Reading Strategies

During our reading block, your child has been learning new strategies to help them become a better reader.  We have focused on asking questions before, during, and after reading.  We have taught your child to ask questions about things they are curious about ("I wonder"), words or sentences they don't understand, what the story is about, and what may happen next. 
In addition to asking questions, we have asked students to make predictions while they read about what the story may be about or what may happen next.  We explained that students should be using their schema (personal knowledge and experiences) as well as clues from the text to make predictions.  They are encouraged to explain their thinking behind their predictions because we all know that good readers think while they read! 
Being good thinkers is important while they read because sometimes answers to questions or the meaning to words may not be written in the book.  In these situations, we now have to teach your child how to INFER!  We have defined inferring as filling in, in your head, what is not written on the page.  This is connected to asking deep-thinking questions because the answers to deep thinking questions will not be in the book and readers are forced to think about the answer.  Just like predicting, they need to use the clues from the text (e.g., pictures and words) and their schema to help them make sense of the text. 
This is a very difficult strategy for young and developing readers and requires lots of practice!  With your help at home to reinforce this strategy, your child will continue to grow into fabulous readers!