T HE F IVE P ILLARS OF R EADING Reading Strategies & Activities

L EARNING TO R EAD What are you earliest memories about learning to read? Why is reading important? Talk with your table mates.

Phonemic AwarenessPhonemic Awareness PhonicsPhonics VocabularyVocabulary FluencyFluency ComprehensionComprehension

P HONEMIC AWARENESS The ability to notice, think about, or work with individual sounds in the spoken word. This is an especially important pre-reading skill for pre-school, kinder and 1 st grade. Parent Tips: Read to/with your child, play games with sounds and rhyming words, sing songs and nursery rhymes, talk to your child from birth, use modeling, repetition, make language fun Participate in phonemic awareness activity.

P HONICS is the understanding that there is a relationship between the sounds of spoken language, and the letters that represent those sounds in written language. Parent Tips: Read to/with your child, work with letters and sounds, have reading materials that contain letters and sounds that your child is learning, play spelling games Participate in whole group activity.

V OCABULARY is the knowledge of words and meanings. These are words students must know to communicate effectively. Parent Tips: Read to/with your child. Talk with your child at dinnertime, while cooking, at the grocery store, about school, etc. Share interesting words. Participate in whole group activity.

F LUENCY is the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression. Parent Tips: Read to/with your child. Help your child pick books that are interesting and at their level. Read parts of text together orally. Read the same material many times. Read plays and reader’s theater scripts. Listen to your child read aloud and encourage them. Participate in whole group activity.

C OMPREHENSION is the understanding and interpretation of what is read. Parent Tips: Read to/with your child. Talk with your child about the text before, during and after the reading. Ask them to think about what they already know about the topic, to ask questions and to make predictions. Ask them to summarize what they’ve read and to share their thoughts. Participate in whole group activity.

C REATED AND P RESENTED BY : Pilar Rosa Escarcega Josie Marin-Varelas Linda Perry Teri Yrigoyen

I NTERNET R ESOURCE Powerful Research Statistics If a child reads just a few minutes a day, test scores improve significantly. See the chart below with the percentage of test score improvements: 5 min. = 20% 10 min. = 50% 15 min. = 70% 20 min. = 90% minutes is the magic number!

H ANDOUTS Reading tips pages How to create a home library How to pick an appropriate book Searching for free books Reading surveys for parents and kids Hands-on activities on the five pillars of reading Internet resources page