Teach to Read to Succeed

Teaching reading is the most challenging subject to teach at an early age. Children's short attention span makes it even more challenging to teach them reading. How can you succeed as a reading teacher? How can your students actually love reading? The following will help you inspire your students and make them love reading without forcing them.

Be an example

Children are great copycats. If you are authentic and practice what you preach, they will follow wonderfully your example. Students should see you reading books outside the classroom. Work on your reading skills. You need to be an amazing reader if you want students to love reading. Pronunciation, voice, pitch and volume are some aspects of reading that you will need to perfect.

Drawing

It is not a secret that a teacher who can draw can double their chances to inspire their students in any subjects. I have never met a child who did not like to draw. Drawing words from the story with the students will help them increase their vocabulary and recognize the words in their story.

To, with and by

To, with and by is an amazing repeated technique that will increase a student's fluency. (www.succeedtoread.com)

First, read the whole story to students. Have them listen only. Then, read with them the story. It can be a few short sentences at a time. After, let them read the story by themselves. Again, it can be only a few sentences at a time.

Reading backwards

Reading backwards sure sounds silly but it does miracles and children love to read this way. Start reading the story from the last page. It actually helps them to concentrate on the words they are reading and helps them with word recognition. Reading backwards gives children a moment of laughter while they are reading. It is a great connection for their brain!

Reading club

Pair up students to read together. Give them ten minutes to sit down with their partner so they can read together. Most teachers will pair up a weak student with a strong student. This is a logical choice and a good one but also pair up strong students together and weak students together. This will give them an opportunity to progress in their reading skills and see that they are not the only ones who are weak or strong.

Monitor progress

Monitor each student's progress with a progress sheet. Find out how many words a minute for each grade students. For example, according to one published norm, students should be reading approximately 60 words per minute correctly by the end of first grade, 90-100 words per minute correctly by the end of second grade, and approximately 114 words per minute correctly by the end of third grade. (www.nifl.gov)

This gives a 'one on one' reading time with the teacher, which adds to the student's progress and confirms to a student that the teacher cares about his progress. Being directly involved in their progress will give them satisfaction and confidence.

There exists numerous ways to inspire children to read. I have summed up my favorites in this article. I have seen tremendous progress in students and I am confident you will experience the same. Happy reading!