Goals 3 and 4 - The Reading Strategies Book Study

Happy Friday!

Is that day as exciting in the summer? I'm not sure... ;-)

Yesterday, I took a quick trip to the Mercantile with a friend of mine. We attempted to stop at a water fall near Dexter, Kansas (my dad's hometown) on our way. No water! But we did squeeze a stop in to Henry's Candy Co. The Mercantile food once again did not disappoint, and this time I came away with a new favorite coffee drink - The Spicy Cowgirl. Cayenne pepper in my iced mocha coffee...YUMMO!

Okay, on to the book study!

Thanks for joining us again for this week's study. If you are playing catch up, no worries. Here's links to the first two posts:

Getting Started

Goals 1 and 2

This week's we are focusing on Goals 3 and 4, so let's get started.

Serravallo explains, "In order to construct accurate meaning from a text, children need to read words correctly, integrating three sources of information: meaning, syntax, and visual." She goes on to explain the importance of students learning to self-monitor their own reading. In my classroom, early in the school year I teach a variation of this cross-checking and have actions to go along with it (I think it is actually from Daily 5 or CAFE).

Here it is... (dork alert :-))

3.3 Use a Word You Know

I love this strategy and use it all the time. My teaching experience thus far has only been in 1st and 2nd grade, and I feel like we have to do a pretty good job of teaching word parts, phonics patterns, and word families. 

If you've ever visited our TPT store, you will see that Kristi and I have TONS of games for specific sounds. We've been blessed to teach in districts that provide our curriculum, and we like to use the games as a fun way to reinforce the sounds and word parts we are teaching each week. 

3.15 Take the Ending Off

Another one of my go-to strategies. I think sometimes our littles are overwhelmed at the sight of a "huge" word and it just stops them in their tracks. When you encourage them to cover up the ending, they will often recognize the base word or feel more confident attempting to decode the part that is left.

3.21 Look for Vowels that Go Together

At our school, we use a reading program called Pathways to Reading.  It teaches the kids to "Spot the Vowel." I like to start out doing this with a list of words on paper...actually highlighting the vowels or putting dots under them. If they see a vowel team, they connect the dots or highlight them together. Eventually, this transfers into one of my prompts as they are reading. I'll simply say, "Spot your vowel," and they know to read the vowel sound, then the word.

P.S. I was pretty excited to see so many familiar strategies in this goal section (even going by a different name). It was hard to choose my favorites!

Oh, fluency! 

I love how Serravallo reminds us that, "It's important in our attempts to teach children to read fluently, we don't send the message that reading is just about performing."

While I agreed with what she had to say about the dreaded stopwatch, I don't see how we can avoid it when most districts are doing some type of timed testing (we use AimsWeb). I actually like to do cold reads/hot reads because it gets my kids used to being timed and they get excited about their improvement (see more about that here).

However, I was intrigued by her method of recording phrasing and expressive reading. Definitely something I want to know more about!

4.5 Say Good-Bye to Robot Reading

Now this is a strategy that I wish someone would have told me about years ago! 

I actually stumbled into a variation of it on my own. I had a group that was struggling with fluency, and I was trying to make them understand what I meant by phrasing. We were practicing with sentences on a piece of paper and I started drawing "hops" to show them how they sounded compared to "hops" when I read the same sentence.

Love the idea of "scooping" up a few words at a time. I think it will make the idea stick with my kids even better than "hops."

4.14 Get Your Eyes Ahead of the Words

This is another strategy that I know as a reader I do, but it was always difficult to explain. I LOVE the graphic on this page. So simple, yet shows what I've tried teaching my kiddos!

The Reading Strategies Book pg. 121

4.19 Snap to the Next Line

I fell in love with this one right away! 

There is always some precious kiddo in my class who struggles with this concept. I think the idea of "snapping your eyes" to the next line will really help them understand how to keep reading through the line break. 

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Those are a few of my favorite strategies. 

I want to hear from you! Tell me about your favorites either in the comments below or on our Facebook page.

Don't forget to check out the other blog posts below for more thoughts and ideas!

Join in the study! Link up your blog post with your favorite strategies from Goals 3 and 4 in The Reading Strategies Book here.

1. Goals 3 and 4 - The Reading Strategies Book

2. Summer Book Study: Goals 3 and 4

3. Reading Strategies- Goals 3 & 4

4. Teaching With an Ocean View - Week 3

5. Decoding and Fluency Strategies |

6. More Practical Reading Strategies and a Great Give

7. The Reading Strategies Book - Goals 3 & 4