8 Ways To Help Young Students Improve Their Reading Skills

 

The key to much communication and education is reading. In order for a person to communicate effectively and acquire new knowledge successfully, they must have proficiency in both written and spoken language. As we age these tasks become automatic, but there are many steps for children to take to gain the fluency they need to continue their learning journey. It is important for educators to be aware of student successes and areas of weakness, and work with every child to help them advance.

Popular Strategies to Teach Sight Words to Young Learners

 

There are a number of lists of sight words (most commonly used is Dolch) that comprise up to 50% of the words we read. These words differ from others because they don’t follow standard phonemic rules, making them difficult to decode using methods commonly taught in primary school. In addition, many of these words are not nouns or verbs that can be easily illustrated or even explained. This can make it more difficult for young children to remember these words.

How Does Reading Impact Child Brain Development?

 

Everyone knows the importance of learning reading skills early in life. Most children begin formal literacy lessons in kindergarten, but many skills are picked up even earlier. Reading time and bedtime stories, pointing out examples of text in the environment, and educational TV and computer programs help to develop the pre-reading skills needed for young children to progress to reading. What many people are unaware of is that these skills will help to form cognitive pathways that will continue to develop as a child gains aptitude. 

How Teaching Phonemic Awareness Sets Young Learners Up for Success

 

By the time they reach school age, most children have a good grasp of spoken language. They can give details about familiar objects and are capable of having conversations by automatically combining words to form meaningful sentences. These kids understand that specific sounds represent real objects. The next stage for children is to translate their knowledge of the spoken word to the written form.

Using Educational Software to Accelerate Student Learning

 

Traditionally, accelerated learning has been used to fill gaps with students who are struggling or otherwise falling behind. It would typically be implemented with children who had specific reading exceptionalities, those who started school late,or children who fell behind due to extended absence.Now with a new post-pandemic educational model, we are looking at a much broader range of learning experience.

How to Improve Reading Fluency in Kindergarten

 

Reading fluency is one of the later skills that children acquire in their journey to learning to read but is just as essential to future literacy studies. Before a child acquires fluency, they must learn the alphabet, sight words, decoding tactics, and phonemic awareness. Essential Skills online reading programs for kindergarten offer ample practice with these skills in an engaging and appealing format that will encourage kids to learn .

 

How to Use Reading Intervention to Address Learning Gaps

 

Under “normal” educational conditions, reading intervention programs like the ones developed by Essential Skills to implement reading intervention strategies are mainly focused on students who are struggling in the classroom. Kids that do not keep up with their peers often need to have specific problems identified and ideally remedied. Primary classroom teachers are charged with the care of 20+ young individuals.

 

How To Improve Reading Fluency in Young Learners

 

The ability to read well is arguably the most complex and essential skill a young child will acquire. Future learning is highly dependent upon a child’s ability to read competently and for content. Elements of reading fluency include strong decoding skills, recognition of sight words and the ability to derive meaning from context. A fluent reader will read aloud with appropriate inflection and timing. They will also retain and understand what they have read. Essential Skills provides some of the best reading programs for elementary schools to help early readers build fluency and strengthen reading skills.