Reading and Writing with Children

Before reading with a student or a group of students, talk about why you are reading a particular text. Decide what you want to focus on: reading skills or comprehension.

Ways to read aloud with a student

The tutor reads aloud to the student.
The tutor reads a sentence or phrase. The student repeats the same sentence or phrase.
Both read aloud at the same time - the tutor and the student - when the student does not know a word, the tutor continues to read in order to maintain the flow.
The tutor and student take turns reading either by line, paragraph or page.
The student reads aloud to the tutor.

The method you choose to read together will depend on each student’s reading ability and comfort level at reading aloud. If you are reading with more than one student, taking turns reading is the most popular method for reading aloud. Often younger students are more open to reading as a group than older students. When you read aloud to your students, they hear and learn about fluent reading. But remember that your long‐term goal is to have all your students reading independently.

When your students encounter a word they cannot read, encourage them to practise the skills described in the word‐attack section of this guide (see page 15). For example, if your students have trouble reading the word went, talk about phonics (initial and final consonant sounds and word families [bent, sent, lent]). Or, if the difficult word is hockey, ask your students to look for a smaller, familiar word (key) within the larger word or to break the word into chunks.

Use short prompts to help your students remember specific decoding strategies such as “break it down,” or “begins with.” Over time, you will discover which prompts are useful for your students. Review the words that your students had difficulty reading. Look for patterns.