Reading

Reading

The aim of reading in Room 13 is for students to enjoy, appreciate and use English every day. We practise various reading strategies, create word families and learn to understand/comprehend what the text is trying to tell us. Talking about reading is just as important as practising reading!

__**Reading Strategies **__ Sounding out the letters

Looking at the pictures

Finding blends and chunks (such as 'at' and 'og')

Finding words within words (such as 'day' in 'today')

Reading on to find out what might make sense

Asking yourself, "does it make sense?", "does it sound right?"

Checking if it looks like another word you know (day/say/lay)

Go back and read the sentence again

Following the words with your finger

__**Word Families **__ A word family is a group of words that share a similar sound. We learn about word families to help us when reading and when writing.

Here are some of the word families we have learned so far:

**ay/a-e/ey** (long 'a' sound, stay, they, take)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**ee/ea** (long 'e' sound, tree, read)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**igh/i-e** (long 'i' sound, high, mice)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**ow/o-e/oa** (long 'o' sound, low, nose, coat)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**ew/u-e** (long 'u' sound, crew, use)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**all** (tall, fall, call)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**ot** (dot, cot, rot)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**sh** (show, dash, shoe)

<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">**ch** (chip, rich, chew)

__**<span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Comprehension **__ <span style="color: #000080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Being able to read with fluency and expression are important parts of our reading classes. However, it is also very important that students understand what they are reading. Thinking about what the author is trying to tell us, being able to retell what has happened, making appropriate predictions about what will happen and 'reading between the lines' are all vital skills that we practise.