Reading Instruction Checklist (continued)

Students need instruction in fluency, especially those who are struggling. In addition to providing instruction, teachers should assess fluency regularly to make sure students are making progress. Monitoring your child's progress in reading fluency will help the teacher determine if instruction is effective, as well as providing information needed to set instructional goals.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is knowing words and knowing what they mean. There are four types of vocabulary: listening vocabulary, speaking vocabulary, reading vocabulary, and writing vocabulary. For every child, each of these vocabularies may include different, but overlapping, sets of words. Beginning readers use their oral vocabularies as they recognize the sounds in words they are reading. It is much easier for them to read words that are already part of their oral vocabularies.

Children learn vocabulary both indirectly and directly. They learn directly when they are plainly taught individual words and word-learning strategies, such as how to use dictionaries, how to use parts of words to figure out meaning, and how to use context to find clues to word meanings. They learn indirectly through conversation, listening to adults read to them, and reading on their own.

Your child's reading program should include direct teaching of vocabulary as well as opportunities for indirect learning. The teacher should promote word consciousness (an awareness of and interest in words) and should encourage students to engage in word play (e.g., puns - such as "When you use glue in class, it paste to be careful."), do research into the history of a word, search for examples of a word in their everyday lives (e.g., by reading signs or cereal boxes), and point out how authors have chosen specific words to convey exactly what they mean.

Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is being able to understand, remember, and communicate what has been read.

Reading to learn subject matter does not occur automatically once students have learned to read; strategies for taking the meaning from text need to be taught. At all grade levels, students can benefit from instruction in how to make sense out of text and how to construct meaning.

Comprehension strategies should be part of your child's reading program. Comprehension strategies are conscious plans-sets of steps that are used to make sense of the text. Students who use comprehension strategies know when they understand what they read and when they do not. They monitor their own comprehension.

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