Reading and Writing with Children

Ask the student to read the piece back to you. If you keep it short enough, the student should be able to read all the words. Give lots of praise!
The student may wish to hand‐write the piece or enter it on the computer. Make sure each draft has the date on it. Keep a copy so the student can read it in the future.

Activities using the Language Experience Approach

Later in the tutoring session (or during the next week), use the piece of writing as the basis for additional exercises. For example,

Write some of the words from the piece on separate cards. Then ask the student to match the words on the cards to the words in the text.
Write each sentence from the piece on a separate card. (If the piece is long, use only one section.) Ask the student to put the cards in order.
Reinforce the spelling of difficult words by asking the student to:
- use these words in a new sentence
- put them into a personal dictionary
- do a cloze exercise with these words (see page 26)

For beginning readers

The Language Experience Approach is useful to help beginning readers develop their wordattack skills. A few weeks after having written a language experience piece, the student may have difficulty reading a number of words in the text. At this point, the text provides a great opportunity for the student to practise sounding out these words, using knowledge of phonics and the structure of words. Since the student understands the meaning of all the concepts and vocabulary in the text, the student can focus all his or her attention on
word‐attack skills!

Reading aloud with beginning readers

Reading aloud with beginning readers has two major purposes. First, reading aloud allows beginning readers to gain fluency by practising reading words that they already know and helps them to strengthen their word‐attack skills i.e., a focus on reading skills. Secondly, reading aloud helps beginning readers improve their language skills
and develop a love of reading and knowledge i.e., a focus on comprehension.

If you are working with more than one student, you may choose to read together as a group, or you may read with one student while the other students work on another activity.