THE FIVE PILLARS OF READING
Reading Strategies & Activities
LEARNING TO READ
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What are you earliest memories about learning to
read?
Why is reading important?
Talk with your table mates.
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PHONEMIC 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 1st 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.
PHONICS
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.
VOCABULARY
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.
FLUENCY
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.
COMPREHENSION
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.
CREATED AND PRESENTED BY:
Pilar
 Rosa Escarcega
 Josie Marin-Varelas
 Linda Perry
 Teri Yrigoyen
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INTERNET RESOURCE
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http://www.readingrockets.org/audience/parents
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% --- 20 minutes is the magic number!
HANDOUTS
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
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