Middle School Home Literacy Recommendations:
Your student will benefit from support at home as well as in school as he or she continues to grow as a reader. Adults at home can support a student by maintaining an interest in his or her literary life and providing encouragement, motivation, and modeling. Specific suggestions include:
Thank you for your support – and happy reading!
Middle School Home Literacy Recommendations:
Your student will benefit from support at home as well as in school as he or she continues to grow as a reader. Adults at home can support a student by maintaining an interest in his or her literary life and providing encouragement, motivation, and modeling. Specific suggestions include:
- Reading a minimum of 30 minutes at home each night. If reading with your student, he or she can be reading a book that is a book more challenging (a book in which the student makes no more than 4-5 errors per page as a guide). If your student is reading independently, he or she should be reading a book that is more suited to his or her independent level (a book in which the student makes no more than 2-3 errors per page as a guide).
- If reading together, periodically stop and discuss the story or text by asking questions, making connections, or wondering what will happen next. Take turns reading aloud.
- If your student is reading independently, maintain interest in his or her literary life by asking what happened in the reading he or she completed, what parts of the reading he or she liked best, and which parts may be confusing. Praise your student for the time and effort he or she spends with reading. Celebrate achievements or encourage engagement through trips to local bookstores and libraries.
- If the student comes across an unknown word, ask what strategies could be used to help figure the word out. Some examples of prompting when stuck or reading incorrectly include:
- Does it make sense? / Does it sound right? / Does it look right?
- Have you seen another or her word that looks similar to this word?
- How can you use that information to help you?
- If the student is not maintaining comprehension, ask what strategies could be used to help understand the reading. Some examples of prompting when stuck include:
- What questions come to mind as you are reading?
- Do you need to go back and re-read to clarify?
- What are the important clues? How do the clues fit together?
Thank you for your support – and happy reading!