READING DECODING STRATEGIES - Info and Ideas for Teachers
1. Does it make sense?
Info: For this strategy, the student is using prior knowledge and what is happening in the text to help figure out the unknown word. He or she is using the semantic cueing system.
Discussion: Think about what you've read so far. What do you think the word might be? Does the word make sense in the sentence?
Mini-Lesson Idea: Find a piece of short text and put it on the overhead. Cover up a word and then model / think aloud how you use “Does it make sense” to figure out the hidden word. You could repeat the lesson and let the students begin to figure out the covered up word using this strategy. As you model, include language like that included in the discussion above.
2. Can the pictures help you?
Info: For this strategy, students simply use the picture clues to figure out the unknown word. This also uses the semantic cueing system.
Discussion: Look for clues in the picture that may help you identify an unfamiliar word.
Mini-Lesson Idea: Find a short picture book that has lots of picture clues. Read it aloud to the students. Stop several times as you are reading to model this strategy. For a follow up activity, you could cover up some words in a book and have students figure out the covered words using picture clues.
3. Does it sound right?
Info: This strategy has to do with our understanding of grammar and the structure of our language. For example, look at the sentence, “The ______purred and meowed when I petted him”. We know that a noun is going to follow “the” so we can guess either cat or kitten. This strategy uses the syntactic cue system.
Discussion: When you come to a word you don’t know, think about what would sound right. Try a word. Does it sound right?
Mini-Lesson Idea: Lift some text from a book and project it on the overhead. Cover some words. Read the story aloud to them putting in words for the blanks. Talk about whether the words you choose ‘sound right’. Why? Why not? Model for the students how only certain words would sound right in the spots you have covered up. 4. Do you see a familiar chunk in the word?
Info: The student figures out the unknown word by finding a smaller word within it. For example, a student could “chunk” the word apartment because she/he can find the small word ‘part’ inside the larger word ‘apartment’. This strategy uses the graphophonemic cueing system.
Discussion: Look for "hidden" words first to help you pronounce and identify the larger, unfamiliar words. For example, what is the little word in sit? (it)
Mini-Lesson Idea: Write a short paragraph on the board. Get stuck on a word that can be chunked. Model using the “chunking” strategy to figure out the unknown word(s). A follow up activity might be a stack of index cards with words. Talk about which words can and cannot be chunked.
5. Does it look right?
Info: For this strategy, students use the letter to figure out if the word they are saying “looks right” based on the letters they see.
Discussion: Look and listen for similarities among words. Do they rhyme? Do they have the same letter patterns?
Mini-Lesson Idea: Draw a picture with a pond, a tree, some flowers, a few birds, etc. Write, “I saw a pond” on an overhead but cover up the word ‘pond’. Ask students for a list of words that could fit in the covered up spot. Write down all reasonable responses. Next, uncover the first letter of the word and show the ‘p’. Use this information to eliminate all words that don’t begin with ‘p’. Then uncover additional letters if necessary to confirm that ‘pond’ is the right word. Talk about how even though several words sound right in that spot and several would make sense, only ‘pond’ also looks right.
6. Try to read it again.
Info: In this strategy students are using prior knowledge and context clues to help them figure out the unknown word.
Discussion: If you run across a word you don't know, go back and read the sentence again. You may notice clues you missed the first time.
Mini-Lesson Idea: Sometimes it can be effective to use an adult text to model strategies. Find something short you have read lately. It can be from a book, an email, a magazine article, or any appropriate text. Use it to model how you sometimes have to read again to figure out a word. 7. Look at the beginning and ending sound.
Info: When students use this strategy, they use the beginning and ending sound as a way to help them figure out the unknown word.
Discussion: When you see a word you don’t know, the beginning and ending sound can help you.
Mini-Lesson Idea: Put some sentences on the overhead and cover up one word in each sentence. Be sure that the covered words are examples where two words with similar meanings would fit in the sentence. For example, “dog” and “puppy” could usually fit in the same spot in the sentence and make sense. Uncover the beginning sound of the word and talk about how that helps you get an idea of what the word is. Uncover the ending sound and talk about how that helps you confirm what the word is.
8. Take a guess. Were you right?
Info: This strategy is exactly what it says: guessing. It is often used in conjunction with other strategies
Discussion 1: Guessing is a good strategy for names of people and places. Sometimes names can be difficult to pronounce. If we get stuck on trying to pronounce a really difficult name, it can make us forget about what we are reading. Sometimes when I have a difficult name in a text, I just guess. As long as my guessed name makes sense, then I can continue reading.
Mini-Lesson Idea 1: Lift an adult text with difficult names and model how you use guessing to continue moving through the text so that comprehension is not impaired by struggling with the name. As you model, help students see that the name they guess must make sense so they can keep the characters straight. For example, you wouldn’t want to guess a masculine name for a feminine character; doing so could create comprehension problems.
Discussion 2: Sometimes we guess when it isn’t a name and that is ok too. We just need to confirm our guess is accurate using some other strategy.
Mini-Lesson Idea 2: Put a paragraph on the overhead and cover some words. Guess and then use another strategy to confirm / disconfirm the guess. For example, if you cover up “puppy” in the sentence, “The puppy barked at me.” You could confirm that the word is “puppy” and not “dog” by using beginning and ending sounds.
9. Try to read on. Read ______read.
Info: With this strategy you continuing reading and use clues that appear after the unknown word to help you figure it out. This strategy is often used in conjunction with other strategies.
Discussion: Sometimes when we come across a word that is difficult we can keep reading to find clues that help us figure out the unknown word.
Mini-Lesson Idea: Play “Sentence Clue”. Come up with sentences where clues in the latter part of the sentence help figure out unknown (or covered) words earlier in the sentence. A sample sentence might be: The ______licked its enormous paw and then stroked its mane. (lion) In this sample, “its enormous paw” lets us know the missing word is some sort of animal. As we continue reading, the clue that the animal has a mane helps us figure out the unknown word.