet’ rhyme with ‘foot’?” and so on.  If he answers correctly, he receives a point. He can then ask you (or another player) similar rhyming questions. The first player to earn 10 points wins.

You can also create a game of Memory using words that rhyme. To do so, draw pictures of various objects on flashcards– a dog, sun, bone, log, phone, etc. (one per card). Place the cards upside down on a table. The first player flips over two cards. If the words rhyme, the player made a match. If not, that player turns the cards back down. ‎Then the next player flips over two cards, and so on. The player who makes the most rhyming matches wins.

Initial and Final Sounds

Learning to recognize sounds in words is a key component of reading readiness. Engage your child in an initial and final sounds game to reinforce this skill. To play, ask your child to tell you the first sound he hears in a given word. For example, ask him to tell you the first sound he hears in pizza (/p/), rug (/r/), or chair (/ch/). If he answers correctly, he receives a point. Next, have him dictate his own words to you (or another player) and you tell him the initial sound. The first player to receive 10 points wins. You can play a similar game with final sounds. For example, ask him to tell you the final sound he hears in the word clap (/p/), door (/r/), push (/sh/), and so on.

Words and Syllables

Play a clapping game with your child to teach him to identify words in sentences and syllables in words– another important reading readiness skill. To do so, read various sentences to your child and ask him to repeat the sentence back to you while clapping one time for each word. For example, for the sentence “Clean your room” he would clap three times, once for each word. For “Eat your green apple” he would clap four times, for “Don’t forget to bring home your book” he would clap seven times, and so on. Similarly, to practice syllable identification, you can read various words to your child and have him clap one time for each syllable in the word. For example, he would clap two times for donut, four times for alligator, and three times for calendar. You can also play these games using counting chips as manipulatives instead of clapping. For each word in a sentence or for each syllable in a word, your child would place down one counting chip.

Songs

Singing songs to your child can help build vocabulary, listening, comprehension, rhyming, and sound discrimination skills, amongst other reading readiness skills. Sing songs to your child that include patterns and rhymes, such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and Yankee Doodle. Rather than just singing the melody, ask your child questions about the words and stimulate discussions about the lyrics. For example, you can ask your child what a “water spout” is in Itsy Bitsy Spider or what a “dell” is in Farmer in the Dell, and explain the definitions if he doesn’t know them. Integrating discussions and activities into singing songs can help further develop language and pre-reading skills.

Be sure to keep these exercises fun, playful, and engaging. In doing so, your child will enjoy the process and develop a true zest for learning. Practicing these games and activities will ultimately make him a strong, confident, and successful reader.

The post How to Boost Your Child’s Reading Readiness Skills appeared first on EBL Coaching.

For some children, learning to read is an easy process. They figure out how to sound out words and read with expression simply with exposure and practice. Yet for others, decoding words can be a seemingly insurmountable hurdle, and reading with fluency is even more difficult. These children might read word-by-word in a very choppy, slow, and monotonous manner. Their self-esteem and joy of reading may begin to tumble. Try using the 5 tips below to help your child become a more fluent and confident reader:

1. Model fluent reading. It’s important for your child to hear the rhythm of proper fluency. Read out loud to your child regularly and be sure to include expression and animation. You can even try books on tape for additional fluency modeling, or create a family event by having an older child read out loud to a younger child. Make it a fun activity, with different voices, narration, and cheerful expression.

2. Choral reading. Further enhance reading aloud with multi-step choral reading. To perform this process, select a passage or page from a book. Have your child read the selection out loud as a cold read. Then you read the same passage aloud to your child to model fluent reading. Next, have your child read the passage together with you, maintaining the same pace. Finally, have her read it again aloud on her own for a final read. Give her positive reinforcement and encouragement by recognizing the difference in her fluency between the first read and the final read.

3. Sight words. While certain words are decodable (meaning they can be sounded out), others, called sight words, cannot be sounded out and must be memorized. Some example of sight words include: these, where, and how. It is important for students to have a fund of sight words memorized in order to make reading a more fluent process. Try printing a list of grade-appropriate sight words (also called dulch words). Make flash cards with the words and hang them on a wall, have your child draw the letters from each word in sand, or play games, like Sight Word Bingo or Sight Word Tic-Tac-Toe for extra reinforcement.

4. Word-per-minute timings. Create a list of words on a page (sight words work well!) and time your child for one minute to see how many words he can read. Create a word-per-minute timing log and maintain a record of the number of words your child was able to read from that list in one minute. Try 2-3 timings of a given list, and give your child a sticker or small reward for beating his time. You can also try word-per-minute timings with phrases and stories.

5. Repeated reading. Encourage your child to find a grade-appropriate book that she enjoys reading. Have her to read that same book over and over again, since repeated reading improves fluency. She will also become a more confident reader and will learn to add expression and proper intonation when reading.
Reading fluently is a challenge for many children. Yet with practice and repetition – and use of the strategies above – your child will learn to read with more expression, joy and, ultimately, better fluency.

The post 5 Tips for Building Reading Fluency appeared first on EBL Coaching.