How to Help Your Child Decode Words and Improve Comprehension at the Same Time

There are many different strategies to help children work out unknown words. The most common of these is 'sounding out' the letters.

'Sounding out' only works with short words that contain basic letter-sound representation.

If the unknown word has more than 5 or 6 letters, a child can't store in his head what he worked out at the beginning.

If the letters in the word don't represent basic alphabetic sounds, 'sounding out' is likely to cause confusion and frustration. For example, when you sound out the word 'want' you run into a problem with the 'a'.

'Sounding out' often requires an understanding of phonic patterns at a level that early readers haven't yet reached.

The strategy of 'reading on' is often helpful when the word is long or contains a more advanced letter-sound representation than your child is ready for. 'Reading on' means reading past the word to the end of the sentence and asking yourself what word would make sense in this context. The great benefit of this strategy is that it promotes comprehension of the text.

Many children know about 'reading-on' but rarely do it. Generally this is because they haven't seen it in use regularly. They tend to stick with 'sounding out' because this is what they have seen... even if the result makes no sense.

It's easy to model 'reading on' to your child.

Choose a text at your child's level. Make sure he is watching the text with you as you read to him.

Hesitate over a word you think you're child doesn't know. Say the first sound aloud and then read past the word to the end of the sentence.

Tell your child that you didn't know that particular word so you read to the end of the sentence to see if you could work out what word would make sense there. Say what you think it is and see if your child agrees with you. Say you knew what the first part of the word sounded like but now you've worked out the rest by 'reading on'.

When it's your child's turn to read encourage him to try 'reading on' when he sticks on a word. At the end of the sentence ask 'What parts of the word do you know?' 'What word do you think would make sense there?'

Whenever you're reading to your child, model 'reading on' once.

If the text is too difficult for your child neither of these strategies will work. Check that the level of text is correct here.

Next week: More on effective decoding strategies