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Its that time of the year again! The school is buzzing with energy as twelve grade one students enter
my classroom ready to learn! Grade one is an exciting year as students begin learning how to read.
This letter highlights some of the main benefits of reading and what I will be teaching your child.
1
Dymock, S., & Nicholson, T. (2010, November). High 5! Strategies to Enhance Comprehension of Expository Text. The
Reading Teacher, 64(3), 166-178.
d. Visualizing (creating Mental Images): Visualization is a great technique to help your child
comprehend what they are reading. This can be done by allowing your child to draw a picture of
what they have just read.
e. Summarizing (knowing beginning, middle, and end, for instance): Asking your child what they
have just read, including the beginning, middle, and end, allows your
child to comprehend what he/she has read as well.
2. Predictable, repetitive and pattern books. Allowing your child to read a story
with many repetitive words gives them practice reading and sounding out that
word, thereby building their vocabulary and helping with phonetics/phonics. One
book that is fun and interesting for students that I will be utilizing is called Hop
on Pop by Dr. Seuss.
3. Cloze technique (leave out words for students to fill in). I will give your child
booklets that have a story in it. However, I will leave out a few words for your
child to fill in. This will allow your child to use their imagination and practice their
spelling, but it also helps your child comprehend what they are reading as comprehension is necessary in
order to fill in the blank. This is a fun activity that my students enjoy every year!
4. Using illustrations. This is closely related to the visualizing step of the High 5 strategy. I will ask your child
to draw a picture that relates to a sentence or story they have read. This visualization allows them to
picture what they have read in their head and thereby comprehend it. I will also use picture books in the
classroom so your child can see what they are reading!
While these are the books that I will be using in the classroom, I encourage you to practice reading with your child
at home! Feel free to ask me for book suggestions!
Thank you,
Ms. Bos