Important Steps to Teaching Reading - For Students with Reading Difficulties

Although selecting appropriate materials and reading to the struggling reader is quite helpful, you will need to make use of a variety of strategies to ensure success is maximized. Here's a list of suggestions:

• Use high frequency word cards to assist with the learning of everyday words.
• Use the rhyming words for a variety of games like concentration or predicting all the rhyming words that sound like 'at', 'log' etc.
• Use poetry such as Chicken Soup with Rice and re-read it as often as possible with this student, eventually until he/she can isolate many of the words in it.
• Play 'I Spy' games for sound/symbol practice - I spy something that begins with a 'buh' sound.
• Use compound words to help this child break down the syllables. For instance - say snowman, now say it again and don't say man, say it again and don't say snow. Say icecream, say it again and don't say ice, say it again and don't say cream. As the child progresses with this strategie, you can try individual sounds: say snow, now say it again without the 's'sound.
• Provide opportunity for 'closze activities'. This can be done paper pencil style or orally. Example: It is a hot and _____ day out. I just heard the ________ ring. Ask the child what the missing words could be and what the beginning and ending letters of those words might be.
• Play games for making words with words. What are all the words we can make with can? Cannot, can't, candy etc. Keep these types of activities fun which usually means short and sweet!