Strategy Sam
In our daily literacy activities, we often refer to Strategy Sam in the classroom. When a student gets stuck on a word and is unable to decode it independently, they are encouraged to try some of Strategy Sam's eight reading strategies to help them decifer the tricky word. I encourage you to remind your children of these strategies as they read with you at home. While we never want the child to reach the point of frustration with a text, we do want them to build up their own "toolkit" of strategies to use to help them become more independent readers.
In Language Arts we have been practicing the "I PICK" method of selecting "good fit" books. Making sure that we choose "good fit" books for ourselves helps us to become better readers, and makes reading so much more fun!
We also practiced the "Five Finger Rule" when looking at a book to see if we know most of the words. Ask your child to explain how and why they use this method as they make book selections.